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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. 2 (of 3), 1857-1870
+
+Author: Charles Dickens
+
+Editor: Mamie Dickens
+        Georgina Hogarth
+
+Release Date: June 20, 2008 [EBook #25853]
+
+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:
+
+
+
+
+THE LETTERS
+
+OF
+
+[Illustration: HW: Charles Dickens]
+
+
+
+
+THE LETTERS
+
+OF
+
+CHARLES DICKENS.
+
+EDITED BY
+
+HIS SISTER-IN-LAW AND HIS ELDEST DAUGHTER.
+
+=In Two Volumes.=
+
+VOL. II.
+
+1857 TO 1870.
+
+
+
+        London:
+        CHAPMAN AND HALL, 193, PICCADILLY.
+        1880.
+
+[_The Right of Translation is Reserved._]
+
+
+
+
+CHARLES DICKENS AND EVANS, CRYSTAL PALACE PRESS.
+
+
+
+
+ERRATA.
+
+VOL. II.
+
+
+        Page 84, line 35. For "South Kensington
+             Museum," _read_ "the South Kensington Museum."
+
+        " 108, line 26. For "frequent contributor,"
+             _read_ "a frequent contributor."
+
+        " 113, lines 6, 7. For "great remonstrance,"
+             _read_ "Great Remonstrance."
+
+        " 130, line 10. For "after," _read_ "afore."
+
+        " 160,  "   32. For "a head," _read_ "ahead."
+
+        " 247,  "   12. For "Shea," _read_ "Shoe."
+
+        " 292,  "   12. For "Mabel's progress," _read_
+              "Mabel's Progress."
+
+
+
+
+=Book II.=--_Continued._
+
+
+
+
+THE
+
+LETTERS OF CHARLES DICKENS.
+
+
+
+
+1857.
+
+NARRATIVE.
+
+
+This was a very full year in many ways. In February, Charles Dickens
+obtained possession of Gad's Hill, and was able to turn workmen into it.
+In April he stayed, with his wife and sister-in-law, for a week or two
+at Wate's Hotel, Gravesend, to be at hand to superintend the beginning
+of his alterations of the house, and from thence we give a letter to
+Lord Carlisle. He removed his family, for a summer residence in the
+house, in June; and he finished "Little Dorrit" there early in the
+summer. One of his first visitors at Gad's Hill was the famous writer,
+Hans Christian Andersen. In January "The Frozen Deep" had been played at
+the Tavistock House theatre with such great success, that it was
+necessary to repeat it several times, and the theatre was finally
+demolished at the end of that month. In June Charles Dickens heard, with
+great grief, of the death of his dear friend Douglas Jerrold; and as a
+testimony of admiration for his genius and affectionate regard for
+himself, it was decided to organise, under the management of Charles
+Dickens, a series of entertainments, "in memory of the late Douglas
+Jerrold," the fund produced by them (a considerable sum) to be
+presented to Mr. Jerrold's family. The amateur company, including many
+of Mr. Jerrold's colleagues on "Punch," gave subscription performances
+of "The Frozen Deep;" the Gallery of Illustration, in Regent Street,
+being engaged for the purpose. Charles Dickens gave two readings at St.
+Martin's Hall of "The Christmas Carol" (to such immense audiences and
+with such success, that the idea of giving public readings for his _own_
+benefit first occurred to him at this time). The professional actors,
+among them the famous veteran actor, Mr. T. P. Cooke, gave a performance
+of Mr. Jerrold's plays of "The Rent Day" and "Black-eyed Susan," in
+which Mr. T. P. Cooke sustained the character in which he had originally
+made such great success when the play was written. A lecture was given
+by Mr. Thackeray, and another by Mr. W. H. Russell. Finally, the Queen
+having expressed a desire to see the play, which had been much talked of
+during that season, there was another performance before her Majesty and
+the Prince Consort at the Gallery of Illustration in July, and at the
+end of that month Charles Dickens read his "Carol" in the Free Trade
+Hall, at Manchester. And to wind up the "Memorial Fund" entertainments,
+"The Frozen Deep" was played again at Manchester, also in the great Free
+Trade Hall, at the end of August. For the business of these
+entertainments he secured the assistance of Mr. Arthur Smith, of whom he
+writes to Mr. Forster, at this time: "I have got hold of Arthur Smith,
+as the best man of business I know, and go to work with him to-morrow
+morning." And when he began his own public readings, both in town and
+country, he felt himself most fortunate in having the co-operation of
+this invaluable man of business, and also of his zealous friendship and
+pleasant companionship.
+
+In July, his second son, Walter Landor, went to India as a cadet in the
+"Company's service," from which he was afterwards transferred to the
+42nd Royal Highlanders. His father and his elder brother went to see him
+off, to Southampton. From this place Charles Dickens writes to Mr.
+Edmund Yates, a young man in whom he had been interested from his
+boyhood, both for the sake of his parents and for his own sake, and for
+whom he had always an affectionate regard.
+
+In September he made a short tour in the North of England, with Mr.
+Wilkie Collins, out of which arose the "Lazy Tour of Two Idle
+Apprentices," written by them jointly, and published in "Household
+Words." Some letters to his sister-in-law during this expedition are
+given here, parts of which (as is the case with many letters to his
+eldest daughter and his sister-in-law) have been published in Mr.
+Forster's book.
+
+The letters which follow are almost all on the various subjects
+mentioned in our notes, and need little explanation.
+
+His letter to Mr. Procter makes allusion to a legacy lately left to that
+friend.
+
+The letters to Mr. Dilke, the original and much-respected editor of "The
+Athenæum," and to Mr. Forster, on the subject of the "Literary Fund,"
+refer, as the letters indicate, to a battle which they were carrying on
+together with that institution.
+
+A letter to Mr. Frank Stone is an instance of his kind, patient, and
+judicious criticism of a young writer, and the letter which follows it
+shows how thoroughly it was understood and how perfectly appreciated by
+the authoress of the "Notes" referred to. Another instance of the same
+kind criticism is given in a second letter this year to Mr. Edmund
+Yates.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. B. W. Procter.]
+
+                                 TAVISTOCK HOUSE, _January 2nd, 1857._
+
+MY DEAR PROCTER,
+
+I have to thank you for a delightful book, which has given me unusual
+pleasure. My delight in it has been a little dashed by certain farewell
+verses, but I have made up my mind (and you have no idea of the
+obstinacy of my character) not to believe them.
+
+Perhaps it is not taking a liberty--perhaps it is--to congratulate you
+on Kenyon's remembrance. Either way I can't help doing it with all my
+heart, for I know no man in the world (myself excepted) to whom I would
+rather the money went.
+
+                                            Affectionately yours ever.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Sir James Emerson Tennent.]
+
+                                 TAVISTOCK HOUSE, _January 9th, 1857._
+
+MY DEAR TENNENT,
+
+
+I must thank you for your earnest and affectionate letter. It has given
+me the greatest pleasure, mixing the play in my mind confusedly and
+delightfully with Pisa, the Valetta, Naples, Herculanæum--God knows what
+not.
+
+As to the play itself; when it is made as good as my care can make it, I
+derive a strange feeling out of it, like writing a book in company; a
+satisfaction of a most singular kind, which has no exact parallel in my
+life; a something that I suppose to belong to the life of a labourer in
+art alone, and which has to me a conviction of its being actual truth
+without its pain, that I never could adequately state if I were to try
+never so hard.
+
+You touch so kindly and feelingly on the pleasure such little pains
+give, that I feel quite sorry you have never seen this drama in progress
+during the last ten weeks here. Every Monday and Friday evening during
+that time we have been at work upon it. I assure you it has been a
+remarkable lesson to my young people in patience, perseverance,
+punctuality, and order; and, best of all, in that kind of humility which
+is got from the earned knowledge that whatever the right hand finds to
+do must be done with the heart in it, and in a desperate earnest.
+
+When I changed my dress last night (though I did it very quickly), I was
+vexed to find you gone. I wanted to have secured you for our green-room
+supper, which was very pleasant. If by any accident you should be free
+next Wednesday night (our last), pray come to that green-room supper. It
+would give me cordial pleasure to have you there.
+
+                           Ever, my dear Tennent, very heartily yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: M. de Cerjat.]
+
+                     TAVISTOCK HOUSE, _Monday Night, Jan, 17th, 1857._
+
+MY DEAR CERJAT,
+
+So wonderfully do good (epistolary) intentions become confounded with
+bad execution, that I assure you I laboured under a perfect and most
+comfortable conviction that I had answered your Christmas Eve letter of
+1855. More than that, in spite of your assertions to the contrary, I
+still strenuously believe that I did so! I have more than half a mind
+("Little Dorrit" and my other occupations notwithstanding) to charge you
+with having forgotten my reply!! I have even a wild idea that Townshend
+reproached me, when the last old year was new, with writing to you
+instead of to him!!! We will argue it out, as well as we can argue
+anything without poor dear Haldimand, when I come back to Elysée. In any
+case, however, don't discontinue your annual letter, because it has
+become an expected and a delightful part of the season to me.
+
+With one of the prettiest houses in London, and every conceivable (and
+inconceivable) luxury in it, Townshend is voluntarily undergoing his own
+sentence of transportation in Nervi, a beastly little place near Genoa,
+where you would as soon find a herd of wild elephants in any villa as
+comfort. He has a notion that he _must_ be out of England in the winter,
+but I believe him to be altogether wrong (as I have just told him in a
+letter), unless he could just take his society with him.
+
+Workmen are now battering and smashing down my theatre here, where we
+have just been acting a new play of great merit, done in what I may call
+(modestly speaking of the getting-up, and not of the acting) an
+unprecedented way. I believe that anything so complete has never been
+seen. We had an act at the North Pole, where the slightest and greatest
+thing the eye beheld were equally taken from the books of the Polar
+voyagers. Out of thirty people, there were certainly not two who might
+not have gone straight to the North Pole itself, completely furnished
+for the winter! It has been the talk of all London for these three
+weeks. And now it is a mere chaos of scaffolding, ladders, beams,
+canvases, paint-pots, sawdust, artificial snow, gas-pipes, and
+ghastliness. I have taken such pains with it for these ten weeks in all
+my leisure hours, that I feel now shipwrecked--as if I had never been
+without a play on my hands before. A third topic comes up as this
+ceases.
+
+Down at Gad's Hill, near Rochester, in Kent--Shakespeare's Gad's Hill,
+where Falstaff engaged in the robbery--is a quaint little country-house
+of Queen Anne's time. I happened to be walking past, a year and a half
+or so ago, with my sub-editor of "Household Words," when I said to him:
+"You see that house? It has always a curious interest for me, because
+when I was a small boy down in these parts I thought it the most
+beautiful house (I suppose because of its famous old cedar-trees) ever
+seen. And my poor father used to bring me to look at it, and used to say
+that if I ever grew up to be a clever man perhaps I might own that
+house, or such another house. In remembrance of which, I have always in
+passing looked to see if it was to be sold or let, and it has never been
+to me like any other house, and it has never changed at all." We came
+back to town, and my friend went out to dinner. Next morning he came to
+me in great excitement, and said: "It is written that you were to have
+that house at Gad's Hill. The lady I had allotted to me to take down to
+dinner yesterday began to speak of that neighbourhood. 'You know it?' I
+said; 'I have been there to-day.' 'O yes,' said she, 'I know it very
+well. I was a child there, in the house they call Gad's Hill Place. My
+father was the rector, and lived there many years. He has just died, has
+left it to me, and I want to sell it.' 'So,' says the sub-editor, 'you
+must buy it. Now or never!'" I did, and hope to pass next summer there,
+though I may, perhaps, let it afterwards, furnished, from time to time.
+
+All about myself I find, and the little sheet nearly full! But I know,
+my dear Cerjat, the subject will have its interest for you, so I give it
+its swing. Mrs. Watson was to have been at the play, but most
+unfortunately had three children sick of gastric fever, and could not
+leave them. She was here some three weeks before, looking extremely well
+in the face, but rather thin. I have not heard of your friend Mr.
+Percival Skelton, but I much misdoubt an amateur artist's success in
+this vast place. I hope you detected a remembrance of our happy visit to
+the Great St. Bernard in a certain number of "Little Dorrit"? Tell Mrs.
+Cerjat, with my love, that the opinions I have expressed to her on the
+subject of cows have become matured in my mind by experience and
+venerable age; and that I denounce the race as humbugs, who have been
+getting into poetry and all sorts of places without the smallest reason.
+Haldimand's housekeeper is an awful woman to consider. Pray give him our
+kindest regards and remembrances, if you ever find him in a mood to take
+it. "Our" means Mrs. Dickens's, Georgie's, and mine. We often, often
+talk of our old days at Lausanne, and send loving regard to Mrs. Cerjat
+and all your house.
+
+                          Adieu, my dear fellow; ever cordially yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. W. C. Macready.]
+
+                                TAVISTOCK HOUSE, _January 28th, 1857._
+
+MY DEAREST MACREADY,
+
+Your friend and servant is as calm as Pecksniff, saving for his knitted
+brows now turning into cordage over Little Dorrit. The theatre has
+disappeared, the house is restored to its usual conditions of order, the
+family are tranquil and domestic, dove-eyed peace is enthroned in this
+study, fire-eyed radicalism in its master's breast.
+
+I am glad to hear that our poetess is at work again, and shall be very
+much pleased to have some more contributions from her.
+
+Love from all to your dear sister, and to Katie, and to all the house.
+
+We dined yesterday at Frederick Pollock's. I begged an amazing
+photograph of you, and brought it away. It strikes me as one of the most
+ludicrous things I ever saw in my life. I think of taking a
+public-house, and having it copied larger, for the size. You may
+remember it? Very square and big--the Saracen's Head with its hair cut,
+and in modern gear? Staring very hard? As your particular friend, I
+would not part with it on any consideration. I will never get such a
+wooden head again.
+
+                                                  Ever affectionately.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Mary Boyle.]
+
+                                TAVISTOCK HOUSE, _February 7th, 1857._
+
+MY DEAR MARY,
+
+
+Half-a-dozen words on this, my birthday, to thank you for your kind and
+welcome remembrance, and to assure you that your Joseph is proud of it.
+
+For about ten minutes after his death, on each occasion of that event
+occurring, Richard Wardour was in a floored condition. And one night, to
+the great terror of Devonshire, the Arctic Regions, and Newfoundland
+(all of which localities were afraid to speak to him, as his ghost sat
+by the kitchen fire in its rags), he very nearly did what he never did,
+went and fainted off, dead, again. But he always plucked up, on the turn
+of ten minutes, and became facetious.
+
+Likewise he chipped great pieces out of all his limbs (solely, as I
+imagine, from moral earnestness and concussion of passion, for I never
+know him to hit himself in any way) and terrified Aldersley[1] to that
+degree, by lunging at him to carry him into the cave, that the said
+Aldersley always shook like a mould of jelly, and muttered, "By G----,
+this is an awful thing!"
+
+                                                  Ever affectionately.
+
+P.S.--I shall never cease to regret Mrs. Watson's not having been there.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Rev. James White.]
+
+                            TAVISTOCK HOUSE, _Sunday, Feb. 8th, 1857._
+
+MY DEAR WHITE,
+
+I send these lines by Mary and Katey, to report my love to all.
+
+Your note about the _Golden Mary_ gave me great pleasure; though I don't
+believe in one part of it; for I honestly believe that your story, as
+really belonging to the rest of the narrative, had been generally
+separated from the other stories, and greatly liked. I had not that
+particular shipwreck that you mention in my mind (indeed I doubt if I
+know it), and John Steadiman merely came into my head as a staunch sort
+of name that suited the character. The number has done "Household Words"
+great service, and has decidedly told upon its circulation.
+
+You should have come to the play. I much doubt if anything so complete
+will ever be seen again. An incredible amount of pains and ingenuity was
+expended on it, and the result was most remarkable even to me.
+
+When are you going to send something more to H. W.? Are you lazy??
+Low-spirited??? Pining for Paris????
+
+                                                  Ever affectionately.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. C. W. Dilke.]
+
+            OFFICE OF "HOUSEHOLD WORDS," _Thursday, March 19th, 1857._
+
+MY DEAR MR. DILKE,
+
+Forster has another notion about the Literary Fund. Will you name a day
+next week--that day being neither Thursday nor Saturday--when we shall
+hold solemn council there at half-past four?
+
+For myself, I beg to report that I have my war-paint on, that I have
+buried the pipe of peace, and am whooping for committee scalps.
+
+                                                Ever faithfully yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: The Earl of Carlisle.]
+
+                       GRAVESEND, KENT, _Wednesday, April 15th, 1857._
+
+MY DEAR LORD CARLISLE,
+
+I am writing by the river-side for a few days, and at the end of last
+week ---- appeared here with your note of introduction. I was not in the
+way; but as ---- had come express from London with it, Mrs. Dickens
+opened it, and gave her (in the limited sense which was of no use to
+her) an audience. She did not quite seem to know what she wanted of me.
+But she said she had understood at Stafford House that I had a theatre
+in which she could read; with a good deal of modesty and diffidence she
+at last got so far. Now, my little theatre turns my house out of window,
+costs fifty pounds to put up, and is only two months taken down;
+therefore, is quite out of the question. This Mrs. Dickens explained,
+and also my profound inability to do anything for ---- readings which
+they could not do for themselves. She appeared fully to understand the
+explanation, and indeed to have anticipated for herself how powerless I
+must be in such a case.
+
+She described herself as being consumptive, and as being subject to an
+effusion of blood from the lungs; about the last condition, one would
+think, poor woman, for the exercise of public elocution as an art.
+
+Between ourselves, I think the whole idea a mistake, and have thought so
+from its first announcement. It has a fatal appearance of trading upon
+Uncle Tom, and am I not a man and a brother? which you may be by all
+means, and still not have the smallest claim to my attention as a public
+reader. The town is over-read from all the white squares on the
+draught-board; it has been considerably harried from all the black
+squares--now with the aid of old banjoes, and now with the aid of Exeter
+Hall; and I have a very strong impression that it is by no means to be
+laid hold of from this point of address. I myself, for example, am the
+meekest of men, and in abhorrence of slavery yield to no human creature,
+and yet I don't admit the sequence that I want Uncle Tom (or Aunt
+Tomasina) to expound "King Lear" to me. And I believe my case to be the
+case of thousands.
+
+I trouble you with this much about it, because I am naturally desirous
+you should understand that if I could possibly have been of any service,
+or have suggested anything to this poor lady, I would not have lost the
+opportunity. But I cannot help her, and I assure you that I cannot
+honestly encourage her to hope. I fear her enterprise has no hope in it.
+
+In your absence I have always followed you through the papers, and felt
+a personal interest and pleasure in the public affection in which you
+are held over there.[2] At the same time I must confess that I should
+prefer to have you here, where good public men seem to me to be dismally
+wanted. I have no sympathy with demagogues, but am a grievous Radical,
+and think the political signs of the times to be just about as bad as
+the spirit of the people will admit of their being. In all other
+respects I am as healthy, sound, and happy as your kindness can wish. So
+you will set down my political despondency as my only disease.
+
+On the tip-top of Gad's Hill, between this and Rochester, on the very
+spot where Falstaff ran away, I have a pretty little old-fashioned
+house, which I shall live in the hope of showing to you one day. Also I
+have a little story respecting the manner in which it became mine, which
+I hope (on the same occasion in the clouds) to tell you. Until then and
+always, I am, dear Lord Carlisle,
+
+                                    Yours very faithfully and obliged.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. John Forster.]
+
+                                    TAVISTOCK HOUSE, _May 13th, 1857._
+
+MY DEAR FORSTER,
+
+I have gone over Dilke's memoranda, and I think it quite right and
+necessary that those points should be stated. Nor do I see the least
+difficulty in the way of their introduction into the pamphlet. But I do
+not deem it possible to get the pamphlet written and published before
+the dinner. I have so many matters pressing on my attention, that I
+cannot turn to it immediately on my release from my book just finished.
+It shall be done and distributed early next month.
+
+As to anything being lost by its not being in the hands of the people
+who dine (as you seem to think), I have not the least misgiving on that
+score. They would say, if it were issued, just what they will say
+without it.
+
+Lord Granville is committed to taking the chair, and will make the best
+speech he can in it. The pious ---- will cram him with as many
+distortions of the truth as his stomach may be strong enough to receive.
+----, with Bardolphian eloquence, will cool his nose in the modest
+merits of the institution. ---- will make a neat and appropriate speech
+on both sides, round the corner and over the way. And all this would be
+done exactly to the same purpose and in just the same strain, if twenty
+thousand copies of the pamphlet had been circulated.
+
+                                                  Ever affectionately.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Rev. James White.]
+
+                            TAVISTOCK HOUSE, _Friday, May 22nd, 1857._
+
+MY DEAR WHITE,
+
+My emancipation having been effected on Saturday, the ninth of this
+month, I take some shame to myself for not having sooner answered your
+note. But the host of things to be done as soon as I was free, and the
+tremendous number of ingenuities to be wrought out at Gad's Hill, have
+kept me in a whirl of their own ever since.
+
+We purpose going to Gad's Hill for the summer on the 1st of June; as,
+apart from the master's eye being a necessary ornament to the spot, I
+clearly see that the workmen yet lingering in the yard must be squeezed
+out by bodily pressure, or they will never go. How will this suit you
+and yours? If you will come down, we can take you all in, on your way
+north; that is to say, we shall have that ample verge and room enough,
+until about the eighth; when Hans Christian Andersen (who has been
+"coming" for about three years) will come for a fortnight's stay in
+England. I shall like you to see the little old-fashioned place. It
+strikes me as being comfortable.
+
+So let me know your little game. And with love to Mrs. White, Lotty, and
+Clara,
+
+                                Believe me, ever affectionately yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. Frank Stone, A.R.A.]
+
+                OFFICE OF "HOUSEHOLD WORDS," _Monday, June 1st, 1857._
+
+MY DEAR STONE,
+
+I know that what I am going to say will not be agreeable; but I rely on
+the authoress's good sense; and say it, knowing it to be the truth.
+
+These "Notes" are destroyed by too much smartness. It gives the
+appearance of perpetual effort, stabs to the heart the nature that is in
+them, and wearies by the manner and not by the matter. It is the
+commonest fault in the world (as I have constant occasion to observe
+here), but it is a very great one. Just as you couldn't bear to have an
+épergne or a candlestick on your table, supported by a light figure
+always on tiptoe and evidently in an impossible attitude for the
+sustainment of its weight, so all readers would be more or less
+oppressed and worried by this presentation of everything in one smart
+point of view, when they know it must have other, and weightier, and
+more solid properties. Airiness and good spirits are always delightful,
+and are inseparable from notes of a cheerful trip; but they should
+sympathise with many things as well as see them in a lively way. It is
+but a word or a touch that expresses this humanity, but without that
+little embellishment of good nature there is no such thing as humour. In
+this little MS. everything is too much patronised and condescended to,
+whereas the slightest touch of feeling for the rustic who is of the
+earth earthy, or of sisterhood with the homely servant who has made her
+face shine in her desire to please, would make a difference that the
+writer can scarcely imagine without trying it. The only relief in the
+twenty-one slips is the little bit about the chimes. It _is_ a relief,
+simply because it is an indication of some kind of sentiment. You don't
+want any sentiment laboriously made out in such a thing. You don't want
+any maudlin show of it. But you do want a pervading suggestion that it
+is there. It makes all the difference between being playful and being
+cruel. Again I must say, above all things--especially to young people
+writing: For the love of God don't condescend! Don't assume the attitude
+of saying, "See how clever I am, and what fun everybody else is!" Take
+any shape but that.
+
+I observe an excellent quality of observation throughout, and think the
+boy at the shop, and all about him, particularly good. I have no doubt
+whatever that the rest of the journal will be much better if the writer
+chooses to make it so. If she considers for a moment within herself, she
+will know that she derived pleasure from everything she saw, because she
+saw it with innumerable lights and shades upon it, and bound to humanity
+by innumerable fine links; she cannot possibly communicate anything of
+that pleasure to another by showing it from one little limited point
+only, and that point, observe, the one from which it is impossible to
+detach the exponent as the patroness of a whole universe of inferior
+souls. This is what everybody would mean in objecting to these notes
+(supposing them to be published), that they are too smart and too
+flippant.
+
+As I understand this matter to be altogether between us three, and as I
+think your confidence, and hers, imposes a duty of friendship on me, I
+discharge it to the best of my ability. Perhaps I make more of it than
+you may have meant or expected; if so, it is because I am interested and
+wish to express it. If there had been anything in my objection not
+perfectly easy of removal, I might, after all, have hesitated to state
+it; but that is not the case. A very little indeed would make all this
+gaiety as sound and wholesome and good-natured in the reader's mind as
+it is in the writer's.
+
+                                                Affectionately always.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Anonymous.]
+
+                 GAD'S HILL PLACE, HIGHAM, _Thursday, June 4th, 1857._
+
+MY DEAR ----
+
+Coming home here last night, from a day's business in London, I found
+your most excellent note awaiting me, in which I have had a pleasure to
+be derived from none but good and natural things. I can now honestly
+assure you that I believe you will write _well_, and that I have a
+lively hope that I may be the means of showing you yourself in print one
+day. Your powers of graceful and light-hearted observation need nothing
+but the little touches on which we are both agreed. And I am perfectly
+sure that they will be as pleasant to you as to anyone, for nobody can
+see so well as you do, without feeling kindly too.
+
+To confess the truth to you, I was half sorry, yesterday, that I had
+been so unreserved; but not half as sorry, yesterday, as I am glad
+to-day. You must not mind my adding that there is a noble candour and
+modesty in your note, which I shall never be able to separate from you
+henceforth.
+
+                                          Affectionately yours always.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. Henry Austin.]
+
+                               GAD'S HILL, _Saturday, June 6th, 1857._
+
+MY DEAR HENRY,
+
+Here is a very serious business on the great estate respecting the water
+supply. Last night, they had pumped the well dry merely in raising the
+family supply for the day; and this morning (very little water having
+been got into the cisterns) it is dry again! It is pretty clear to me
+that we must look the thing in the face, and at once bore deeper, dig,
+or do some beastly thing or other, to secure this necessary in
+abundance. Meanwhile I am in a most plaintive and forlorn condition
+without your presence and counsel. I raise my voice in the wilderness
+and implore the same!!!
+
+Wild legends are in circulation among the servants how that Captain
+Goldsmith on the knoll above--the skipper in that crow's-nest of a
+house--has millions of gallons of water always flowing for him. Can he
+have damaged my well? Can we imitate him, and have our millions of
+gallons? Goldsmith or I must fall, so I conceive.
+
+If you get this, send me a telegraph message informing me when I may
+expect comfort. I am held by four of the family while I write this, in
+case I should do myself a mischief--it certainly won't be taking to
+drinking water.
+
+                              Ever affectionately (most despairingly).
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. W. C. Macready.]
+
+                           TAVISTOCK HOUSE, _Monday, July 13th, 1857._
+
+MY DEAREST MACREADY,
+
+Many thanks for your Indian information. I shall act upon it in the most
+exact manner. Walter sails next Monday. Charley and I go down with him
+to Southampton next Sunday. We are all delighted with the prospect of
+seeing you at Gad's Hill. These are my Jerrold engagements: On Friday,
+the 24th, I have to repeat my reading at St. Martin's Hall; on Saturday,
+the 25th, to repeat "The Frozen Deep" at the Gallery of Illustration for
+the last time. On Thursday, the 30th, or Friday, the 31st, I shall
+probably read at Manchester. Deane, the general manager of the
+Exhibition, is going down to-night, and will arrange all the
+preliminaries for me. If you and I went down to Manchester together, and
+were there on a Sunday, he would give us the whole Exhibition to
+ourselves. It is probable, I think (as he estimates the receipts of a
+night at about seven hundred pounds), that we may, in about a fortnight
+or so after the reading, play "The Frozen Deep" at Manchester. But of
+this contingent engagement I at present know no more than you do.
+
+Now, will you, upon this exposition of affairs, choose your own time for
+coming to us, and, when you have made your choice, write to me at Gad's
+Hill? I am going down this afternoon for rest (which means violent
+cricket with the boys) after last Saturday night; which was a teaser,
+but triumphant. The St. Martin's Hall audience was, I must confess, a
+very extraordinary thing. The two thousand and odd people were like one,
+and their enthusiasm was something awful.
+
+Yet I have seen that before, too. Your young remembrance cannot recall
+the man; but he flourished in my day--a great actor, sir--a noble
+actor--thorough artist! I have seen him do wonders in that way. He
+retired from the stage early in life (having a monomaniacal delusion
+that he was old), and is said to be still living in your county.
+
+All join in kindest love to your dear sister and all the rest.
+
+                         Ever, my dearest Macready,
+                                            Most affectionately yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. Edmund Yates.]
+
+                           TAVISTOCK HOUSE, _Sunday, July 19th, 1857._
+
+MY DEAR YATES,
+
+Although I date this ashore, I really write it from Southampton (don't
+notice this fact in your reply, for I shall be in town on Wednesday). I
+have come here on an errand which will grow familiar to you before you
+know that Time has flapped his wings over your head. Like me, you will
+find those babies grow to be young men before you are quite sure they
+are born. Like me, you will have great teeth drawn with a wrench, and
+will only then know that you ever cut them. I am here to send Walter
+away over what they call, in Green Bush melodramas, "the Big Drink," and
+I don't at all know this day how he comes to be mine, or I his.
+
+I don't write to say this--or to say how seeing Charley, and he going
+aboard the ship before me just now, I suddenly came into possession of a
+photograph of my own back at sixteen and twenty, and also into a
+suspicion that I had doubled the last age. I merely write to mention
+that Telbin and his wife are going down to Gad's Hill with us, about
+mid-day next Sunday, and that if you and Mrs. Yates will come too, we
+shall be delighted to have you. We can give you a bed, and you can be in
+town (if you have such a savage necessity) by twenty minutes before ten
+on Monday morning.
+
+I was very much pleased (as I had reason to be) with your account of the
+reading in _The Daily News_. I thank you heartily.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. T. P. Cooke.]
+
+        IN REMEMBRANCE OF THE LATE MR. DOUGLAS JERROLD.
+
+               COMMITTEE'S OFFICE, GALLERY OF ILLUSTRATION,
+                           REGENT STREET, _Thursday, July 30th, 1857._
+
+MY DEAR MR. COOKE,
+
+I cannot rest satisfied this morning without writing to congratulate you
+on your admirable performance of last night. It was so fresh and
+vigorous, so manly and gallant, that I felt as if it splashed against my
+theatre-heated face along with the spray of the breezy sea. What I felt
+everybody felt; I should feel it quite an impertinence to take myself
+out of the crowd, therefore, if I could by any means help doing so. But
+I can't; so I hope you will feel that you bring me on yourself, and have
+only yourself to blame.
+
+                                              Always faithfully yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mrs. Compton.]
+
+                        GAD'S HILL PLACE, HIGHAM BY ROCHESTER,
+                                        _Sunday Night, Aug 2nd, 1857._
+
+MY DEAR MRS. COMPTON,
+
+We are going to play "The Frozen Deep" (pursuant to requisition from
+town magnates, etc.) at Manchester, at the New Free Trade Hall, on the
+nights of Friday and Saturday, the 21st and 22nd August.
+
+The place is out of the question for my girls. Their action could not be
+seen, and their voices could not be heard. You and I have played, there
+and elsewhere, so sociably and happily, that I am emboldened to ask you
+whether you would play my sister-in-law Georgina's part (Compton and
+babies permitting).
+
+We shall go down in the old pleasant way, and shall have the Art
+Treasures Exhibition to ourselves on the Sunday; when even "he" (as
+Rogers always called every pretty woman's husband) might come and join
+us.
+
+What do you say? What does he say? and what does baby say? When I use
+the term "baby," I use it in two tenses--present and future.
+
+Answer me at this address, like the Juliet I saw at Drury Lane--when was
+it?--yesterday. And whatever your answer is, if you will say that you
+and Compton will meet us at the North Kent Station, London Bridge, next
+Sunday at a quarter before one, and will come down here for a breath of
+sweet air and stay all night, you will give your old friends great
+pleasure. Not least among them,
+
+                                                     Yours faithfully.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. W. C. Macready.]
+
+                        GAD'S HILL PLACE, HIGHAM BY ROCHESTER,
+                                             _Monday, Aug. 3rd, 1857._
+
+MY DEAREST MACREADY,
+
+I write to you in reference to your last note, as soon as I positively
+know our final movements in the Jerrold matter.
+
+We are going to wind up by acting at Manchester (on solemn requisition)
+on the evenings of Friday and Saturday, the 21st and 22nd (actresses
+substituted for the girls, of course). We shall have to leave here on
+the morning of the 20th. You thought of coming on the 16th; can't you
+make it a day or two earlier, so as to be with us a whole week? Decide
+and pronounce. Again, cannot you bring Katey with you? Decide and
+pronounce thereupon, also.
+
+I read at Manchester last Friday. As many thousand people were there as
+you like to name. The collection of pictures in the Exhibition is
+wonderful. And the power with which the modern English school asserts
+itself is a very gratifying and delightful thing to behold. The care for
+the common people, in the provision made for their comfort and
+refreshment, is also admirable and worthy of all commendation. But they
+want more amusement, and particularly (as it strikes me) _something in
+motion_, though it were only a twisting fountain. The thing is too still
+after their lives of machinery, and art flies over their heads in
+consequence.
+
+I hope you have seen my tussle with the "Edinburgh." I saw the chance
+last Friday week, as I was going down to read the "Carol" in St.
+Martin's Hall. Instantly turned to, then and there, and wrote half the
+article. Flew out of bed early next morning, and finished it by noon.
+Went down to Gallery of Illustration (we acted that night), did the
+day's business, corrected the proofs in Polar costume in dressing-room,
+broke up two numbers of "Household Words" to get it out directly, played
+in "Frozen Deep" and "Uncle John," presided at supper of company, made
+no end of speeches, went home and gave in completely for four hours,
+then got sound asleep, and next day was as fresh as you used to be in
+the far-off days of your lusty youth.
+
+All here send kindest love to your dear good sister and all the house.
+
+                                         Ever and ever affectionately.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. Frank Stone, A.R.A.]
+
+                  TAVISTOCK HOUSE, _Sunday Afternoon, Aug. 9th, 1857._
+
+MY DEAR STONE,
+
+Now here, without any preface, is a good, confounding, stunning question
+for you--would you like to play "Uncle John" on the two nights at
+Manchester?
+
+It is not a long part. You could have a full rehearsal on the Friday,
+and I could sit in the wing at night and pull you through all the
+business. Perhaps you might not object to being in the thing in your own
+native place, and the relief to me would be enormous.
+
+This is what has come into my head lying in bed to-day (I have been in
+bed all day), and this is just my plain reason for writing to you.
+
+It's a capital part, and you are a capital old man. You know the play as
+we play it, and the Manchester people don't. Say the word, and I'll send
+you my own book by return of post.
+
+The agitation and exertion of Richard Wardour are so great to me, that I
+cannot rally my spirits in the short space of time I get. The strain is
+so great to make a show of doing it, that I want to be helped out of
+"Uncle John" if I can. Think of yourself far more than me; but if you
+half think you are up to the joke, and half doubt your being so, then
+give me the benefit of the doubt and play the part.
+
+Answer me at Gad's Hill.
+
+                                                  Ever affectionately.
+
+P.S.--If you play, I shall immediately announce it to all concerned. If
+you don't, I shall go on as if nothing had happened, and shall say
+nothing to anyone.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. Henry Austin.]
+
+                        GAD'S HILL PLACE, _Saturday, Aug. 15th, 1857._
+
+MY DEAR HENRY,
+
+At last, I am happy to inform you, we have got at a famous spring!! It
+rushed in this morning, ten foot deep. And our friends talk of its
+supplying "a ton a minute for yourself and your family, sir, for
+nevermore."
+
+They ask leave to bore ten feet lower, to prevent the possibility of
+what they call "a choking with sullage." Likewise, they are going to
+insert "a rose-headed pipe;" at the mention of which implement, I am
+(secretly) well-nigh distracted, having no idea of what it means. But I
+have said "Yes," besides instantly standing a bottle of gin. Can you
+come back, and can you get down on Monday morning, to advise and
+endeavour to decide on the mechanical force we shall use for raising the
+water? I would return with you, as I shall have to be in town until
+Thursday, and then to go to Manchester until the following Tuesday.
+
+I send this by hand to John, to bring to you.
+
+                                                  Ever affectionately.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. Frank Stone, A.R.A.]
+
+                          GAD'S HILL PLACE, _Monday, Aug. 17th, 1857._
+
+MY DEAR STONE,
+
+I received your kind note this morning, and write this reply here to
+take to London with me and post in town, being bound for that village
+and three days' drill of the professional ladies who are to succeed the
+Tavistock girls.
+
+My book I enclose. There is a slight alteration (which does not affect
+you) at the end of the first act, in order that the piece may be played
+through without having the drop curtain down. You will not find the
+situations or business difficult, with me on the spot to put you right.
+
+Now, as to the dress. You will want a pair of pumps, and a pair of white
+silk socks; these you can get at Manchester. The extravagantly and
+anciently-frilled shirts that I have had got up for the part, I will
+bring you down; large white waistcoat, I will bring you down; large
+white hat, I will bring you down; dressing-gown, I will bring you down;
+white gloves and ditto choker you can get at Manchester. There then
+remain only a pair of common nankeen tights, to button below the calf,
+and blue wedding-coat. The nankeen tights you had best get made at once;
+my "Uncle John" coat I will send you down in a parcel by to-morrow's
+train, to have altered in Manchester to your shape and figure. You will
+then be quite independent of Christian chance and Jewish Nathan, which
+latter potentate is now at Canterbury with the cricket amateurs, and
+might fail.
+
+A Thursday's rehearsal is (unfortunately) now impracticable, the passes
+for the railway being all made out, and the company's sailing orders
+issued. But, as I have already suggested, with a careful rehearsal on
+Friday morning, and with me at the wing at night to put you right, you
+will find yourself sliding through it easily. There is nothing in the
+least complicated in the business. As to the dance, you have only to
+knock yourself up for a twelvemonth and it will go nobly.
+
+After all, too, if you _should_, through any unlucky breakdown, come to
+be afraid of it, I am no worse off than I was before, if I have to do it
+at last. Keep your pecker up with that.
+
+I am heartily obliged to you, my dear old boy, for your affectionate and
+considerate note, and I wouldn't have you do it, really and
+sincerely--immense as the relief will be to me--unless you are quite
+comfortable in it, and able to enjoy it.
+
+                                                  Ever affectionately.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. Frank Stone, A.R.A.]
+
+              OFFICE OF "HOUSEHOLD WORDS," _Tuesday, Aug. 18th, 1857._
+
+MY DEAR STONE,
+
+I sent you a telegraph message last night, in total contradiction of the
+letter you received from me this morning.
+
+The reason was simply this: Arthur Smith and the other business men,
+both in Manchester and here, urged upon me, in the strongest manner,
+that they were afraid of the change; that it was well known in
+Manchester that I had done the part in London; that there was a danger
+of its being considered disrespectful in me to give it up; also that
+there was a danger that it might be thought that I did so at the last
+minute, after an immense let, whereas I might have done it at first,
+etc. etc. etc. Having no desire but for the success of our object, and a
+becoming recognition on my part of the kind Manchester public's
+cordiality, I gave way, and thought it best to go on.
+
+I do so against the grain, and against every inclination, and against
+the strongest feeling of gratitude to you. My people at home will be
+miserable too when they hear I am going to do it. If I could have heard
+from you sooner, and got the bill out sooner, I should have been firmer
+in considering my own necessity of relief. As it is, I sneak under; and
+I hope you will feel the reasons, and approve.
+
+                                                  Ever affectionately.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. Henry Austin.]
+
+                       GAD'S HILL PLACE, _Wednesday, Sept. 2nd, 1857._
+
+MY DEAR HENRY,
+
+The second conspirator has been here this morning to ask whether you
+wish the windlass to be left in the yard, and whether you will want him
+and his mate any more, and, if so, when? Of course he says (rolling
+something in the form of a fillet in at one broken tooth all the while,
+and rolling it out at another) that they could wish fur to have the
+windlass if it warn't any ways a hill conwenience fur to fetch her away.
+I have told him that if he will come back on Friday he shall have your
+reply. Will you, therefore, send it me by return of post? He says he'll
+"look up" (as if he was an astronomer) "a Friday arterdinner."
+
+On Monday I am going away with Collins for ten days or a fortnight, on a
+"tour in search of an article" for "Household Words." We have not the
+least idea where we are going; but _he_ says, "Let's look at the Norfolk
+coast," and _I_ say, "Let's look at the back of the Atlantic." I don't
+quite know what I mean by that; but have a general impression that I
+mean something knowing.
+
+I am horribly used up after the Jerrold business. Low spirits, low
+pulse, low voice, intense reaction. If I were not like Mr. Micawber,
+"falling back for a spring" on Monday, I think I should slink into a
+corner and cry.
+
+                                                  Ever affectionately.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Hogarth.]
+
+              ALLONBY, CUMBERLAND, _Wednesday Night, Sept. 9th, 1857._
+
+MY DEAR GEORGY,
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Think of Collins's usual luck with me! We went up a Cumberland mountain
+yesterday--a huge black hill, fifteen hundred feet high. We took for a
+guide a capital innkeeper hard by. It rained in torrents--as it only
+does rain in a hill country--the whole time. At the top, there were
+black mists and the darkness of night. It then came out that the
+innkeeper had not been up for twenty years, and he lost his head and
+himself altogether; and we couldn't get down again! What wonders the
+Inimitable performed with his compass until it broke with the heat and
+wet of his pocket no matter; it did break, and then we wandered about,
+until it was clear to the Inimitable that the night must be passed
+there, and the enterprising travellers probably die of cold. We took our
+own way about coming down, struck, and declared that the guide might
+wander where he would, but we would follow a watercourse we lighted
+upon, and which must come at last to the river. This necessitated
+amazing gymnastics; in the course of which performances, Collins fell
+into the said watercourse with his ankle sprained, and the great
+ligament of the foot and leg swollen I don't know how big.
+
+How I enacted Wardour over again in carrying him down, and what a
+business it was to get him down; I may say in Gibbs's words: "Vi lascio
+a giudicare!" But he was got down somehow, and we got off the mountain
+somehow; and now I carry him to bed, and into and out of carriages,
+exactly like Wardour in private life. I don't believe he will stand for
+a month to come. He has had a doctor, and can wear neither shoe nor
+stocking, and has his foot wrapped up in a flannel waistcoat, and has a
+breakfast saucer of liniment, and a horrible dabbling of lotion
+incessantly in progress. We laugh at it all, but I doubt very much
+whether he can go on to Doncaster. It will be a miserable blow to our H.
+W. scheme, and I say nothing about it as yet; but he is really so
+crippled that I doubt the getting him there. We have resolved to fall
+to work to-morrow morning and begin our writing; and there, for the
+present, that point rests.
+
+This is a little place with fifty houses, five bathing-machines, five
+girls in straw hats, five men in straw hats, and no other company. The
+little houses are all in half-mourning--yellow stone on white stone, and
+black; and it reminds me of what Broadstairs might have been if it had
+not inherited a cliff, and had been an Irishman. But this is a capital
+little homely inn, looking out upon the sea; and we are really very
+comfortably lodged. I can just stand upright in my bedroom. Otherwise,
+it is a good deal like one of Ballard's top-rooms. We have a very
+obliging and comfortable landlady; and it is a clean nice place in a
+rough wild country. We came here haphazard, but could not have done
+better.
+
+We lay last night at a place called Wigton--also in half-mourning--with
+the wonderful peculiarity that it had no population, no business, no
+streets to speak of; but five linendrapers within range of our small
+windows, one linendraper's next door, and five more linendrapers round
+the corner. I ordered a night-light in my bedroom. A queer little old
+woman brought me one of the common Child's night-lights, and seeming to
+think that I looked at it with interest, said: "It's joost a vara
+keeyourious thing, sir, and joost new coom oop. It'll burn awt hoors a'
+end, an no gootther, nor no waste, nor ony sike a thing, if you can
+creedit what I say, seein' the airticle."
+
+Of course _I_ shall go to Doncaster, whether or no (please God), and my
+postage directions to you remain unchanged. Love to Mamey, Katey,
+Charley, Harry, and the darling Plorn.
+
+                                                  Ever affectionately.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Hogarth.]
+
+                        LANCASTER, _Saturday Night, Sept. 12th, 1857._
+
+MY DEAR GEORGY,
+
+I received your letter at Allonby yesterday, and was delighted to get
+it. We came back to Carlisle last night (to a capital inn, kept by
+Breach's brother), and came on here to-day. We are on our way to
+Doncaster; but Sabbath observance throws all the trains out; and
+although it is not a hundred miles from here, we shall have, as well as
+I can make out the complicated lists of trains, to sleep at Leeds--which
+I particularly detest as an odious place--to-morrow night.
+
+Accustomed as you are to the homage which men delight to render to the
+Inimitable, you would be scarcely prepared for the proportions it
+assumes in this northern country. Station-masters assist him to alight
+from carriages, deputations await him in hotel entries, innkeepers bow
+down before him and put him into regal rooms, the town goes down to the
+platform to see him off, and Collins's ankle goes into the newspapers!!!
+
+It is a great deal better than it was, and he can get into new hotels
+and up the stairs with two thick sticks, like an admiral in a farce. His
+spirits have improved in a corresponding degree, and he contemplates
+cheerfully the keeping house at Doncaster. I thought (as I told you) he
+would never have gone there, but he seems quite up to the mark now. Of
+course he can never walk out, or see anything of any place. We have done
+our first paper for H. W., and sent it up to the printer's.
+
+The landlady of the little inn at Allonby lived at Greta Bridge, in
+Yorkshire, when I went down there before "Nickleby," and was smuggled
+into the room to see me, when I was secretly found out. She is an
+immensely fat woman now. "But I could tuck my arm round her waist then,
+Mr. Dickens," the landlord said when she told me the story as I was
+going to bed the night before last. "And can't you do it now," I said,
+"you insensible dog? Look at me! Here's a picture!" Accordingly, I got
+round as much of her as I could; and this gallant action was the most
+successful I have ever performed, on the whole. I think it was the
+dullest little place I ever entered; and what with the monotony of an
+idle sea, and what with the monotony of another sea in the room
+(occasioned by Collins's perpetually holding his ankle over a pail of
+salt water, and laving it with a milk jug), I struck yesterday, and came
+away.
+
+We are in a very remarkable old house here, with genuine old rooms and
+an uncommonly quaint staircase. I have a state bedroom, with two
+enormous red four-posters in it, each as big as Charley's room at Gad's
+Hill. Bellew is to preach here to-morrow. "And we know he is a friend of
+yours, sir," said the landlord, when he presided over the serving of the
+dinner (two little salmon trout; a sirloin steak; a brace of partridges;
+seven dishes of sweets; five dishes of dessert, led off by a bowl of
+peaches; and in the centre an enormous bride-cake--"We always have it
+here, sir," said the landlord, "custom of the house.") (Collins turned
+pale, and estimated the dinner at half a guinea each.)
+
+This is the stupidest of letters, but all description is gone, or going,
+into "The Lazy Tour of Two Idle Apprentices."
+
+Kiss the darling Plorn, who is often in my thoughts. Best love to
+Charley, Mamey, and Katie. I will write to you again from Doncaster,
+where I shall be rejoiced to find another letter from you.
+
+                               Ever affectionately, my dearest Georgy.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Hogarth.]
+
+                  ANGEL HOTEL, DONCASTER, _Tuesday, Sept. 15th, 1857._
+
+MY DEAR GEORGY,
+
+I found your letter here on my arrival yesterday. I had hoped that the
+wall would have been almost finished by this time, and the additions to
+the house almost finished too--but patience, patience!
+
+We have very good, clean, and quiet apartments here, on the second
+floor, looking down into the main street, which is full of horse
+jockeys, bettors, drunkards, and other blackguards, from morning to
+night--and all night. The races begin to-day and last till Friday, which
+is the Cup Day. I am not going to the course this morning, but have
+engaged a carriage (open, and pair) for to-morrow and Friday.
+
+"The Frozen Deep's" author gets on as well as could be expected. He can
+hobble up and down stairs when absolutely necessary, and limps to his
+bedroom on the same floor. He talks of going to the theatre to-night in
+a cab, which will be the first occasion of his going out, except to
+travel, since the accident. He sends his kind regards and thanks for
+enquiries and condolence. I am perpetually tidying the rooms after him,
+and carrying all sorts of untidy things which belong to him into his
+bedroom, which is a picture of disorder. You will please to imagine
+mine, airy and clean, little dressing-room attached, eight water-jugs (I
+never saw such a supply), capital sponge-bath, perfect arrangement, and
+exquisite neatness. We breakfast at half-past eight, and fall to work
+for H. W. afterwards. Then I go out, and--hem! look for subjects.
+
+The mayor called this morning to do the honours of the town, whom it
+pleased the Inimitable to receive with great courtesy and affability. He
+propounded invitation to public _déjeûner_, which it did _not_ please
+the Inimitable to receive, and which he graciously rejected.
+
+That's all the news. Everything I can describe by hook or by crook, I
+describe for H. W. So there is nothing of that sort left for letters.
+
+Best love to dear Mamey and Katey, and to Charley, and to Harry. Any
+number of kisses to the noble Plorn.
+
+                                                  Ever affectionately.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. Arthur Ryland.]
+
+                 GAD'S HILL PLACE, _Saturday Evening, Oct. 3rd, 1857._
+
+MY DEAR SIR,
+
+I have had the honour and pleasure of receiving your letter of the 28th
+of last month, informing me of the distinction that has been conferred
+upon me by the Council of the Birmingham and Midland Institute.
+
+Allow me to assure you with much sincerity, that I am highly gratified
+by having been elected one of the first honorary members of that
+establishment. Nothing could have enhanced my interest in so important
+an undertaking; but the compliment is all the more welcome to me on that
+account.
+
+I accept it with a due sense of its worth, with many acknowledgments and
+with all good wishes.
+
+                        I am ever, my dear Sir, very faithfully yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. Edmund Yates.]
+
+                     TAVISTOCK HOUSE, _Monday Night, Nov. 16th, 1857._
+
+MY DEAR YATES,
+
+I retain the story with pleasure; and I need not tell you that you are
+not mistaken in the last lines of your note.
+
+Excuse me, on that ground, if I say a word or two as to what I think (I
+mention it with a view to the future) might be better in the paper. The
+opening is excellent. But it passes too completely into the Irishman's
+narrative, does not light it up with the life about it, or the
+circumstances under which it is delivered, and does not carry through
+it, as I think it should with a certain indefinable subtleness, the
+thread with which you begin your weaving. I will tell Wills to send me
+the proof, and will try to show you what I mean when I shall have gone
+over it carefully.
+
+                                              Faithfully yours always.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. Frank Stone, A.R.A.]
+
+                        TAVISTOCK HOUSE, _Wednesday, Dec. 13th, 1857._
+
+MY DEAR STONE,
+
+I find on enquiry that the "General Theatrical Fund" has relieved
+non-members in one or two instances; but that it is exceedingly
+unwilling to do so, and would certainly not do so again, saving on some
+very strong and exceptional case. As its trustee, I could not represent
+to it that I think it ought to sail into those open waters, for I very
+much doubt the justice of such cruising, with a reference to the
+interests of the patient people who support it out of their small
+earnings.
+
+                                                  Affectionately ever.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[1] The part played in "The Frozen Deep" by its author, Mr. Wilkie
+Collins.
+
+[2] The Earl of Carlisle was at this time Viceroy of Ireland.
+
+
+
+
+Book III.
+
+1858 TO 1870.
+
+
+
+
+1858.
+
+NARRATIVE.
+
+
+All through this year, Charles Dickens was constantly moving about from
+place to place. After much and careful consideration, he had come to the
+determination of, for the future, giving readings for his own benefit.
+And although in the spring of this year he gave one reading of his
+"Christmas Carol" for a charity, all the other readings, beginning from
+the 29th April, and ever after, were for himself. In the autumn of this
+year he made reading tours in England, Scotland, and Ireland, always
+accompanied by his friend and secretary, Mr. Arthur Smith. At Newcastle,
+Charles Dickens was joined by his daughters, who accompanied him in his
+Scotch tour. The letters to his sister-in-law, and to his eldest
+daughter, are all given here, and will be given in all future reading
+tours, as they form a complete diary of his life and movements at these
+times. To avoid the constant repetition of the two names, the beginning
+of the letters will be dispensed with in all cases where they follow
+each other in unbroken succession. The Mr. Frederick Lehmann mentioned
+in the letter written from Sheffield, had married a daughter of Mr.
+Robert Chambers, and niece of Mrs. Wills. Coming to settle in London a
+short time after this date, Mr. and Mrs. Lehmann became intimately known
+to Charles Dickens and his family--more especially to his eldest
+daughter, to whom they have been, and are, the kindest and truest of
+friends. The "pretty little boy" mentioned as being under Mrs. Wills's
+care, was their eldest son.
+
+We give the letter to Mr. Thackeray, not because it is one of very great
+interest, but because, being the only one we have, we are glad to have
+the two names associated together in this work.
+
+The "little speech" alluded to in this first letter to Mr. Macready was
+one made by Charles Dickens at a public dinner, which was given in aid
+of the Hospital for Sick Children, in Great Ormond Street. He afterwards
+(early in April) gave a reading from his "Christmas Carol" for this same
+charity.
+
+The Christmas number of "Household Words," mentioned in a letter to Mr.
+Wilkie Collins, was called "A House to Let," and contained stories
+written by Charles Dickens, Mr. Wilkie Collins, and other contributors
+to "Household Words."
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. W. Wilkie Collins.]
+
+                           TAVISTOCK HOUSE, _Sunday, Jan. 17th, 1858._
+
+MY DEAR WILKIE,
+
+I am very sorry to receive so bad an account of the foot. But I hope it
+is all in the past tense now.
+
+I met with an incident the other day, which I think is a good deal in
+your way, for introduction either into a long or short story. Dr.
+Sutherland and Dr. Monro went over St. Luke's with me (only last
+Friday), to show me some distinctly and remarkably developed types of
+insanity. Among other patients, we passed a deaf and dumb man, now
+afflicted with incurable madness too, of whom they said that it was only
+when his madness began to develop itself in strongly-marked mad actions,
+that it began to be suspected. "Though it had been there, no doubt, some
+time." This led me to consider, suspiciously, what employment he had
+been in, and so to ask the question. "Aye," says Dr. Sutherland, "that
+is the most remarkable thing of all, Mr. Dickens. He was employed in the
+transmission of electric-telegraph messages; and it is impossible to
+conceive what delirious despatches that man may have been sending about
+all over the world!"
+
+Rejoiced to hear such good report of the play.
+
+                                                      Ever faithfully.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. Edmund Yates.]
+
+                           TAVISTOCK HOUSE, _Tuesday, Feb. 2nd, 1858._
+
+MY DEAR YATES,
+
+Your quotation is, as I supposed, all wrong. The text is _not_ "which
+his 'owls was organs." When Mr. Harris went into an empty dog-kennel, to
+spare his sensitive nature the anguish of overhearing Mrs. Harris's
+exclamations on the occasion of the birth of her first child (the
+Princess Royal of the Harris family), "he never took his hands away from
+his ears, or came out once, till he was showed the baby." On
+encountering that spectacle, he was (being of a weakly constitution)
+"took with fits." For this distressing complaint he was medically
+treated; the doctor "collared him, and laid him on his back upon the
+airy stones"--please to observe what follows--"and she was told, to ease
+her mind, his 'owls was organs."
+
+That is to say, Mrs. Harris, lying exhausted on her bed, in the first
+sweet relief of freedom from pain, merely covered with the counterpane,
+and not yet "put comfortable," hears a noise apparently proceeding from
+the back-yard, and says, in a flushed and hysterical manner: "What 'owls
+are those? Who is a-'owling? Not my ugebond?" Upon which the doctor,
+looking round one of the bottom posts of the bed, and taking Mrs.
+Harris's pulse in a reassuring manner, says, with much admirable
+presence of mind: "Howls, my dear madam?--no, no, no! What are we
+thinking of? Howls, my dear Mrs. Harris? Ha, ha, ha! Organs, ma'am,
+organs. Organs in the streets, Mrs. Harris; no howls."
+
+                                                     Yours faithfully.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. W. M. Thackeray.]
+
+                           TAVISTOCK HOUSE, _Tuesday, Feb. 2nd, 1858._
+
+MY DEAR THACKERAY,
+
+The wisdom of Parliament, in that expensive act of its greatness which
+constitutes the Guild, prohibits that corporation _from doing anything_
+until it shall have existed in a perfectly useless condition for seven
+years. This clause (introduced by some private-bill magnate of official
+might) seemed so ridiculous, that nobody could believe it to have this
+meaning; but as I felt clear about it when we were on the very verge of
+granting an excellent literary annuity, I referred the point to counsel,
+and my construction was confirmed without a doubt.
+
+It is therefore needless to enquire whether an association in the nature
+of a provident society could address itself to such a case as you
+confide to me. The prohibition has still two or three years of life in
+it.
+
+But, assuming the gentleman's title to be considered as an "author" as
+established, there is no question that it comes within the scope of the
+Literary Fund. They would habitually "lend" money if they did what I
+consider to be their duty; as it is they only give money, but they give
+it in such instances.
+
+I have forwarded the envelope to the Society of Arts, with a request
+that they will present it to Prince Albert, approaching H.R.H. in the
+Siamese manner.
+
+                                                      Ever faithfully.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. John Forster.]
+
+                   TAVISTOCK HOUSE, _Wednesday Night, Feb. 3rd, 1858._
+
+MY DEAR FORSTER,
+
+I beg to report two phenomena:
+
+1. An excellent little play in one act, by Marston, at the Lyceum;
+title, "A Hard Struggle;" as good as "La Joie fait Peur," though not at
+all like it.
+
+2. Capital acting in the same play, by Mr. Dillon. Real good acting, in
+imitation of nobody, and honestly made out by himself!!
+
+I went (at Marston's request) last night, and cried till I sobbed again.
+I have not seen a word about it from Oxenford. But it is as wholesome
+and manly a thing altogether as I have seen for many a day. (I would
+have given a hundred pounds to have played Mr. Dillon's part).
+
+Love to Mrs. Forster.
+
+                                                  Ever affectionately.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Dr. Westland Marston.]
+
+                         TAVISTOCK HOUSE, _Wednesday, Feb. 3rd, 1858._
+
+MY DEAR MARSTON,
+
+I most heartily and honestly congratulate you on your charming little
+piece. It moved me more than I could easily tell you, if I were to try.
+Except "La Joie fait Peur," I have seen nothing nearly so good, and
+there is a subtlety in the comfortable presentation of the child who is
+to become a devoted woman for Reuben's sake, which goes a long way
+beyond Madame de Girardin. I am at a loss to let you know how much I
+admired it last night, or how heartily I cried over it. A touching idea,
+most delicately conceived and wrought out by a true artist and poet, in
+a spirit of noble, manly generosity, that no one should be able to study
+without great emotion.
+
+It is extremely well acted by all concerned; but Mr. Dillon's
+performance is really admirable, and deserving of the highest
+commendation. It is good in these days to see an actor taking such
+pains, and expressing such natural and vigorous sentiment. There is only
+one thing I should have liked him to change. I am much mistaken if any
+man--least of all any such man--would crush a letter written by the hand
+of the woman he loved. Hold it to his heart unconsciously and look about
+for it the while, he might; or he might do any other thing with it that
+expressed a habit of tenderness and affection in association with the
+idea of her; but he would never crush it under any circumstances. He
+would as soon crush her heart.
+
+You will see how closely I went with him, by my minding so slight an
+incident in so fine a performance. There is no one who could approach
+him in it; and I am bound to add that he surprised me as much as he
+pleased me.
+
+I think it might be worth while to try the people at the Français with
+the piece. They are very good in one-act plays; such plays take well
+there, and this seems to me well suited to them. If you would like
+Samson or Regnier to read the play (in English), I know them well, and
+would be very glad indeed to tell them that I sent it with your sanction
+because I had been so much struck by it.
+
+                                              Faithfully yours always.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Monsieur Regnier.]
+
+           TAVISTOCK HOUSE, LONDON, W.C., _Thursday, Feb. 11th, 1858._
+
+MY DEAR REGNIER,
+
+I want you to read the enclosed little play. You will see that it is in
+one act--about the length of "La Joie fait Pour." It is now acting at
+the Lyceum Theatre here, with very great success. The author is Mr.
+Westland Marston, a dramatic writer of reputation, who wrote a very
+well-known tragedy called "The Patrician's Daughter," in which Macready
+and Miss Faucit acted (under Macready's management at Drury Lane) some
+years ago.
+
+This little piece is so very powerful on the stage, its interest is so
+simple and natural, and the part of Reuben is such a very fine one, that
+I cannot help thinking you might make one grand _coup_ with it, if with
+your skilful hand you arranged it for the Français. I have communicated
+this idea of mine to the author, "_et là-dessus je vous écris_." I am
+anxious to know your opinion, and shall expect with much interest to
+receive a little letter from you at your convenience.
+
+Mrs. Dickens, Miss Hogarth, and all the house send a thousand kind loves
+and regards to Madame Regnier and the dear little boys. You will bring
+them to London when you come, with all the force of the Français--will
+you not?
+
+                        Ever, my dear Regnier, faithfully your Friend.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Monsieur Regnier.]
+
+                         TAVISTOCK HOUSE, _Saturday, Feb. 20th, 1858._
+
+MY DEAR REGNIER,
+
+Let me thank you with all my heart for your most patient and kind
+letter. I made its contents known to Mr. Marston, and I enclose you his
+reply. You will see that he cheerfully leaves the matter in your hands,
+and abides by your opinion and discretion.
+
+You need not return his letter, my friend. There is great excitement
+here this morning, in consequence of the failure of the Ministry last
+night to carry the bill they brought in to please your Emperor and his
+troops. _I_, for one, am extremely glad of their defeat.
+
+"Le vieux P----," I have no doubt, will go staggering down the Rue de la
+Paix to-day, with his stick in his hand and his hat on one side,
+predicting the downfall of everything, in consequence of this event. His
+handwriting shakes more and more every quarter, and I think he mixes a
+great deal of cognac with his ink. He always gives me some astonishing
+piece of news (which is never true), or some suspicious public prophecy
+(which is never verified), and he always tells me he is dying (which he
+never is).
+
+Adieu, my dear Regnier, accept a thousand thanks from me, and believe
+me, now and always,
+
+                                Your affectionate and faithful Friend.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. W. C. Macready.]
+
+                                  TAVISTOCK HOUSE, _March 15th, 1858._
+
+MY DEAREST MACREADY,
+
+I have safely received your cheque this morning, and will hand it over
+forthwith to the honorary secretary of the hospital. I hope you have
+read the little speech in the hospital's publication of it. They had it
+taken by their own shorthand-writer, and it is done verbatim.
+
+You may be sure that it is a good and kind charity. It is amazing to me
+that it is not at this day ten times as large and rich as it is. But I
+hope and trust that I have happily been able to give it a good thrust
+onward into a great course. We all send our most affectionate love to
+all the house. I am devising all sorts of things in my mind, and am in a
+state of energetic restlessness incomprehensible to the calm
+philosophers of Dorsetshire. What a dream it is, this work and strife,
+and how little we do in the dream after all! Only last night, in my
+sleep, I was bent upon getting over a perspective of barriers, with my
+hands and feet bound. Pretty much what we are all about, waking, I
+think?
+
+But, Lord! (as I said before) you smile pityingly, not bitterly, at this
+hubbub, and moralise upon it, in the calm evenings when there is no
+school at Sherborne.
+
+                                        Ever affectionately and truly.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mrs Hogge.[3]]
+
+              TAVISTOCK HOUSE, TAVISTOCK SQUARE, LONDON, W.C.,
+                                        _Wednesday, April 14th, 1858._
+
+MY DEAR MRS. HOGGE,
+
+After the profoundest cogitation, I come reluctantly to the conclusion
+that I do not know that orphan. If you were the lady in want of him, I
+should certainly offer _myself_. But as you are not, I will not hear of
+the situation.
+
+It is wonderful to think how many charming little people there must be,
+to whom this proposal would be like a revelation from Heaven. Why don't
+I know one, and come to Kensington, boy in hand, as if I had walked (I
+wish to God I had) out of a fairy tale! But no, I do _not_ know that
+orphan. He is crying somewhere, by himself, at this moment. I can't dry
+his eyes. He is being neglected by some ogress of a nurse. I can't
+rescue him.
+
+I will make a point of going to the Athenæum on Monday night; and if I
+had five hundred votes to give, Mr. Macdonald should have them all, for
+your sake.
+
+I grieve to hear that you have been ill, but I hope that the spring,
+when it comes, will find you blooming with the rest of the flowers.
+
+                                                Very faithfully yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. Edmund Yates.]
+
+                  TAVISTOCK HOUSE, TAVISTOCK SQUARE, LONDON, W.C.,
+                                        _Wednesday, April 28th, 1858._
+
+MY DEAR YATES,
+
+For a good many years I have suffered a great deal from charities, but
+never anything like what I suffer now. The amount of correspondence they
+inflict upon me is really incredible. But this is nothing. Benevolent
+men get behind the piers of the gates, lying in wait for my going out;
+and when I peep shrinkingly from my study-windows, I see their
+pot-bellied shadows projected on the gravel. Benevolent bullies drive up
+in hansom cabs (with engraved portraits of their benevolent institutions
+hanging over the aprons, like banners on their outward walls), and stay
+long at the door. Benevolent area-sneaks get lost in the kitchens and
+are found to impede the circulation of the knife-cleaning machine. My
+man has been heard to say (at The Burton Arms) "that if it was a
+wicious place, well and good--_that_ an't door work; but that wen all
+the Christian wirtues is always a-shoulderin' and a-helberin' on you in
+the 'all, a-tryin' to git past you and cut upstairs into master's room,
+why no wages as you couldn't name wouldn't make it up to you."
+
+                                                     Persecuted ever.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mrs Yates.]
+
+(THE CHARMING ACTRESS, THE MOTHER OF MR. EDMUND YATES.)
+
+                       TAVISTOCK HOUSE, TAVISTOCK SQUARE, W.C.,
+                                    _Saturday Evening, May 15th, 1858._
+
+MY DEAR MRS. YATES,
+
+Pray believe that I was sorry with all my heart to miss you last
+Thursday, and to learn the occasion of your absence; also that, whenever
+you can come, your presence will give me a new interest in that evening.
+No one alive can have more delightful associations with the lightest
+sound of your voice than I have; and to give you a minute's interest and
+pleasure, in acknowledgment of the uncountable hours of happiness you
+gave me when you were a mysterious angel to me, would honestly gratify
+my heart.
+
+                                 Very faithfully and gratefully yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: M. de Cerjat.]
+
+                              GAD'S HILL, _Wednesday, July 7th, 1858._
+
+MY DEAR CERJAT,
+
+I should vainly try to tell you--so I _won't_ try--how affected I have
+been by your warm-hearted letter, or how thoroughly well convinced I
+always am of the truth and earnestness of your friendship. I thank you,
+my dear, dear fellow, with my whole soul. I fervently return that
+friendship and I highly cherish it.
+
+You want to know all about me? I am still reading in London every
+Thursday, and the audiences are very great, and the success immense. On
+the 2nd of August I am going away on a tour of some four months in
+England, Ireland, and Scotland. I shall read, during that time, not
+fewer than four or five times a week. It will be sharp work; but
+probably a certain musical clinking will come of it, which will mitigate
+the hardship.
+
+At this present moment I am on my little Kentish freehold (_not_ in
+top-boots, and not particularly prejudiced that I know of), looking on
+as pretty a view out of my study window as you will find in a long day's
+English ride. My little place is a grave red brick house (time of George
+the First, I suppose), which I have added to and stuck bits upon in all
+manner of ways, so that it is as pleasantly irregular, and as violently
+opposed to all architectural ideas, as the most hopeful man could
+possibly desire. It is on the summit of Gad's Hill. The robbery was
+committed before the door, on the man with the treasure, and Falstaff
+ran away from the identical spot of ground now covered by the room in
+which I write. A little rustic alehouse, called The Sir John Falstaff,
+is over the way--has been over the way, ever since, in honour of the
+event. Cobham Woods and Park are behind the house; the distant Thames in
+front; the Medway, with Rochester, and its old castle and cathedral, on
+one side. The whole stupendous property is on the old Dover Road, so
+when you come, come by the North Kent Railway (not the South-Eastern) to
+Strood or Higham, and I'll drive over to fetch you.
+
+The blessed woods and fields have done me a world of good, and I am
+quite myself again. The children are all as happy as children can be. My
+eldest daughter, Mary, keeps house, with a state and gravity becoming
+that high position; wherein she is assisted by her sister Katie, and by
+her aunt Georgina, who is, and always has been, like another sister. Two
+big dogs, a bloodhound and a St. Bernard, direct from a convent of that
+name, where I think you once were, are their principal attendants in the
+green lanes. These latter instantly untie the neckerchiefs of all tramps
+and prowlers who approach their presence, so that they wander about
+without any escort, and drive big horses in basket-phaetons through
+murderous bye-ways, and never come to grief. They are very curious about
+your daughters, and send all kinds of loves to them and to Mrs. Cerjat,
+in which I heartily join.
+
+You will have read in the papers that the Thames in London is most horrible.
+I have to cross Waterloo or London Bridge to get to the railroad when I
+come down here, and I can certify that the offensive smells, even in
+that short whiff, have been of a most head-and-stomach-distending
+nature. Nobody knows what is to be done; at least everybody knows a
+plan, and everybody else knows it won't do; in the meantime cartloads of
+chloride of lime are shot into the filthy stream, and do something I
+hope. You will know, before you get this, that the American telegraph
+line has parted again, at which most men are sorry, but very few
+surprised. This is all the news, except that there is an Italian Opera
+at Drury Lane, price eighteenpence to the pit, where Viardot, by far the
+greatest artist of them all, sings, and which is full when the dear
+opera can't let a box; and except that the weather has been
+exceptionally hot, but is now quite cool. On the top of this hill it has
+been cold, actually cold at night, for more than a week past.
+
+I am going over to Rochester to post this letter, and must write another
+to Townshend before I go. My dear Cerjat, I have written lightly
+enough, because I want you to know that I am becoming cheerful and
+hearty. God bless you! I love you, and I know that you love me.
+
+                                  Ever your attached and affectionate.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Hogarth.]
+
+                       WEST HOE, PLYMOUTH, _Thursday, Aug. 5th, 1858._
+
+MY DEAREST GEORGY,
+
+I received your letter this morning with the greatest pleasure, and read
+it with the utmost interest in all its domestic details.
+
+We had a most wonderful night at Exeter. It is to be regretted that we
+cannot take the place again on our way back. It was a prodigious cram,
+and we turned away no end of people. But not only that, I think they
+were the finest audience I have ever read to. I don't think I ever read,
+in some respects, so well; and I never beheld anything like the personal
+affection which they poured out upon me at the end. It was really a very
+remarkable sight, and I shall always look back upon it with pleasure.
+
+Last night here was not so bright. There are quarrels of the strangest
+kind between the Plymouth people and the Stonehouse people. The room is
+at Stonehouse (Tracy says the wrong room; there being a Plymouth room in
+this hotel, and he being a Plymouthite). We had a fair house, but not at
+all a great one. All the notabilities come this morning to "Little
+Dombey," for which we have let one hundred and thirty stalls, which
+local admiration of local greatness considers very large. For "Mrs. Gamp
+and the Boots," to-night, we have also a very promising let. But the
+races are on, and there are two public balls to-night, and the yacht
+squadron are all at Cherbourg to boot. Arthur is of opinion that "Two
+Sixties" will do very well for us. I doubt the "Two Sixties" myself.
+_Mais nous verrons._
+
+The room is a very handsome one, but it is on the top of a windy and
+muddy hill, leading (literally) to nowhere; and it looks (except that it
+is new and _mortary_) as if the subsidence of the waters after the
+Deluge might have left it where it is. I have to go right through the
+company to get to the platform. Big doors slam and resound when anybody
+comes in; and all the company seem afraid of one another. Nevertheless
+they were a sensible audience last night, and much impressed and
+pleased.
+
+Tracy is in the room (wandering about, and never finishing a sentence),
+and sends all manner of sea-loves to you and the dear girls. I send all
+manner of land-loves to you from myself, out of my heart of hearts, and
+also to my dear Plorn and the boys.
+
+Arthur sends his kindest love. He knows only two characters. He is
+either always corresponding, like a Secretary of State, or he is
+transformed into a rout-furniture dealer of Rathbone Place, and drags
+forms about with the greatest violence, without his coat.
+
+I have no time to add another word.
+
+                         Ever, dearest Georgy, your most affectionate.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Dickens.]
+
+                                   LONDON, _Saturday, Aug. 7th, 1858._
+
+MY DEAREST MAMEY,
+
+The closing night at Plymouth was a very great scene, and the morning
+there was exceedingly good too. You will be glad to hear that at Clifton
+last night, a torrent of five hundred shillings bore Arthur away,
+pounded him against the wall, flowed on to the seats over his body,
+scratched him, and damaged his best dress suit. All to his unspeakable
+joy.
+
+This is a very short letter, but I am going to the Burlington Arcade,
+desperately resolved to have all those wonderful instruments put into
+operation on my head, with a view to refreshing it.
+
+Kindest love to Georgy and to all.
+
+                                               Ever your affectionate.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Dickens.]
+
+                              SHREWSBURY, _Thursday, Aug. 12th, 1858._
+
+A wonderful audience last night at Wolverhampton. If such a thing can
+be, they were even quicker and more intelligent than the audience I had
+in Edinburgh. They were so wonderfully good and were so much on the
+alert this morning by nine o'clock for another reading, that we are
+going back there at about our Bradford time. I never saw such people.
+And the local agent would take no money, and charge no expenses of his
+own.
+
+This place looks what Plorn would call "ortily" dull. Local agent
+predicts, however, "great satisfaction to Mr. Dickens, and excellent
+attendance." I have just been to look at the hall, where everything was
+wrong, and where I have left Arthur making a platform for me out of
+dining-tables.
+
+If he comes back in time, I am not quite sure but that he is himself
+going to write to Gad's Hill. We talk of coming up from Chester _in the
+night to-morrow, after the reading_; and of showing our precious selves
+at an apparently impossibly early hour in the Gad's Hill breakfast-room
+on Saturday morning.
+
+I have not felt the fatigue to any extent worth mentioning; though I
+get, every night, into the most violent heats. We are going to dine at
+three o'clock (it wants a quarter now) and have not been here two
+hours, so I have seen nothing of Clement.
+
+Tell Georgy with my love, that I read in the same room in which we
+acted, but at the end opposite to that where our stage was. We are not
+at the inn where the amateur company put up, but at The Lion, where the
+fair Miss Mitchell was lodged alone. We have the strangest little rooms
+(sitting-room and two bed-rooms all together), the ceilings of which I
+can touch with my hand. The windows bulge out over the street, as if
+they were little stern-windows in a ship. And a door opens out of the
+sitting-room on to a little open gallery with plants in it, where one
+leans over a queer old rail, and looks all downhill and slant-wise at
+the crookedest black and yellow old houses, all manner of shapes except
+straight shapes. To get into this room we come through a china closet;
+and the man in laying the cloth has actually knocked down, in that
+repository, two geraniums and Napoleon Bonaparte.
+
+I think that's all I have to say, except that at the Wolverhampton
+theatre they played "Oliver Twist" last night (Mr. Toole the Artful
+Dodger), "in consequence of the illustrious author honouring the town
+with his presence." We heard that the device succeeded very well, and
+that they got a good many people.
+
+John's spirits have been equable and good since we rejoined him. Berry
+has always got something the matter with his digestion--seems to me the
+male gender of Maria Jolly, and ought to take nothing but Revalenta
+Arabica. Bottled ale is not to be got in these parts, and Arthur is
+thrown upon draught.
+
+My dearest love to Georgy and to Katey, also to Marguerite. Also to all
+the boys and the noble Plorn.
+
+                                        Ever your affectionate Father.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Hogarth.]
+
+                TAVISTOCK HOUSE, TAVISTOCK SQUARE, LONDON, W.C.,
+                                 _Wednesday Morning, Aug. 18th, 1858._
+
+I write this hurried line before starting, to report that my cold is
+decidedly better, thank God (though still bad), and that I hope to be
+able to stagger through to-night. After dinner yesterday I began to
+recover my voice, and I think I sang half the Irish Melodies to myself,
+as I walked about to test it. I got home at half-past ten, and
+mustard-poulticed and barley-watered myself tremendously.
+
+Love to the dear girls, and to all.
+
+                                                  Ever affectionately.
+
+
+[Sidenote: The same.]
+
+            ADELPHI HOTEL, LIVERPOOL, _Friday Night, Aug. 20th, 1858._
+
+I received your welcome and interesting letter to-day, and I write you a
+very hurried and bad reply; but it is _after the reading_, and you will
+take the will for the deed under these trying circumstances, I know.
+
+We have had a tremendous night; the largest house I have ever had since
+I first began--two thousand three hundred people. To-morrow afternoon,
+at three, I read again.
+
+My cold has been oppressive, and is not yet gone. I have been very hard
+to sleep too, and last night I was all but sleepless. This morning I was
+very dull and seedy; but I got a good walk, and picked up again. It has
+been blowing all day, and I fear we shall have a sick passage over to
+Dublin to-morrow night.
+
+Tell Mamie (with my dear love to her and Katie) that I will write to her
+from Dublin--probably on Sunday. Tell her too that the stories she told
+me in her letter were not only capital stories in themselves, but
+_excellently told_ too.
+
+What Arthur's state has been to-night--he, John, Berry, and Boylett, all
+taking money and going mad together--you _cannot_ imagine. They turned
+away hundreds, sold all the books, rolled on the ground of my room
+knee-deep in checks, and made a perfect pantomime of the whole thing. He
+has kept quite well, I am happy to say, and sends a hundred loves.
+
+In great haste and fatigue.
+
+                                                  Ever affectionately.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Dickens.]
+
+                  MORRISON'S HOTEL, DUBLIN, _Monday, Aug. 23rd, 1858._
+
+We had a nasty crossing here. We left Holyhead at one in the morning,
+and got here at six. Arthur was incessantly sick the whole way. I was
+not sick at all, but was in as healthy a condition otherwise as humanity
+need be. We are in a beautiful hotel. Our sitting-room is exactly like
+the drawing-room at the Peschiere in all its dimensions. I never saw two
+rooms so exactly resembling one another in their proportions. Our
+bedrooms too are excellent, and there are baths and all sorts of
+comforts.
+
+The Lord Lieutenant is away, and the place looks to me as if its
+professional life were away too. Nevertheless, there are numbers of
+people in the streets. Somehow, I hardly seem to think we are going to
+do enormously here; but I have scarcely any reason for supposing so
+(except that a good many houses are shut up); and I _know_ nothing about
+it, for Arthur is now gone to the agent and to the room. The men came by
+boat direct from Liverpool. They had a rough passage, were all ill, and
+did not get here till noon yesterday. Donnybrook Fair, or what remains
+of it, is going on, within two or three miles of Dublin. They went out
+there yesterday in a jaunting-car, and John described it to us at
+dinner-time (with his eyebrows lifted up, and his legs well asunder), as
+"Johnny Brooks's Fair;" at which Arthur, who was drinking bitter ale,
+nearly laughed himself to death. Berry is always unfortunate, and when I
+asked what had happened to Berry on board the steamboat, it appeared
+that "an Irish gentleman which was drunk, and fancied himself the
+captain, wanted to knock Berry down."
+
+I am surprised by finding this place very much larger than I had
+supposed it to be. Its bye-parts are bad enough, but cleaner, too, than
+I had supposed them to be, and certainly very much cleaner than the old
+town of Edinburgh. The man who drove our jaunting-car yesterday hadn't a
+piece in his coat as big as a penny roll, and had had his hat on
+(apparently without brushing it) ever since he was grown up. But he was
+remarkably intelligent and agreeable, with something to say about
+everything. For instance, when I asked him what a certain building was,
+he didn't say "courts of law" and nothing else, but: "Av you plase, sir,
+it's the foor coorts o' looyers, where Misther O'Connell stood his trial
+wunst, ye'll remimber, sir, afore I tell ye of it." When we got into the
+Phoenix Park, he looked round him as if it were his own, and said:
+"THAT'S a park, sir, av yer plase." I complimented it, and he said:
+"Gintlemen tills me as they'r bin, sir, over Europe, and never see a
+park aqualling ov it. 'Tis eight mile roond, sir, ten mile and a half
+long, and in the month of May the hawthorn trees are as beautiful as
+brides with their white jewels on. Yonder's the vice-regal lodge, sir;
+in them two corners lives the two sicretirries, wishing I was them, sir.
+There's air here, sir, av yer plase! There's scenery here, sir! There's
+mountains--thim, sir! Yer coonsider it a park, sir? It is that, sir!"
+
+You should have heard John in my bedroom this morning endeavouring to
+imitate a bath-man, who had resented his interference, and had said as
+to the shower-bath: "Yer'll not be touching _that_, young man. Divil a
+touch yer'll touch o' that insthrument, young man!" It was more
+ridiculously unlike the reality than I can express to you, yet he was so
+delighted with his powers that he went off in the absurdest little
+gingerbeery giggle, backing into my portmanteau all the time.
+
+My dear love to Katie and to Georgy, also to the noble Plorn and all the
+boys. I shall write to Katie next, and then to Aunty. My cold, I am
+happy to report, is very much better. I lay in the wet all night on
+deck, on board the boat, but am not as yet any the worse for it. Arthur
+was quite insensible when we got to Dublin, and stared at our luggage
+without in the least offering to claim it. He left his kindest love for
+all before he went out. I will keep the envelope open until he comes in.
+
+                             Ever, my dearest Mamie,
+                                        Your most affectionate Father.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Hogarth.]
+
+               MORRISON'S HOTEL, DUBLIN, _Wednesday, Aug. 25th, 1858._
+
+I begin my letter to you to-day, though I don't know when I may send it
+off. We had a very good house last night, after all, that is to say, a
+great rush of shillings and good half-crowns, though the stalls were
+comparatively few. For "Little Dombey," this morning, we have an immense
+stall let--already more than two hundred--and people are now fighting in
+the agent's shop to take more. Through some mistake of our printer's,
+the evening reading for this present Wednesday was dropped, in a great
+part of the announcements, and the agent opened no plan for it. I have
+therefore resolved not to have it at all. Arthur Smith has waylaid me
+in all manner of ways, but I remain obdurate. I am frightfully tired,
+and really relieved by the prospect of an evening--overjoyed.
+
+They were a highly excitable audience last night, but they certainly did
+not comprehend--internally and intellectually comprehend--"The Chimes"
+as a London audience do. I am quite sure of it. I very much doubt the
+Irish capacity of receiving the pathetic; but of their quickness as to
+the humorous there can be no doubt. I shall see how they go along with
+Little Paul, in his death, presently.
+
+While I was at breakfast this morning, a general officer was announced
+with great state--having a staff at the door--and came in, booted and
+plumed, and covered with Crimean decorations. It was Cunninghame, whom
+we knew in Genoa--then a captain. He was very hearty indeed, and came to
+ask me to dinner. Of course I couldn't go. Olliffe has a brother at
+Cork, who has just now (noon) written to me, proposing dinners and
+excursions in that neighbourhood which would fill about a week; I being
+there a day and a half, and reading three times. The work will be very
+severe here, and I begin to feel depressed by it. (By "here," I mean
+Ireland generally, please to observe.)
+
+We meant, as I said in a letter to Katie, to go to Queenstown yesterday
+and bask on the seashore. But there is always so much to do that we
+couldn't manage it after all. We expect a tremendous house to-morrow
+night as well as to-day; and Arthur is at the present instant up to his
+eyes in business (and seats), and, between his regret at losing
+to-night, and his desire to make the room hold twice as many as it
+_will_ hold, is half distracted. I have become a wonderful
+Irishman--must play an Irish part some day--and his only relaxation is
+when I enact "John and the Boots," which I consequently do enact all day
+long. The papers are full of remarks upon my white tie, and describe it
+as being of enormous size, which is a wonderful delusion, because, as
+you very well know, it is a small tie. Generally, I am happy to report,
+the Emerald press is in favour of my appearance, and likes my eyes. But
+one gentleman comes out with a letter at Cork, wherein he says that
+although only forty-six I look like an old man. _He_ is a rum customer,
+I think.
+
+The Rutherfords are living here, and wanted me to dine with them, which,
+I needn't say, could not be done; all manner of people have called, but
+I have seen only two. John has given it up altogether as to rivalry with
+the Boots, and did not come into my room this morning at all. Boots
+appeared triumphant and alone. He was waiting for me at the hotel-door
+last night. "Whaa't sart of a hoose, sur?" he asked me. "Capital." "The
+Lard be praised fur the 'onor o' Dooblin!"
+
+Arthur buys bad apples in the streets and brings them home and doesn't
+eat them, and then I am obliged to put them in the balcony because they
+make the room smell faint. Also he meets countrymen with honeycomb on
+their heads, and leads them (by the buttonhole when they have one) to
+this gorgeous establishment and requests the bar to buy honeycomb for
+his breakfast; then it stands upon the sideboard uncovered and the flies
+fall into it. He buys owls, too, and castles, and other horrible
+objects, made in bog-oak (that material which is not appreciated at
+Gad's Hill); and he is perpetually snipping pieces out of newspapers and
+sending them all over the world. While I am reading he conducts the
+correspondence, and his great delight is to show me seventeen or
+eighteen letters when I come, exhausted, into the retiring-place. Berry
+has not got into any particular trouble for forty-eight hours, except
+that he is all over boils. I have prescribed the yeast, but
+ineffectually. It is indeed a sight to see him and John sitting in
+pay-boxes, and surveying Ireland out of pigeon-holes.
+
+                                       _Same Evening before Bed-time._
+
+Everybody was at "Little Dombey" to-day, and although I had some little
+difficulty to work them up in consequence of the excessive crowding of
+the place, and the difficulty of shaking the people into their seats,
+the effect was unmistakable and profound. The crying was universal, and
+they were extraordinarily affected. There is no doubt we could stay here
+a week with that one reading, and fill the place every night. Hundreds
+of people have been there to-night, under the impression that it would
+come off again. It was a most decided and complete success.
+
+Arthur has been imploring me to stop here on the Friday after Limerick,
+and read "Little Dombey" again. But I have positively said "No." The
+work is too hard. It is not like doing it in one easy room, and always
+the same room. With a different place every night, and a different
+audience with its own peculiarity every night, it is a tremendous
+strain. I was sick of it to-day before I began, then got myself into
+wonderful train.
+
+Here follows a dialogue (but it requires imitation), which I had
+yesterday morning with a little boy of the house--landlord's son, I
+suppose--about Plorn's age. I am sitting on the sofa writing, and find
+him sitting beside me.
+
+        INIMITABLE. Holloa, old chap.
+
+        YOUNG IRELAND. Hal-loo!
+
+        INIMITABLE (_in his delightful way_). What a
+        nice old fellow you are. I am very fond of
+        little boys.
+
+        YOUNG IRELAND. Air yer? Ye'r right.
+
+        INIMITABLE. What do you learn, old fellow?
+
+        YOUNG IRELAND (_very intent on Inimitable, and
+        always childish, except in his brogue_). I
+        lairn wureds of three sillibils, and wureds of
+        two sillibils, and wureds of one sillibil.
+
+        INIMITABLE (_gaily_). Get out, you humbug! You
+        learn only words of one syllable.
+
+        YOUNG IRELAND (_laughs heartily_). You may say
+        that it is mostly wureds of one sillibil.
+
+        INIMITABLE. Can you write?
+
+        YOUNG IRELAND. Not yet. Things comes by
+        deegrays.
+
+        INIMITABLE. Can you cipher?
+
+        YOUNG IRELAND (_very quickly_). Wha'at's that?
+
+        INIMITABLE. Can you make figures?
+
+        YOUNG IRELAND. I can make a nought, which is
+        not asy, being roond.
+
+        INIMITABLE. I say, old boy, wasn't it you I saw
+        on Sunday morning in the hall, in a soldier's
+        cap? You know--in a soldier's cap?
+
+        YOUNG IRELAND (_cogitating deeply_). Was it a
+        very good cap?
+
+        INIMITABLE. Yes.
+
+        YOUNG IRELAND. Did it fit unkommon?
+
+        INIMITABLE. Yes.
+
+        YOUNG IRELAND. Dat was me!
+
+There are two stupid old louts at the room, to show people into their
+places, whom John calls "them two old Paddies," and of whom he says,
+that he "never see nothing like them (snigger) hold idiots" (snigger).
+They bow and walk backwards before the grandees, and our men hustle them
+while they are doing it.
+
+We walked out last night, with the intention of going to the theatre;
+but the Piccolomini establishment (they were doing the "Lucia") looked
+so horribly like a very bad jail, and the Queen's looked so
+blackguardly, that we came back again, and went to bed. I seem to be
+always either in a railway carriage, or reading, or going to bed. I get
+so knocked up, whenever I have a minute to remember it, that then I go
+to bed as a matter of course.
+
+I send my love to the noble Plorn, and to all the boys. To dear Mamie
+and Katie, and to yourself of course, in the first degree. I am looking
+forward to the last Irish reading on Thursday, with great impatience.
+But when we shall have turned this week, once knocked off Belfast, I
+shall see land, and shall (like poor Timber in the days of old) "keep up
+a good heart." I get so wonderfully hot every night in my dress clothes,
+that they positively won't dry in the short interval they get, and I
+have been obliged to write to Doudney's to make me another suit, that I
+may have a constant change.
+
+                         Ever, my dearest Georgy, most affectionately.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Dickens.]
+
+                                 BELFAST, _Saturday, Aug. 28th, 1858._
+
+When I went down to the Rotunda at Dublin on Thursday night, I said to
+Arthur, who came rushing at me: "You needn't tell me. I know all about
+it." The moment I had come out of the door of the hotel (a mile off), I
+had come against the stream of people turned away. I had struggled
+against it to the room. There, the crowd in all the lobbies and passages
+was so great, that I had a difficulty in getting in. They had broken all
+the glass in the pay-boxes. They had offered frantic prices for stalls.
+Eleven bank-notes were thrust into that pay-box (Arthur saw them) at one
+time, for eleven stalls. Our men were flattened against walls, and
+squeezed against beams. Ladies stood all night with their chins against
+my platform. Other ladies sat all night upon my steps. You never saw
+such a sight. And the reading went tremendously! It is much to be
+regretted that we troubled ourselves to go anywhere else in Ireland. We
+turned away people enough to make immense houses for a week.
+
+We arrived here yesterday at two. The room will not hold more than from
+eighty to ninety pounds. The same scene was repeated with the additional
+feature, that the people are much rougher here than in Dublin, and that
+there was a very great uproar at the opening of the doors, which, the
+police in attendance being quite inefficient and only looking on, it was
+impossible to check. Arthur was in the deepest misery because shillings
+got into stalls, and half-crowns got into shillings, and stalls got
+nowhere, and there was immense confusion. It ceased, however, the moment
+I showed myself; and all went most brilliantly, in spite of a great
+piece of the cornice of the ceiling falling with a great crash within
+four or five inches of the head of a young lady on my platform (I was
+obliged to have people there), and in spite of my gas suddenly going out
+at the time of the game of forfeits at Scrooge's nephew's, through some
+Belfastian gentleman accidentally treading on the flexible pipe, and
+needing to be relighted.
+
+We shall not get to Cork before mid-day on Monday; it being difficult to
+get from here on a Sunday. We hope to be able to start away to-morrow
+morning to see the Giant's Causeway (some sixteen miles off), and in
+that case we shall sleep at Dublin to-morrow night, leaving here by the
+train at half-past three in the afternoon. Dublin, you must understand,
+is on the way to Cork. This is a fine place, surrounded by lofty hills.
+The streets are very wide, and the place is very prosperous. The whole
+ride from Dublin here is through a very picturesque and various country;
+and the amazing thing is, that it is all particularly neat and orderly,
+and that the houses (outside at all events) are all brightly whitewashed
+and remarkably clean. I want to climb one of the neighbouring hills
+before this morning's "Dombey." I am now waiting for Arthur, who has
+gone to the bank to remit his last accumulation of treasure to London.
+
+Our men are rather indignant with the Irish crowds, because in the
+struggle they don't sell books, and because, in the pressure, they can't
+force a way into the room afterwards to sell them. They are deeply
+interested in the success, however, and are as zealous and ardent as
+possible. I shall write to Katie next. Give her my best love, and kiss
+the darling Plorn for me, and give my love to all the boys.
+
+                       Ever, my dearest Mamie,
+                                        Your most affectionate Father.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Hogarth.]
+
+            MORRISON'S HOTEL, DUBLIN, _Sunday Night, Aug. 29th, 1858._
+
+I am so delighted to find your letter here to-night (eleven o'clock),
+and so afraid that, in the wear and tear of this strange life, I have
+written to Gad's Hill in the wrong order, and have not written to you,
+as I should, that I resolve to write this before going to bed. You will
+find it a wretchedly stupid letter; but you may imagine, my dearest
+girl, that I am tired.
+
+The success at Belfast has been equal to the success here. Enormous! We
+turned away half the town. I think them a better audience, on the whole,
+than Dublin; and the personal affection there was something
+overwhelming. I wish you and the dear girls could have seen the people
+look at me in the street; or heard them ask me, as I hurried to the
+hotel after reading last night, to "do me the honour to shake hands,
+Misther Dickens, and God bless you, sir; not ounly for the light you've
+been to me this night, but for the light you've been in mee house, sir
+(and God love your face), this many a year." Every night, by-the-bye,
+since I have been in Ireland, the ladies have beguiled John out of the
+bouquet from my coat. And yesterday morning, as I had showered the
+leaves from my geranium in reading "Little Dombey," they mounted the
+platform, after I was gone, and picked them all up as keepsakes!
+
+I have never seen _men_ go in to cry so undisguisedly as they did at
+that reading yesterday afternoon. They made no attempt whatever to hide
+it, and certainly cried more than the women. As to the "Boots" at night,
+and "Mrs. Gamp" too, it was just one roar with me and them; for they
+made me laugh so that sometimes I _could not_ compose my face to go on.
+
+You must not let the new idea of poor dear Landor efface the former
+image of the fine old man. I wouldn't blot him out, in his tender
+gallantry, as he sat upon that bed at Forster's that night, for a
+million of wild mistakes at eighty years of age.
+
+I hope to be at Tavistock House before five o'clock next Saturday
+morning, and to lie in bed half the day, and come home by the 10.50 on
+Sunday.
+
+Tell the girls that Arthur and I have each ordered at Belfast a trim,
+sparkling, slap-up _Irish jaunting-car_!!! I flatter myself we shall
+astonish the Kentish people. It is the oddest carriage in the world, and
+you are always falling off. But it is gay and bright in the highest
+degree. Wonderfully Neapolitan.
+
+What with a sixteen mile ride before we left Belfast, and a sea-beach
+walk, and a two o'clock dinner, and a seven hours' railway ride since, I
+am--as we say here--"a thrifle weary." But I really am in wonderful
+force, considering the work. For which I am, as I ought to be, very
+thankful.
+
+Arthur was exceedingly unwell last night--could not cheer up at all. He
+was so very unwell that he left the hall(!) and became invisible after
+my five minutes' rest. I found him at the hotel in a jacket and
+slippers, and with a hot bath just ready. He was in the last stage of
+prostration. The local agent was with me, and proposed that he (the
+wretched Arthur) should go to his office and balance the accounts then
+and there. He went, in the jacket and slippers, and came back in twenty
+minutes, _perfectly well_, in consequence of the admirable balance. He
+is now sitting opposite to me ON THE BAG OF SILVER, forty pounds (it
+must be dreadfully hard), writing to Boulogne.
+
+I suppose it is clear that the next letter I write is Katie's. Either
+from Cork or from Limerick, it shall report further. At Limerick I read
+in the theatre, there being no other place.
+
+Best love to Mamie and Katie, and dear Plorn, and all the boys left when
+this comes to Gad's Hill; also to my dear good Anne, and her little
+woman.
+
+                                                  Ever affectionately.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. W. Wilkie Collins.]
+
+                      GAD'S HILL PLACE, HIGHAM BY ROCHESTER, KENT,
+                                            _Monday, Sept. 6th, 1858._
+
+MY DEAR WILKIE,
+
+First, let me report myself here for something less than eight-and-forty
+hours. I come last (and direct--a pretty hard journey) from Limerick.
+The success in Ireland has been immense.
+
+The work is very hard, sometimes overpowering; but I am none the worse
+for it, and arrived here quite fresh.
+
+Secondly, will you let me recommend the enclosed letter from Wigan, as
+the groundwork of a capital article, in your way, for H. W.? There is
+not the least objection to a plain reference to him, or to Phelps, to
+whom the same thing happened a year or two ago, near Islington, in the
+case of a clever and capital little daughter of his. I think it a
+capital opportunity for a discourse on gentility, with a glance at those
+other schools which advertise that the "sons of gentlemen only" are
+admitted, and a just recognition of the greater liberality of our public
+schools. There are tradesmen's sons at Eton, and Charles Kean was at
+Eton, and Macready (also an actor's son) was at Rugby. Some such title
+as "Scholastic Flunkeydom," or anything infinitely contemptuous, would
+help out the meaning. Surely such a schoolmaster must swallow all the
+silver forks that the pupils are expected to take when they come, and
+are not expected to take away with them when they go. And of course he
+could not exist, unless he had flunkey customers by the dozen.
+
+Secondly--no, this is thirdly now--about the Christmas number. I have
+arranged so to stop my readings, as to be available for it on _the 15th
+of November_, which will leave me time to write a good article, if I
+clear my way to one. Do you see your way to our making a Christmas
+number of this idea that I am going very briefly to hint? Some
+disappointed person, man or woman, prematurely disgusted with the world,
+for some reason or no reason (the person should be young, I think)
+retires to an old lonely house, or an old lonely mill, or anything you
+like, with one attendant, resolved to shut out the world, and hold no
+communion with it. The one attendant sees the absurdity of the idea,
+pretends to humour it, but really thus to slaughter it. Everything that
+happens, everybody that comes near, every breath of human interest that
+floats into the old place from the village, or the heath, or the four
+cross-roads near which it stands, and from which belated travellers
+stray into it, shows beyond mistake that you can't shut out the world;
+that you are in it, to be of it; that you get into a false position the
+moment you try to sever yourself from it; and that you must mingle with
+it, and make the best of it, and make the best of yourself into the
+bargain.
+
+If we could plot out a way of doing this together, I would not be afraid
+to take my part. If we could not, could we plot out a way of doing it,
+and taking in stories by other hands? If we could not do either (but I
+think we could), shall we fall back upon a round of stories again? That
+I would rather not do, if possible. Will you think about it?
+
+And can you come and dine at Tavistock House _on Monday, the 20th
+September, at half-past five_? I purpose being at home there with the
+girls that day.
+
+Answer this, according to my printed list for the week. I am off to
+Huddersfield on Wednesday morning.
+
+I think I will now leave off; merely adding that I have got a splendid
+brogue (it really is exactly like the people), and that I think of
+coming out as the only legitimate successor of poor Power.
+
+                           Ever, my dear Wilkie, affectionately yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Mary Boyle.]
+
+                      STATION HOTEL, YORK, _Friday, Sept. 10th, 1858._
+
+DEAREST MEERY,
+
+First let me tell you that all the magicians and spirits in your employ
+have fulfilled the instructions of their wondrous mistress to
+admiration. Flowers have fallen in my path wherever I have trod; and
+when they rained upon me at Cork I was more amazed than you ever saw me.
+
+Secondly, receive my hearty and loving thanks for that same. (Excuse a
+little Irish in the turn of that sentence, but I can't help it).
+
+Thirdly, I have written direct to Mr. Boddington, explaining that I am
+bound to be in Edinburgh on the day when he courteously proposes to do
+me honour.
+
+I really cannot tell you how truly and tenderly I feel your letter, and
+how gratified I am by its contents. Your truth and attachment are
+always so precious to me that I can_not_ get my heart out on my sleeve
+to show it you. It is like a child, and, at the sound of some familiar
+voices, "goes and hides."
+
+You know what an affection I have for Mrs. Watson, and how happy it made
+me to see her again--younger, much, than when I first knew her in
+Switzerland.
+
+God bless you always!
+
+                                            Ever affectionately yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Hogarth.]
+
+                 ROYAL HOTEL, SCARBOROUGH, _Sunday, Sept. 11th, 1858._
+
+MY DEAREST GEORGY,
+
+We had a very fine house indeed at York. All kinds of applications have
+been made for another reading there, and no doubt it would be
+exceedingly productive; but it cannot be done. At Harrogate yesterday;
+the queerest place, with the strangest people in it, leading the oddest
+lives of dancing, newspaper reading, and tables d'hôte. The piety of
+York obliging us to leave that place for this at six this morning, and
+there being no night train from Harrogate, we had to engage a special
+engine. We got to bed at one, and were up again before five; which,
+after yesterday's fatigues, leaves me a little worn out at this present.
+
+I have no accounts of this place as yet, nor have I received any letter
+here. But the post of this morning is not yet delivered, I believe. We
+have a charming room, overlooking the sea. Leech is here (living within
+a few doors), with the partner of his bosom, and his young family. I
+write at ten in the morning, having been here two hours; and you will
+readily suppose that I have not seen him.
+
+Of news, I have not the faintest breath. I seem to have been doing
+nothing all my life but riding in railway-carriages and reading. The
+railway of the morning brought us through Castle Howard, and under the
+woods of Easthorpe, and then just below Malton Abbey, where I went to
+poor Smithson's funeral. It was a most lovely morning, and, tired as I
+was, I couldn't sleep for looking out of window.
+
+Yesterday, at Harrogate, two circumstances occurred which gave Arthur
+great delight. Firstly, he chafed his legs sore with his black bag of
+silver. Secondly, the landlord asked him as a favour, "If he could
+oblige him with a little silver." He obliged him directly with some
+forty pounds' worth; and I suspect the landlord to have repented of
+having approached the subject. After the reading last night we walked
+over the moor to the railway, three miles, leaving our men to follow
+with the luggage in a light cart. They passed us just short of the
+railway, and John was making the night hideous and terrifying the
+sleeping country, by _playing the horn_ in prodigiously horrible and
+unmusical blasts.
+
+My dearest love, of course, to the dear girls, and to the noble Plorn.
+Apropos of children, there was one gentleman at the "Little Dombey"
+yesterday morning, who exhibited, or rather concealed, the profoundest
+grief. After crying a good deal without hiding it, he covered his face
+with both his hands, and laid it down on the back of the seat before
+him, and really shook with emotion. He was not in mourning, but I
+supposed him to have lost some child in old time. There was a remarkably
+good fellow of thirty or so, too, who found something so very ludicrous
+in "Toots," that he _could not_ compose himself at all, but laughed
+until he sat wiping his eyes with his handkerchief. And whenever he felt
+"Toots" coming again he began to laugh and wipe his eyes afresh, and
+when he came he gave a kind of cry, as if it were too much for him. It
+was uncommonly droll, and made me laugh heartily.
+
+                            Ever, dear Georgy, your most affectionate.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Dickens.]
+
+               SCARBOROUGH ARMS, LEEDS, _Wednesday, Sept. 15th, 1858._
+
+MY DEAREST MAMIE,
+
+I have added a pound to the cheque. I would recommend your seeing the
+poor railway man again and giving him ten shillings, and telling him to
+let you see him again in about a week. If he be then still unable to
+lift weights and handle heavy things, I would then give him another ten
+shillings, and so on.
+
+Since I wrote to Georgy from Scarborough, we have had, thank God,
+nothing but success. The Hull people (not generally considered
+excitable, even on their own showing) were so enthusiastic, that we were
+obliged to promise to go back there for two readings. I have positively
+resolved not to lengthen out the time of my tour, so we are now
+arranging to drop some small places, and substitute Hull again and York
+again. But you will perhaps have heard this in the main from Arthur. I
+know he wrote to you after the reading last night. This place I have
+always doubted, knowing that we should come here when it was recovering
+from the double excitement of the festival and the Queen. But there is a
+very large hall let indeed, and the prospect of to-night consequently
+looks bright.
+
+Arthur told you, I suppose, that he had his shirt-front and waistcoat
+torn off last night? He was perfectly enraptured in consequence. Our men
+got so knocked about that he gave them five shillings apiece on the
+spot. John passed several minutes upside down against a wall, with his
+head amongst the people's boots. He came out of the difficulty in an
+exceedingly touzled condition, and with his face much flushed. For all
+this, and their being packed as you may conceive they would be packed,
+they settled down the instant I went in, and never wavered in the
+closest attention for an instant. It was a very high room, and required
+a great effort.
+
+Oddly enough, I slept in this house three days last year with Wilkie.
+Arthur has the bedroom I occupied then, and I have one two doors from
+it, and Gordon has the one between. Not only is he still with us, but he
+_has_ talked of going on to Manchester, going on to London, and coming
+back with us to Darlington next Tuesday!!!
+
+These streets look like a great circus with the season just finished.
+All sorts of garish triumphal arches were put up for the Queen, and they
+have got smoky, and have been looked out of countenance by the sun, and
+are blistered and patchy, and half up and half down, and are hideous to
+behold. Spiritless men (evidently drunk for some time in the royal
+honour) are slowly removing them, and on the whole it is more like the
+clearing away of "The Frozen Deep" at Tavistock House than anything
+within your knowledge--with the exception that we are not in the least
+sorry, as we were then. Vague ideas are in Arthur's head that when we
+come back to Hull, we are to come here, and are to have the Town Hall (a
+beautiful building), and read to the million. I can't say yet. That
+depends. I remember that when I was here before (I came from Rockingham
+to make a speech), I thought them a dull and slow audience. I hope I may
+have been mistaken. I never saw better audiences than the Yorkshire
+audiences generally.
+
+I am so perpetually at work or asleep, that I have not a scrap of news.
+I saw the Leech family at Scarboro', both in my own house (that is to
+say, hotel) and in theirs. They were not at either reading. Scarboro' is
+gay and pretty, and I think Gordon had an idea that we were always at
+some such place.
+
+Kiss the darling Plorn for me, and give him my love; dear Katie too,
+giving her the same. I feel sorry that I cannot get down to Gad's Hill
+this next time, but I shall look forward to our being there with Georgy,
+after Scotland. Tell the servants that I remember them, and hope they
+will live with us many years.
+
+                              Ever, my dearest Mamie,
+                                        Your most affectionate Father.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Hogarth.]
+
+                   KING'S HEAD, SHEFFIELD, _Friday, Sept. 17th, 1858._
+
+I write you a few lines to Tavistock House, thinking you may not be
+sorry to find a note from me there on your arrival from Gad's Hill.
+
+Halifax was too small for us. I never saw such an audience though. They
+were really worth reading to for nothing, though I didn't do exactly
+that. It is as horrible a place as I ever saw, I think.
+
+The run upon the tickets here is so immense that Arthur is obliged to
+get great bills out, signifying that no more can be sold. It will be by
+no means easy to get into the place the numbers who have already paid.
+It is the hall we acted in. Crammed to the roof and the passages. We
+must come back here towards the end of October, and are again altering
+the list and striking out small places.
+
+The trains are so strange and unintelligible in this part of the country
+that we were obliged to leave Halifax at eight this morning, and
+breakfast on the road--at Huddersfield again, where we had an hour's
+wait. Wills was in attendance on the platform, and took me (here at
+Sheffield, I mean) out to Frederick Lehmann's house to see Mrs. Wills.
+She looked pretty much the same as ever, I thought, and was taking care
+of a very pretty little boy. The house and grounds are as nice as
+anything _can_ be in this smoke. A heavy thunderstorm is passing over
+the town, and it is raining hard too.
+
+This is a stupid letter, my dearest Georgy, but I write in a hurry, and
+in the thunder and lightning, and with the crowd of to-night before me.
+
+                                             Ever most affectionately.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Hogarth.]
+
+                               STATION HOTEL, NEWCASTLE-ON-TYNE,
+                                           _Sunday, Sept. 26th, 1858._
+
+                              EXTRACT.
+
+The girls (as I have no doubt they have already told you for themselves)
+arrived here in good time yesterday, and in very fresh condition. They
+persisted in going to the room last night, though I had arranged for
+their remaining quiet.
+
+We have done a vast deal here. I suppose you know that we are going to
+Berwick, and that we mean to sleep there and go on to Edinburgh on
+Monday morning, arriving there before noon? If it be as fine to-morrow
+as it is to-day, the girls will see the coast piece of railway between
+Berwick and Edinburgh to great advantage. I was anxious that they
+should, because that kind of pleasure is really almost the only one they
+are likely to have in their present trip.
+
+Stanfield and Roberts are in Edinburgh, and the Scottish Royal Academy
+gave them a dinner on Wednesday, to which I was very pressingly
+invited. But, of course, my going was impossible. I read twice that day.
+
+Remembering what you do of Sunderland, you will be surprised that our
+profit there was very considerable. I read in a beautiful new theatre,
+and (I thought to myself) quite wonderfully. Such an audience I never
+beheld for rapidity and enthusiasm. The room in which we acted
+(converted into a theatre afterwards) was burnt to the ground a year or
+two ago. We found the hotel, so bad in our time, really good. I walked
+from Durham to Sunderland, and from Sunderland to Newcastle.
+
+Don't you think, as we shall be at home at eleven in the forenoon this
+day fortnight, that it will be best for you and Plornish to come to
+Tavistock House for that Sunday, and for us all to go down to Gad's Hill
+next day? My best love to the noble Plornish. If he is quite reconciled
+to the postponement of his trousers, I should like to behold his first
+appearance in them. But, if not, as he is such a good fellow, I think it
+would be a pity to disappoint and try him.
+
+And now, my dearest Georgy, I think I have said all I have to say before
+I go out for a little air. I had a very hard day yesterday, and am
+tired.
+
+                                          Ever your most affectionate.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. John Forster.]
+
+                       TAVISTOCK HOUSE, TAVISTOCK SQUARE, LONDON,
+                                            _Sunday, Oct. 10th, 1858._
+
+MY DEAR FORSTER,
+
+As to the truth of the readings, I cannot tell you what the
+demonstrations of personal regard and respect are. How the densest and
+most uncomfortably-packed crowd will be hushed in an instant when I show
+my face. How the youth of colleges, and the old men of business in the
+town, seem equally unable to get near enough to me when they cheer me
+away at night. How common people and gentlefolks will stop me in the
+streets and say: "Mr. Dickens, will you let me touch the hand that has
+filled my home with so many friends?" And if you saw the mothers, and
+fathers, and sisters, and brothers in mourning, who invariably come to
+"Little Dombey," and if you studied the wonderful expression of comfort
+and reliance with which they hang about me, as if I had been with them,
+all kindness and delicacy, at their own little death-bed, you would
+think it one of the strangest things in the world.
+
+As to the mere effect, of course I don't go on doing the thing so often
+without carefully observing myself and the people too in every little
+thing, and without (in consequence) greatly improving in it.
+
+At Aberdeen, we were crammed to the street twice in one day. At Perth
+(where I thought when I arrived there literally could be nobody to
+come), the nobility came posting in from thirty miles round, and the
+whole town came and filled an immense hall. As to the effect, if you had
+seen them after Lilian died, in "The Chimes," or when Scrooge woke and
+talked to the boy outside the window, I doubt if you would ever have
+forgotten it. And at the end of "Dombey" yesterday afternoon, in the
+cold light of day, they all got up, after a short pause, gentle and
+simple, and thundered and waved their hats with that astonishing
+heartiness and fondness for me, that for the first time in all my public
+career they took me completely off my legs, and I saw the whole eighteen
+hundred of them reel on one side as if a shock from without had shaken
+the hall.
+
+The dear girls have enjoyed themselves immensely, and their trip has
+been a great success. I hope I told you (but I forget whether I did or
+no) how splendidly Newcastle[4] came out. I am reminded of Newcastle at
+the moment because they joined me there.
+
+I am anxious to get to the end of my readings, and to be at home again,
+and able to sit down and think in my own study. But the fatigue, though
+sometimes very great indeed, hardly tells upon me at all. And although
+all our people, from Smith downwards, have given in, more or less, at
+times, I have never been in the least unequal to the work, though
+sometimes sufficiently disinclined for it. My kindest and best love to
+Mrs. Forster.
+
+                                                  Ever affectionately.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Dickens.]
+
+                        ROYAL HOTEL, DERBY, _Friday, Oct. 22nd, 1858._
+
+MY DEAREST MAMIE,
+
+I am writing in a very poor condition; I have a bad cold all over me,
+pains in my back and limbs, and a very sensitive and uncomfortable
+throat. There was a great draught up some stone steps near me last
+night, and I daresay that caused it.
+
+The weather on my first two nights at Birmingham was so intolerably
+bad--it blew hard, and never left off raining for one single
+moment--that the houses were not what they otherwise would have been. On
+the last night the weather cleared, and we had a grand house.
+
+Last night at Nottingham was almost, if not quite, the most amazing we
+have had. It is not a very large place, and the room is by no means a
+very large one, but three hundred and twenty stalls were let, and all
+the other tickets were sold.
+
+Here we have two hundred and twenty stalls let for to-night, and the
+other tickets are gone in proportion. It is a pretty room, but not
+large.
+
+I have just been saying to Arthur that if there is not a large let for
+York, I would rather give it up, and get Monday at Gad's Hill. We have
+telegraphed to know. If the answer comes (as I suppose it will) before
+post time, I will tell you in a postscript what we decide to do. Coming
+to London in the night of to-morrow (Saturday), and having to see Mr.
+Ouvry on Sunday, and having to start for York early on Monday, I fear I
+should not be able to get to Gad's Hill at all. You won't expect me till
+you see me.
+
+Arthur and I have considered Plornish's joke in all the immense number
+of aspects in which it presents itself to reflective minds. We have come
+to the conclusion that it is the best joke ever made. Give the dear boy
+my love, and the same to Georgy, and the same to Katey, and take the
+same yourself. Arthur (excessively low and inarticulate) mutters that he
+"unites."
+
+[We knocked up Boylett, Berry, and John so frightfully yesterday, by
+tearing the room to pieces and altogether reversing it, as late as four
+o'clock, that we gave them a supper last night. They shine all over
+to-day, as if it had been entirely composed of grease.]
+
+                          Ever, my dearest Mamie,
+                                        Your most affectionate Father.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Hogarth.]
+
+                           WOLVERHAMPTON, _Wednesday, Nov. 3rd, 1858._
+
+Little Leamington came out in the most amazing manner yesterday--turned
+away hundreds upon hundreds of people. They are represented as the
+dullest and worst of audiences. I found them very good indeed, even in
+the morning.
+
+There awaited me at the hotel, a letter from the Rev. Mr. Young,
+Wentworth Watson's tutor, saying that Mrs. Watson wished her boy to
+shake hands with me, and that he would bring him in the evening. I
+expected him at the hotel before the readings. But he did not come. He
+spoke to John about it in the room at night. The crowd and confusion,
+however, were very great, and I saw nothing of him. In his letter he
+said that Mrs. Watson was at Paris on her way home, and would be at
+Brighton at the end of this week. I suppose I shall see her there at the
+end of next week.
+
+We find a let of two hundred stalls here, which is very large for this
+place. The evening being fine too, and blue being to be seen in the sky
+beyond the smoke, we expect to have a very full hall. Tell Mamey and
+Katey that if they had been with us on the railway to-day between
+Leamington and this place, they would have seen (though it is only an
+hour and ten minutes by the express) fires and smoke indeed. We came
+through a part of the Black Country that you know, and it looked at its
+blackest. All the furnaces seemed in full blast, and all the coal-pits
+to be working.
+
+It is market-day here, and the ironmasters are standing out in the
+street (where they always hold high change), making such an iron hum and
+buzz, that they confuse me horribly. In addition, there is a bellman
+announcing something--not the readings, I beg to say--and there is an
+excavation being made in the centre of the open place, for a statue, or
+a pump, or a lamp-post, or something or other, round which all the
+Wolverhampton boys are yelling and struggling.
+
+And here is Arthur, begging to have dinner at half-past three instead of
+four, because he foresees "a wiry evening" in store for him. Under which
+complication of distractions, to which a waitress with a tray at this
+moment adds herself, I sink, and leave off.
+
+My best love to the dear girls, and to the noble Plorn, and to you.
+Marguerite and Ellen Stone not forgotten. All yesterday and to-day I
+have been doing everything to the tune of:
+
+        And the day is dark and dreary.
+
+                     Ever, dearest Georgy,
+                                  Your most affectionate and faithful.
+
+P.S.--I hope the brazier is intolerably hot, and half stifles all the
+family. Then, and not otherwise, I shall think it in satisfactory work.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Rev. James White.]
+
+                TAVISTOCK HOUSE, TAVISTOCK SQUARE, LONDON, W. C.,
+                                             _Friday, Nov. 5th, 1858._
+
+MY DEAR WHITE,
+
+May I entreat you to thank Mr. Carter very earnestly and kindly in my
+name, for his proffered hospitality; and, further, to explain to him
+that since my readings began, I have known them to be incompatible with
+all social enjoyments, and have neither set foot in a friend's house nor
+sat down to a friend's table in any one of all the many places I have
+been to, but have rigidly kept myself to my hotels. To this resolution I
+must hold until the last. There is not the least virtue in it. It is a
+matter of stern necessity, and I submit with the worst grace possible.
+
+Will you let me know, either at Southampton or Portsmouth, whether any
+of you, and how many of you, if any, are coming over, so that Arthur
+Smith may reserve good seats? Tell Lotty I hope she does not contemplate
+coming to the morning reading; I always hate it so myself.
+
+Mary and Katey are down at Gad's Hill with Georgy and Plornish, and they
+have Marguerite Power and Ellen Stone staying there. I am sorry to say
+that even my benevolence descries no prospect of their being able to
+come to my native place.
+
+On Saturday week, the 13th, my tour, please God, ends.
+
+My best love to Mrs. White, and to Lotty, and to Clara.
+
+                            Ever, my dear White, affectionately yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. Frank Stone, A.R.A.]
+
+                 TAVISTOCK HOUSE, TAVISTOCK SQUARE, LONDON, W.C.,
+                                            _Monday, Dec. 13th, 1858._
+
+MY DEAR STONE,
+
+Many thanks for these discourses. They are very good, I think, as
+expressing what many men have felt and thought; otherwise not specially
+remarkable. They have one fatal mistake, which is a canker at the foot
+of their ever being widely useful. Half the misery and hypocrisy of the
+Christian world arises (as I take it) from a stubborn determination to
+refuse the New Testament as a sufficient guide in itself, and to force
+the Old Testament into alliance with it--whereof comes all manner of
+camel-swallowing and of gnat-straining. But so to resent this miserable
+error, or to (by any implication) depreciate the divine goodness and
+beauty of the New Testament, is to commit even a worse error. And to
+class Jesus Christ with Mahomet is simply audacity and folly. I might as
+well hoist myself on to a high platform, to inform my disciples that the
+lives of King George the Fourth and of King Alfred the Great belonged to
+one and the same category.
+
+                                                  Ever affectionately.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. B. W. Procter.]
+
+                           TAVISTOCK HOUSE, _Sunday, Dec. 18th, 1858._
+
+MY DEAR PROCTER,
+
+A thousand thanks for the little song. I am charmed with it, and shall
+be delighted to brighten "Household Words" with such a wise and genial
+light. I no more believe that your poetical faculty has gone by, than I
+believe that you have yourself passed to the better land. You and it
+will travel thither in company, rely upon it. So I still hope to hear
+more of the trade-songs, and to learn that the blacksmith has hammered
+out no end of iron into good fashion of verse, like a cunning workman,
+as I know him of old to be.
+
+                               Very faithfully yours, my dear Procter.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[3] Niece to the Rev. W. Harness.
+
+[4] The birthplace of Mr. Forster.
+
+
+
+
+1859.
+
+NARRATIVE.
+
+
+During the winter, Charles Dickens was living at Tavistock House,
+removing to Gad's Hill for the summer early in June, and returning to
+London in November. At this time a change was made in his weekly
+journal. "Household Words" became absolutely his own--Mr. Wills being
+his partner and editor, as before--and was "incorporated with 'All the
+Year Round,'" under which title it was known thenceforth. The office was
+still in Wellington Street, but in a different house. The first number
+with the new name appeared on the 30th April, and it contained the
+opening of "A Tale of Two Cities."
+
+The first letter which follows shows that a proposal for a series of
+readings in America had already been made to him. It was carefully
+considered and abandoned for the time. But the proposal was constantly
+renewed, and the idea never wholly relinquished for many years before he
+actually decided on making so distant a "reading tour."
+
+Mr. Procter contributed to the early numbers of "All the Year Round"
+some very spirited "Songs of the Trades." We give notes from Charles
+Dickens to the veteran poet, both in the last year, and in this year,
+expressing his strong approval of them.
+
+The letter and two notes to Mr. (afterwards Sir Antonio) Panizzi, for
+which we are indebted to Mr. Louis Fagan, one of Sir A. Panizzi's
+executors, show the warm sympathy and interest which he always felt for
+the cause of Italian liberty, and for the sufferings of the State
+prisoners who at this time took refuge in England.
+
+We give a little note to the dear friend and companion of Charles
+Dickens's daughters, "Lotty" White, because it is a pretty specimen of
+his writing, and because the young girl, who is playfully "commanded" to
+get well and strong, died early in July of this year. She was, at the
+time this note was written, first attacked with the illness which was
+fatal to all her sisters. Mamie and Kate Dickens went from Gad's Hill to
+Bonchurch to pay a last visit to their friend, and he writes to his
+eldest daughter there. Also we give notes of loving sympathy and
+condolence to the bereaved father and mother.
+
+In the course of this summer Charles Dickens was not well, and went for
+a week to his old favourite, Broadstairs--where Mr. Wilkie Collins and
+his brother, Mr. Charles Allston Collins, were staying--for sea-air and
+change, preparatory to another reading tour, in England only. His letter
+from Peterborough to Mr. Frank Stone, giving him an account of a reading
+at Manchester (Mr. Stone's native town), was one of the last ever
+addressed to that affectionate friend, who died very suddenly, to the
+great grief of Charles Dickens, in November. The letter to Mr. Thomas
+Longman, which closes this year, was one of introduction to that
+gentleman of young Marcus Stone, then just beginning his career as an
+artist, and to whom the premature death of his father made it doubly
+desirable that he should have powerful helping hands.
+
+Charles Dickens refers, in a letter to Mrs. Watson, to his portrait by
+Mr. Frith, which was finished at the end of 1858. It was painted for Mr.
+Forster, and is now in the "Forster Collection" at South Kensington
+Museum.
+
+The Christmas number of this year, again written by several hands as
+well as his own, was "The Haunted House." In November, his story of "A
+Tale of Two Cities" was finished in "All the Year Round," and in
+December was published, complete, with dedication to Lord John Russell.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. Arthur Smith.]
+
+             TAVISTOCK HOUSE, TAVISTOCK SQUARE, LONDON, W.C.,
+                                         _Wednesday, Jan. 26th, 1859._
+
+MY DEAR ARTHUR,
+
+Will you first read the enclosed letters, having previously welcomed,
+with all possible cordiality, the bearer, Mr. Thomas C. Evans, from New
+York?
+
+You having read them, let me explain that Mr. Fields is a highly
+respectable and influential man, one of the heads of the most classical
+and most respected publishing house in America; that Mr. Richard Grant
+White is a man of high reputation; and that Felton is the Greek
+Professor in their Cambridge University, perhaps the most distinguished
+scholar in the States.
+
+The address to myself, referred to in one of the letters, being on its
+way, it is quite clear that I must give some decided and definite answer
+to the American proposal. Now, will you carefully discuss it with Mr.
+Evans before I enter on it at all? Then, will you dine here with him on
+Sunday--which I will propose to him--and arrange to meet at half-past
+four for an hour's discussion?
+
+The points are these:
+
+First. I have a very grave question within myself whether I could go to
+America at all.
+
+Secondly. If I did go, I could not possibly go before the autumn.
+
+Thirdly. If I did go, how long must I stay?
+
+Fourthly. If the stay were a short one, could _you_ go?
+
+Fifthly. What is his project? What could I make? What occurs to you upon
+his proposal?
+
+I have told him that the business arrangements of the readings have been
+from the first so entirely in your hands, that I enter upon nothing
+connected with them without previous reference to you.
+
+                                                      Ever faithfully.
+
+
+[Sidenote: M. de Cerjat.]
+
+                           TAVISTOCK HOUSE, _Tuesday, Feb. 1st, 1859._
+
+MY DEAR CERJAT,
+
+I received your always welcome annual with even more interest than usual
+this year, being (in common with my two girls and their aunt) much
+excited and pleased by your account of your daughter's engagement. Apart
+from the high sense I have of the affectionate confidence with which you
+tell me what lies so tenderly on your own heart, I have followed the
+little history with a lively sympathy and regard for her. I hope, with
+you, that it is full of promise, and that you will all be happy in it.
+The separation, even in the present condition of travel (and no man can
+say how much the discovery of a day may advance it), is nothing. And so
+God bless her and all of you, and may the rosy summer bring her all the
+fulness of joy that we all wish her.
+
+To pass from the altar to Townshend (which is a long way), let me report
+him severely treated by Bully, who rules him with a paw of iron; and
+complaining, moreover, of indigestion. He drives here every Sunday, but
+at all other times is mostly shut up in his beautiful house, where I
+occasionally go and dine with him _tête-à-tête_, and where we always
+talk of you and drink to you. That is a rule with us from which we never
+depart. He is "seeing a volume of poems through the press;" rather an
+expensive amusement. He has not been out at night (except to this house)
+save last Friday, when he went to hear me read "The Poor Traveller,"
+"Mrs. Gamp," and "The Trial" from "Pickwick." He came into my room at
+St. Martin's Hall, and I fortified him with weak brandy-and-water. You
+will be glad to hear that the said readings are a greater _furore_ than
+they ever have been, and that every night on which they now take
+place--once a week--hundreds go away, unable to get in, though the hall
+holds thirteen hundred people. I dine with ---- to-day, by-the-bye,
+along with his agent; concerning whom I observe him to be always divided
+between an unbounded confidence and a little latent suspicion. He always
+tells me that he is a gem of the first water; oh yes, the best of
+business men! and then says that he did not quite like his conduct
+respecting that farm-tenant and those hay-ricks.
+
+There is a general impression here, among the best-informed, that war in
+Italy, to begin with, is inevitable, and will break out before April. I
+know a gentleman at Genoa (Swiss by birth), deeply in with the
+authorities at Turin, who is already sending children home.
+
+In England we are quiet enough. There is a world of talk, as you know,
+about Reform bills; but I don't believe there is any general strong
+feeling on the subject. According to my perceptions, it is undeniable
+that the public has fallen into a state of indifference about public
+affairs, mainly referable, as I think, to the people who administer
+them--and there I mean the people of all parties--which is a very bad
+sign of the times. The general mind seems weary of debates and
+honourable members, and to have taken _laissez-aller_ for its motto.
+
+My affairs domestic (which I know are not without their interest for
+you) flow peacefully. My eldest daughter is a capital housekeeper, heads
+the table gracefully, delegates certain appropriate duties to her sister
+and her aunt, and they are all three devotedly attached. Charley, my
+eldest boy, remains in Barings' house. Your present correspondent is
+more popular than he ever has been. I rather think that the readings in
+the country have opened up a new public who were outside before; but
+however that may be, his books have a wider range than they ever had,
+and his public welcomes are prodigious. Said correspondent is at present
+overwhelmed with proposals to go and read in America. Will never go,
+unless a small fortune be first paid down in money on this side of the
+Atlantic. Stated the figure of such payment, between ourselves, only
+yesterday. Expects to hear no more of it, and assuredly will never go
+for less. You don't say, my dear Cerjat, when you are coming to England!
+Somehow I feel that this marriage ought to bring you over, though I
+don't know why. You shall have a bed here and a bed at Gad's Hill, and
+we will go and see strange sights together. When I was in Ireland, I
+ordered the brightest jaunting-car that ever was seen. It has just this
+minute arrived per steamer from Belfast. Say you are coming, and you
+shall be the first man turned over by it; somebody must be (for my
+daughter Mary drives anything that can be harnessed, and I know of no
+English horse that would understand a jaunting-car coming down a Kentish
+hill), and you shall be that somebody if you will. They turned the
+basket-phaeton over, last summer, in a bye-road--Mary and the other
+two--and had to get it up again; which they did, and came home as if
+nothing had happened. They send their loves to Mrs. Cerjat, and to you,
+and to all, and particularly to the dear _fiancée_. So do I, with all my
+heart, and am ever your attached and affectionate friend.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. Antonio Panizzi.]
+
+                    TAVISTOCK HOUSE, _Monday Night, March 14th, 1859._
+
+MY DEAR PANIZZI,
+
+If you should feel no delicacy in mentioning, or should see no objection
+to mentioning, to Signor Poerio, or any of the wronged Neapolitan
+gentlemen to whom it is your happiness and honour to be a friend on
+their arrival in this country, an idea that has occurred to me, I should
+regard it as a great kindness in you if you would be my exponent. I
+think you will have no difficulty in believing that I would not, on any
+consideration, obtrude my name or projects upon any one of those noble
+souls, if there were any reason of the slightest kind against it. And if
+you see any such reason, I pray you instantly to banish my letter from
+your thoughts.
+
+It seems to me probable that some narrative of their ten years'
+suffering will, somehow or other, sooner or later, be by some of them
+laid before the English people. The just interest and indignation alive
+here, will (I suppose) elicit it. False narratives and garbled stories
+will, in any case, of a certainty get about. If the true history of the
+matter is to be told, I have that sympathy with them and respect for
+them which would, all other considerations apart, render it unspeakably
+gratifying to me to be the means of its diffusion. What I desire to lay
+before them is simply this. If for my new successor to "Household Words"
+a narrative of their ten years' trial could be written, I would take any
+conceivable pains to have it rendered into English, and presented in the
+sincerest and best way to a very large and comprehensive audience. It
+should be published exactly as you might think best for them, and
+remunerated in any way that you might think generous and right. They
+want no mouthpiece and no introducer, but perhaps they might have no
+objection to be associated with an English writer, who is possibly not
+unknown to them by some general reputation, and who certainly would be
+animated by a strong public and private respect for their honour,
+spirit, and unmerited misfortunes. This is the whole matter; assuming
+that such a thing is to be done, I long for the privilege of helping to
+do it. These gentlemen might consider it an independent means of making
+money, and I should be delighted to pay the money.
+
+In my absence from town, my friend and sub-editor, Mr. Wills (to whom I
+had expressed my feeling on the subject), has seen, I think, three of
+the gentlemen together. But as I hear, returning home to-night, that
+they are in your good hands, and as nobody can be a better judge than
+you of anything that concerns them, I at once decide to write to you and
+to take no other step whatever. Forgive me for the trouble I have
+occasioned you in the reading of this letter, and never think of it
+again if you think that by pursuing it you would cause them an instant's
+uneasiness.
+
+                                    Believe me, very faithfully yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. Antonio Panizzi.]
+
+                         TAVISTOCK HOUSE, _Tuesday, March 15th, 1859._
+
+MY DEAR PANIZZI,
+
+Let me thank you heartily for your kind and prompt letter. I am really
+and truly sensible of your friendliness.
+
+I have not heard from Higgins, but of course I am ready to serve on the
+Committee.
+
+                                              Always faithfully yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. B. W. Procter.]
+
+                        TAVISTOCK HOUSE, _Saturday, March 19th, 1859._
+
+MY DEAR PROCTER,
+
+I think the songs are simply ADMIRABLE! and I have no doubt of this
+being a popular feature in "All the Year Round." I would not omit the
+sexton, and I would not omit the spinners and weavers; and I would omit
+the hack-writers, and (I think) the alderman; but I am not so clear
+about the chorister. The pastoral I a little doubt finding audience for;
+but I am not at all sure yet that my doubt is well founded.
+
+Had I not better send them all to the printer, and let you have proofs
+kept by you for publishing? I shall not have to make up the first number
+of "All the Year Round" until early in April. I don't like to send the
+manuscript back, and I never do like to do so when I get anything that I
+know to be thoroughly, soundly, and unquestionably good. I am hard at
+work upon my story, and expect a magnificent start. With hearty thanks,
+
+                                            Ever yours affectionately.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. Edmund Yates.]
+
+                 TAVISTOCK HOUSE, TAVISTOCK SQUARE, LONDON, W.C.,
+                                          _Tuesday, March 29th, 1859._
+
+MY DEAR EDMUND,
+
+1. I think that no one seeing the place can well doubt that my house at
+Gad's Hill is the place for the letter-box. The wall is accessible by
+all sorts and conditions of men, on the bold high road, and the house
+altogether is the great landmark of the whole neighbourhood. Captain
+Goldsmith's _house_ is up a lane considerably off the high road; but he
+has a garden _wall_ abutting on the road itself.
+
+2. "The Pic-Nic Papers" were originally sold to Colburn, for the benefit
+of the widow of Mr. Macrone, of St. James's Square, publisher, deceased.
+Two volumes were contributed--of course gratuitously--by writers who had
+had transactions with Macrone. Mr. Colburn, wanting three volumes in all
+for trade purposes, added a third, consisting of an American reprint.
+Of that volume I didn't know, and don't know, anything. The other two I
+edited, gratuitously as aforesaid, and wrote the Lamplighter's story in.
+It was all done many years ago. There was a preface originally,
+delicately setting forth how the book came to be.
+
+3. I suppose ---- to be, as Mr. Samuel Weller expresses it somewhere in
+"Pickwick," "ravin' mad with the consciousness o' willany." Under their
+advertisement in _The Times_ to-day, you will see, without a word of
+comment, the shorthand writer's verbatim report of the judgment.
+
+                                                      Ever faithfully.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. Antonio Panizzi.]
+
+             "ALL THE YEAR ROUND" OFFICE, _Thursday, April 7th, 1859._
+
+MY DEAR PANIZZI,
+
+If you don't know, I think you should know that a number of letters are
+passing through the post-office, purporting to be addressed to the
+charitable by "Italian Exiles in London," asking for aid to raise a fund
+for a tribute to "London's Lord Mayor," in grateful recognition of the
+reception of the Neapolitan exiles. I know this to be the case, and have
+no doubt in my own mind that the whole thing is an imposture and a "do."
+The letters are signed "Gratitudine Italiana."
+
+                                                Ever faithfully yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss White.]
+
+                  TAVISTOCK HOUSE, TAVISTOCK SQUARE, LONDON, W.C.,
+                                           _Monday, April 18th, 1859._
+
+MY DEAR LOTTY,
+
+This is merely a notice to you that I must positively insist on your
+getting well, strong, and into good spirits, with the least possible
+delay. Also, that I look forward to seeing you at Gad's Hill sometime in
+the summer, staying with the girls, and heartlessly putting down the
+Plorn You know that there is no appeal from the Plorn's inimitable
+father. What _he_ says must be done. Therefore I send you my love (which
+please take care of), and my commands (which please obey).
+
+                                               Ever your affectionate.
+
+
+[Sidenote: The Hon. Mrs. Watson.]
+
+                  TAVISTOCK HOUSE, TAVISTOCK SQUARE, LONDON, W.C.,
+                                            _Tuesday, May 31st, 1859._
+
+MY DEAR MRS. WATSON,
+
+You surprise me by supposing that there is ever latent a defiant and
+roused expression in the undersigned lamb! Apart from this singular
+delusion of yours, and wholly unaccountable departure from your usual
+accuracy in all things, your satisfaction with the portrait is a great
+pleasure to me. It has received every conceivable pains at Frith's
+hands, and ought on his account to be good. It is a little too much (to
+my thinking) as if my next-door neighbour were my deadly foe, uninsured,
+and I had just received tidings of his house being afire; otherwise very
+good.
+
+I cannot tell you how delighted we shall be if you would come to Gad's
+Hill. You should see some charming woods and a rare old castle, and you
+should have such a snug room looking over a Kentish prospect, with every
+facility in it for pondering on the beauties of its master's beard! _Do_
+come, but you positively _must not_ come and go on the same day.
+
+We retreat there on Monday, and shall be there all the summer.
+
+My small boy is perfectly happy at Southsea, and likes the school very
+much. I had the finest letter two or three days ago, from another of my
+boys--Frank Jeffrey--at Hamburg. In this wonderful epistle he says:
+"Dear papa, I write to tell you that I have given up all thoughts of
+being a doctor. My conviction that I shall never get over my stammering
+is the cause; all professions are barred against me. The only thing I
+should like to be is a gentleman farmer, either at the Cape, in Canada,
+or Australia. With my passage paid, fifteen pounds, a horse, and a
+rifle, I could go two or three hundred miles up country, sow grain, buy
+cattle, and in time be very comfortable."
+
+Considering the consequences of executing the little commission by the
+next steamer, I perceived that the first consequence of the fifteen
+pounds would be that he would be robbed of it--of the horse, that it
+would throw him--and of the rifle, that it would blow his head off;
+which probabilities I took the liberty of mentioning, as being against
+the scheme. With best love from all,
+
+                  Ever believe me, my dear Mrs. Watson,
+                                       Your faithful and affectionate.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mrs. White.]
+
+                            TAVISTOCK HOUSE, _Sunday, June 5th, 1859._
+
+MY DEAR MRS. WHITE,
+
+I do not write to you this morning because I have anything to say--I
+well know where your consolation is set, and to what beneficent figure
+your thoughts are raised--but simply because you are so much in my mind
+that it is a relief to send you and dear White my love. You are always
+in our hearts and on our lips. May the great God comfort you! You know
+that Mary and Katie are coming on Thursday. They will bring dear Lotty
+what she little needs with you by her side--love; and I hope their
+company will interest and please her. There is nothing that they, or any
+of us, would not do for her. She is a part of us all, and has belonged
+to us, as well as to you, these many years.
+
+                                  Ever your affectionate and faithful.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Dickens.]
+
+                          GAD'S HILL, HIGHAM BY ROCHESTER, KENT,
+                                            _Monday, June 11th, 1859._
+
+MY DEAREST MAMIE,
+
+On Saturday night I found, very much to my surprise and pleasure, the
+photograph on my table at Tavistock House. It is not a very pleasant or
+cheerful presentation of my daughters; but it is wonderfully like for
+all that, and in some details remarkably good. When I came home here
+yesterday I tried it in the large Townshend stereoscope, in which it
+shows to great advantage. It is in the little stereoscope at present on
+the drawing-room table. One of the balustrades of the destroyed old
+Rochester bridge has been (very nicely) presented to me by the
+contractor for the works, and has been duly stonemasoned and set up on
+the lawn behind the house. I have ordered a sun-dial for the top of it,
+and it will be a very good object indeed. The Plorn is highly excited
+to-day by reason of an institution which he tells me (after questioning
+George) is called the "Cobb, or Bodderin," holding a festival at The
+Falstaff. He is possessed of some vague information that they go to
+Higham Church, in pursuance of some old usage, and attend service there,
+and afterwards march round the village. It so far looks probable that
+they certainly started off at eleven very spare in numbers, and came
+back considerably recruited, which looks to me like the difference
+between going to church and coming to dinner. They bore no end of bright
+banners and broad sashes, and had a band with a terrific drum, and are
+now (at half-past two) dining at The Falstaff, partly in the side room
+on the ground-floor, and partly in a tent improvised this morning. The
+drum is hung up to a tree in The Falstaff garden, and looks like a
+tropical sort of gourd. I have presented the band with five shillings,
+which munificence has been highly appreciated. Ices don't seem to be
+provided for the ladies in the gallery--I mean the garden; they are
+prowling about there, endeavouring to peep in at the beef and mutton
+through the holes in the tent, on the whole, in a debased and degraded
+manner.
+
+Turk somehow cut his foot in Cobham Lanes yesterday, and Linda hers.
+They are both lame, and looking at each other. Fancy Mr. Townshend not
+intending to go for another three weeks, and designing to come down here
+for a few days--with Henri and Bully--on Wednesday! I wish you could
+have seen him alone with me on Saturday; he was so extraordinarily
+earnest and affectionate on my belongings and affairs in general, and
+not least of all on you and Katie, that he cried in a most pathetic
+manner, and was so affected that I was obliged to leave him among the
+flowerpots in the long passage at the end of the dining-room. It was a
+very good piece of truthfulness and sincerity, especially in one of his
+years, able to take life so easily.
+
+Mr. and Mrs. Wills are here now (but I daresay you know it from your
+aunt), and return to town with me to-morrow morning. We are now going on
+to the castle. Mrs. Wills was very droll last night, and told me some
+good stories. My dear, I wish particularly to impress upon you and dear
+Katie (to whom I send my other best love) that I hope your stay will not
+be very long. I don't think it very good for either of you, though of
+course I know that Lotty will be, and must be, and should be the first
+consideration with you both. I am very anxious to know how you found her
+and how you are yourself.
+
+Best love to dear Lotty and Mrs. White. The same to Mr. White and Clara.
+We are always talking about you all.
+
+                        Ever, dearest Mamie, your affectionate Father.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Rev. James White.]
+
+                      GAD'S HILL PLACE, HIGHAM BY ROCHESTER, KENT,
+                                           _Thursday, July 7th, 1859._
+
+MY DEAR WHITE,
+
+I send my heartiest and most affectionate love to Mrs. White and you,
+and to Clara. You know all that I could add; you have felt it all; let
+it be unspoken and unwritten--it is expressed within us.
+
+Do you not think that you could all three come here, and stay with us?
+You and Mrs. White should have your own large room and your own ways,
+and should be among us when you felt disposed, and never otherwise. I do
+hope you would find peace here. Can it not be done?
+
+We have talked very much about it among ourselves, and the girls are
+strong upon it. Think of it--do!
+
+                                               Ever your affectionate.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. John Forster.]
+
+                        GAD'S HILL, _Thursday Night, Aug. 25th, 1859._
+
+MY DEAR FORSTER,
+
+Heartily glad to get your letter this morning.
+
+I cannot easily tell you how much interested I am by what you tell me of
+our brave and excellent friend the Chief Baron, in connection with that
+ruffian. I followed the case with so much interest, and have followed
+the miserable knaves and asses who have perverted it since, with so much
+indignation, that I have often had more than half a mind to write and
+thank the upright judge who tried him. I declare to God that I believe
+such a service one of the greatest that a man of intellect and courage
+can render to society. Of course I saw the beast of a prisoner (with my
+mind's eye) delivering his cut-and-dried speech, and read in every word
+of it that no one but the murderer could have delivered or conceived
+it. Of course I have been driving the girls out of their wits here, by
+incessantly proclaiming that there needed no medical evidence either
+way, and that the case was plain without it. Lastly, of course (though a
+merciful man--because a merciful man I mean), I would hang any Home
+Secretary (Whig, Tory, Radical, or otherwise) who should step in between
+that black scoundrel and the gallows. I can_not_ believe--and my belief
+in all wrong as to public matters is enormous--that such a thing will be
+done.
+
+I am reminded of Tennyson, by thinking that King Arthur would have made
+short work of the amiable ----, whom the newspapers strangely delight to
+make a sort of gentleman of. How fine the "Idylls" are! Lord! what a
+blessed thing it is to read a man who can write! I thought nothing could
+be grander than the first poem till I came to the third; but when I had
+read the last, it seemed to be absolutely unapproached and
+unapproachable.
+
+To come to myself. I have written and begged the "All the Year Round"
+publisher to send you directly four weeks' proofs beyond the current
+number, that are in type. I hope you will like them. Nothing but the
+interest of the subject, and the pleasure of striving with the
+difficulty of the forms of treatment, nothing in the mere way of money,
+I mean, could also repay the time and trouble of the incessant
+condensation. But I set myself the little task of making a _picturesque_
+story, rising in every chapter with characters true to nature, but whom
+the story itself should express, more than they should express
+themselves, by dialogue. I mean, in other words, that I fancied a story
+of incident might be written, in place of the bestiality that _is_
+written under that pretence, pounding the characters out in its own
+mortar, and beating their own interests out of them. If you could have
+read the story all at once, I hope you wouldn't have stopped halfway.
+
+As to coming to your retreat, my dear Forster, think how helpless I am.
+I am not well yet. I have an instinctive feeling that nothing but the
+sea will restore me, and I am planning to go and work at Ballard's, at
+Broadstairs, from next Wednesday to Monday. I generally go to town on
+Monday afternoon. All Tuesday I am at the office, on Wednesday I come
+back here, and go to work again. I don't leave off till Monday comes
+round once more. I am fighting to get my story done by the first week in
+October. On the 10th of October I am going away to read for a fortnight
+at Ipswich, Norwich, Oxford, Cambridge, and a few other places. Judge
+what my spare time is just now!
+
+I am very much surprised and very sorry to find from the enclosed that
+Elliotson has been ill. I never heard a word of it.
+
+Georgy sends best love to you and to Mrs. Forster, so do I, so does
+Plorn, so does Frank. The girls are, for five days, with the Whites at
+Ramsgate. It is raining, intensely hot, and stormy. Eighteen creatures,
+like little tortoises, have dashed in at the window and fallen on the
+paper since I began this paragraph [Illustration: ink-blot] (that was
+one!). I am a wretched sort of creature in my way, but it is a way that
+gets on somehow. And all ways have the same fingerpost at the head of
+them, and at every turning in them.
+
+                                                  Ever affectionately.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Dickens and Miss Katie Dickens.]
+
+                       ALBION, BROADSTAIRS, _Friday, Sept. 2nd, 1859._
+
+MY DEAREST MAMIE AND KATIE,
+
+I have been "moved" here, and am now (Ballard having added to the hotel
+a house we lived in three years) in our old dining-room and
+sitting-room, and our old drawing-room as a bedroom. My cold is so bad,
+both in my throat and in my chest, that I can't bathe in the sea; Tom
+Collin dissuaded me--thought it "bad"--but I get a heavy shower-bath at
+Mrs. Crampton's every morning. The baths are still hers and her
+husband's, but they have retired and live in "Nuckells"--are going to
+give a stained-glass window, value three hundred pounds, to St. Peter's
+Church. Tom Collin is of opinion that the Miss Dickenses has growed two
+fine young women--leastwise, asking pardon, ladies. An evangelical
+family of most disagreeable girls prowl about here and trip people up
+with tracts, which they put in the paths with stones upon them to keep
+them from blowing away. Charles Collins and I having seen a bill
+yesterday--about a mesmeric young lady who did feats, one of which was
+set forth in the bill, in a line by itself, as
+
+                            THE RIGID LEGS,
+
+--were overpowered with curiosity, and resolved to go. It came off in
+the Assembly Room, now more exquisitely desolate than words can
+describe. Eighteen shillings was the "take." Behind a screen among the
+company, we heard mysterious gurglings of water before the entertainment
+began, and then a slippery sound which occasioned me to whisper C. C.
+(who laughed in the most ridiculous manner), "Soap." It proved to be the
+young lady washing herself. She must have been wonderfully dirty, for
+she took a world of trouble, and didn't come out clean after all--in a
+wretched dirty muslin frock, with blue ribbons. She was the alleged
+mesmeriser, and a boy who distributed bills the alleged mesmerised. It
+was a most preposterous imposition, but more ludicrous than any poor
+sight I ever saw. The boy is clearly out of pantomime, and when he
+pretended to be in the mesmeric state, made the company back by going
+in among them head over heels, backwards, half-a-dozen times, in a most
+insupportable way. The pianist had struck; and the manner in which the
+lecturer implored "some lady" to play a "polker," and the manner in
+which no lady would; and in which the few ladies who were there sat with
+their hats on, and the elastic under their chins, as if it were going to
+blow, is never to be forgotten. I have been writing all the morning, and
+am going for a walk to Ramsgate. This is a beast of a letter, but I am
+not well, and have been addling my head.
+
+                           Ever, dear Girls, your affectionate Father.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. W. Wilkie Collins.]
+
+                     GAD'S HILL PLACE, HIGHAM BY ROCHESTER, KENT,
+                                     _Friday Night, Sept. 16th, 1859._
+
+MY DEAR WILKIE,
+
+Just a word to say that I have received yours, and that I look forward
+to the reunion on Thursday, when I hope to have the satisfaction of
+recounting to you the plot of a play that has been laid before me for
+commending advice.
+
+Ditto to what you say respecting the _Great Eastern_. I went right up to
+London Bridge by the boat that day, on purpose that I might pass her. I
+thought her the ugliest and most unshiplike thing these eyes ever
+beheld. I wouldn't go to sea in her, shiver my ould timbers and rouse me
+up with a monkey's tail (man-of-war metaphor), not to chuck a biscuit
+into Davy Jones's weather eye, and see double with my own old toplights.
+
+Turk has been so good as to produce from his mouth, for the wholesome
+consternation of the family, eighteen feet of worm. When he had brought
+it up, he seemed to think it might be turned to account in the
+housekeeping and was proud. Pony has kicked a shaft off the cart, and is
+to be sold. Why don't you buy her? she'd never kick with you.
+
+Barber's opinion is, that them fruit-trees, one and all, is touchwood,
+and not fit for burning at any gentleman's fire; also that the stocking
+of this here garden is worth less than nothing, because you wouldn't
+have to grub up nothing, and something takes a man to do it at
+three-and-sixpence a day. Was "left desponding" by your reporter.
+
+I have had immense difficulty to find a man for the stable-yard here.
+Barber having at last engaged one this morning, I enquired if he had a
+decent hat for driving in, to which Barber returned this answer:
+
+"Why, sir, not to deceive you, that man flatly say that he never have
+wore that article since man he was!"
+
+I am consequently fortified into my room, and am afraid to go out to
+look at him. Love from all.
+
+                                                  Ever affectionately.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Monsieur Regnier.]
+
+                    GAD'S HILL PLACE, HIGHAM BY ROCHESTER, KENT,
+                                          _Saturday, Oct. 15th, 1859._
+
+MY DEAR REGNIER,
+
+You will receive by railway parcel the proof-sheets of a story of mine,
+that has been for some time in progress in my weekly journal, and that
+will be published in a complete volume about the middle of November.
+Nobody but Forster has yet seen the latter portions of it, or will see
+them until they are published. I want you to read it for two reasons.
+Firstly, because I hope it is the best story I have written. Secondly,
+because it treats of a very remarkable time in France; and I should very
+much like to know what you think of its being dramatised for a French
+theatre. If you should think it likely to be done, I should be glad to
+take some steps towards having it well done. The story is an
+extraordinary success here, and I think the end of it is certain to make
+a still greater sensation.
+
+Don't trouble yourself to write to me, _mon ami_, until you shall have
+had time to read the proofs. Remember, they are _proofs_, and _private_;
+the latter chapters will not be before the public for five or six weeks
+to come.
+
+With kind regards to Madame Regnier, in which my daughters and their
+aunt unite,
+
+                                    Believe me, ever faithfully yours.
+
+P.S.--The story (I daresay you have not seen any of it yet) is called
+"A Tale of Two Cities."
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. Frank Stone, A.R.A.]
+
+                   PETERBOROUGH, _Wednesday Evening, Oct. 19th, 1859._
+
+MY DEAR STONE,
+
+We had a splendid rush last night--exactly as we supposed, with the
+pressure on the two shillings, of whom we turned a crowd away. They were
+a far finer audience than on the previous night; I think the finest I
+have ever read to. They took every word of the "Dombey" in quite an
+amazing manner, and after the child's death, paused a little, and then
+set up a shout that it did one good to hear. Mrs. Gamp then set in with
+a roar, which lasted until I had done. I think everybody for the time
+forgot everything but the matter in hand. It was as fine an instance of
+thorough absorption in a fiction as any of us are likely to see ever
+again.
+
+---- (in an exquisite red mantle), accompanied by her sister (in another
+exquisite red mantle) and by the deaf lady, (who leaned a black
+head-dress, exactly like an old-fashioned tea-urn without the top,
+against the wall), was charming. HE couldn't get at her on account of
+the pressure. HE tried to peep at her from the side door, but she (ha,
+ha, ha!) was unconscious of his presence. I read to her, and goaded him
+to madness. He is just sane enough to send his kindest regards.
+
+This is a place which--except the cathedral, with the loveliest front I
+ever saw--is like the back door to some other place. It is, I should
+hope, the deadest and most utterly inert little town in the British
+dominions. The magnates have taken places, and the bookseller is of
+opinion that "such is the determination to do honour to Mr. Dickens,
+that the doors _must_ be opened half an hour before the appointed time."
+You will picture to yourself Arthur's quiet indignation at this, and the
+manner in which he remarked to me at dinner, "that he turned away twice
+Peterborough last night."
+
+A very pretty room--though a Corn Exchange--and a room we should have
+been glad of at Cambridge, as it is large, bright, and cheerful, and
+wonderfully well lighted.
+
+The difficulty of getting to Bradford from here to-morrow, at any time
+convenient to us, turned out to be so great, that we are all going in
+for Leeds (only three-quarters of an hour from Bradford) to-night after
+the reading, at a quarter-past eleven. We are due at Leeds a quarter
+before three.
+
+So no more at present from,
+
+                                                 Yours affectionately.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. W. R. Sculthorpe.]
+
+                TAVISTOCK HOUSE, TAVISTOCK SQUARE, LONDON, W.C.,
+                                          _Thursday, Nov. 10th, 1859._
+
+DEAR SIR,
+
+Judgment must go by default. I have not a word to plead against Dodson
+and Fogg. I am without any defence to the action; and therefore, as law
+goes, ought to win it.
+
+Seriously, the date of your hospitable note disturbs my soul. But I have
+been incessantly writing in Kent and reading in all sorts of places, and
+have done nothing in my own personal character these many months; and
+now I come to town and our friend[5] is away! Let me take that
+defaulting miscreant into council when he comes back.
+
+                                                     Faithfully yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Monsieur Regnier.]
+
+               TAVISTOCK HOUSE, TAVISTOCK SQUARE, LONDON, W.C.,
+                                         _Wednesday, Nov. 16th, 1859._
+
+MY DEAR REGNIER,
+
+I send you ten thousand thanks for your kind and explicit letter. What I
+particularly wished to ascertain from you was, whether it is likely the
+Censor would allow such a piece to be played in Paris. In the case of
+its being likely, then I wished to have the piece as well done as
+possible, and would even have proposed to come to Paris to see it
+rehearsed. But I very much doubted whether the general subject would not
+be objectionable to the Government, and what you write with so much
+sagacity and with such care convinces me at once that its representation
+would be prohibited. Therefore I altogether abandon and relinquish the
+idea. But I am just as heartily and cordially obliged to you for your
+interest and friendship, as if the book had been turned into a play five
+hundred times. I again thank you ten thousand times, and am quite sure
+that you are right. I only hope you will forgive my causing you so much
+trouble, after your hard work.
+
+My girls and Georgina send their kindest regards to Madame Regnier and
+to you. My Gad's Hill house (I think I omitted to tell you, in reply to
+your enquiry) is on the very scene of Falstaff's robbery. There is a
+little _cabaret_ at the roadside, still called The Sir John Falstaff.
+And the country, in all its general features, is, at this time, what it
+was in Shakespeare's. I hope you will see the house before long. It is
+really a pretty place, and a good residence for an English writer, is it
+not?
+
+Macready, we are all happy to hear from himself, is going to leave the
+dreary tomb in which he lives, at Sherborne, and to remove to
+Cheltenham, a large and handsome place, about four or five hours'
+railway journey from London, where his poor girls will at least see and
+hear some life. Madame Céleste was with me yesterday, wishing to
+dramatise "A Tale of Two Cities" for the Lyceum, after bringing out the
+Christmas pantomime. I gave her my permission and the book; but I fear
+that her company (troupe) is a very poor one.
+
+This is all the news I have, except (which is no news at all) that I
+feel as if I had not seen you for fifty years, and that
+
+                          I am ever your attached and faithful Friend.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. T. Longman.]
+
+                           TAVISTOCK HOUSE, _Monday, Nov. 28th, 1859._
+
+MY DEAR LONGMAN,
+
+I am very anxious to present to you, with the earnest hope that you will
+hold him in your remembrance, young Mr. Marcus Stone, son of poor Frank
+Stone, who died suddenly but a little week ago. You know, I daresay,
+what a start this young man made in the last exhibition, and what a
+favourable notice his picture attracted. He wishes to make an additional
+opening for himself in the illustration of books. He is an admirable
+draughtsman, has a most dexterous hand, a charming sense of grace and
+beauty, and a capital power of observation. These qualities in him I
+know well of my own knowledge. He is in all things modest, punctual, and
+right; and I would answer for him, if it were needful, with my head.
+
+If you will put anything in his way, you will do it a second time, I am
+certain.
+
+                                              Faithfully yours always.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[5] Mr. Edmund Yates.
+
+
+
+
+1860.
+
+NARRATIVE.
+
+
+This winter was the last spent at Tavistock House. Charles Dickens had
+for some time been inclining to the idea of making his home altogether
+at Gad's Hill, giving up his London house, and taking a furnished house
+for the sake of his daughters for a few months of the London season.
+And, as his daughter Kate was to be married this summer to Mr. Charles
+Collins, this intention was confirmed and carried out. He made
+arrangements for the sale of Tavistock House to Mr. Davis, a Jewish
+gentleman, and he gave up possession of it in September. Up to this time
+Gad's Hill had been furnished merely as a temporary summer
+residence--pictures, library, and all best furniture being left in the
+London house. He now set about beautifying and making Gad's Hill
+thoroughly comfortable and homelike. And there was not a year
+afterwards, up to the year of his death, that he did not make some
+addition or improvement to it. He also furnished, as a private
+residence, a sitting-room and some bedrooms at his office in Wellington
+Street, to be used, when there was no house in London, as occasional
+town quarters by himself, his daughter, and sister-in-law.
+
+He began in this summer his occasional papers for "All the Year Round,"
+which he called "The Uncommercial Traveller," and which were continued
+at intervals in his journal until 1869.
+
+In the autumn of this year he began another story, to be published
+weekly in "All the Year Round." The letter to Mr. Forster, which we
+give, tells him of this beginning and gives him the name of the book.
+The first number of "Great Expectations" appeared on the 1st December.
+The Christmas number, this time, was written jointly by himself and Mr.
+Wilkie Collins. The scene was laid at Clovelly, and they made a journey
+together into Devonshire and Cornwall, for the purpose of this story, in
+November.
+
+The letter to Sir Edward Bulwer Lytton is, unfortunately, the only one
+we have as yet been able to procure. The present Lord Lytton, the
+Viceroy of India, has kindly endeavoured to help us even during his
+absence from England. But it was found to be impossible without his own
+assistance to make the necessary search among his father's papers. And
+he has promised us that, on his return, he will find and lend to us,
+many letters from Charles Dickens, which are certainly in existence, to
+his distinguished fellow-writer and great friend. We hope, therefore, it
+may be possible for us at some future time to be able to publish these
+letters, as well as those addressed to the present Lord Lytton (when he
+was Mr. Robert Lytton, otherwise "Owen Meredith," and frequent
+contributor to "Household Words" and "All the Year Round"). We have the
+same hope with regard to letters addressed to Sir Henry Layard, at
+present Ambassador at Constantinople, which, of course, for the same
+reason, cannot be lent to us at the present time.
+
+We give a letter to Mr. Forster on one of his books on the Commonwealth,
+the "Impeachment of the Five Members;" which, as with other letters
+which we are glad to publish on the subject of Mr. Forster's own works,
+was not used by himself for obvious reasons.
+
+A letter to his daughter Mamie (who, after her sister's marriage, paid a
+visit with her dear friends the White family to Scotland, where she had
+a serious illness) introduces a recent addition to the family, who
+became an important member of it, and one to whom Charles Dickens was
+very tenderly attached--her little white Pomeranian dog "Mrs. Bouncer"
+(so called after the celebrated lady of that name in "Box and Cox"). It
+is quite necessary to make this formal introduction of the little pet
+animal (who lived to be a very old dog and died in 1874), because future
+letters to his daughter contain constant references and messages to
+"Mrs. Bouncer," which would be quite unintelligible without this
+explanation. "Boy," also referred to in this letter, was his daughter's
+horse. The little dog and the horse were gifts to Mamie Dickens from her
+friends Mr. and Mrs. Arthur Smith, and the sister of the latter, Miss
+Craufurd.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. W. C. Macready.]
+
+                            TAVISTOCK HOUSE, _Monday, Jan. 2nd, 1860._
+
+MY DEAREST MACREADY,
+
+A happy New Year to you, and many happy years! I cannot tell you how
+delighted I was to receive your Christmas letter, or with what pleasure
+I have received Forster's emphatic accounts of your health and spirits.
+But when was I ever wrong? And when did I not tell you that you were an
+impostor in pretending to grow older as the rest of us do, and that you
+had a secret of your own for reversing the usual process! It happened
+that I read at Cheltenham a couple of months ago, and that I have rarely
+seen a place that so attracted my fancy. I had never seen it before.
+Also I believe the character of its people to have greatly changed for
+the better. All sorts of long-visaged prophets had told me that they
+were dull, stolid, slow, and I don't know what more that is
+disagreeable. I found them exactly the reverse in all respects; and I
+saw an amount of beauty there--well--that is not to be more specifically
+mentioned to you young fellows.
+
+Katie dined with us yesterday, looking wonderfully well, and singing
+"Excelsior" with a certain dramatic fire in her, whereof I seem to
+remember having seen sparks afore now. Etc. etc. etc.
+
+        With kindest love from all at home to all with you,
+                       Ever, my dear Macready, your most affectionate.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. W. Wilkie Collins.]
+
+                 TAVISTOCK HOUSE, TAVISTOCK SQUARE, LONDON, W.C.,
+                                     _Saturday Night, Jan. 7th, 1860._
+
+MY DEAR WILKIE,
+
+I have read this book with great care and attention. There cannot be a
+doubt that it is a very great advance on all your former writing, and
+most especially in respect of tenderness. In character it is excellent.
+Mr. Fairlie as good as the lawyer, and the lawyer as good as he. Mr.
+Vesey and Miss Halcombe, in their different ways, equally meritorious.
+Sir Percival, also, is most skilfully shown, though I doubt (you see
+what small points I come to) whether any man ever showed uneasiness by
+hand or foot without being forced by nature to show it in his face too.
+The story is very interesting, and the writing of it admirable.
+
+I seem to have noticed, here and there, that the great pains you take
+express themselves a trifle too much, and you know that I always contest
+your disposition to give an audience credit for nothing, which
+necessarily involves the forcing of points on their attention, and which
+I have always observed them to resent when they find it out--as they
+always will and do. But on turning to the book again, I find it
+difficult to take out an instance of this. It rather belongs to your
+habit of thought and manner of going about the work. Perhaps I express
+my meaning best when I say that the three people who write the
+narratives in these proofs have a DISSECTIVE property in common, which
+is essentially not theirs but yours; and that my own effort would be to
+strike more of what is got _that way_ out of them by collision with one
+another, and by the working of the story.
+
+You know what an interest I have felt in your powers from the beginning
+of our friendship, and how very high I rate them? _I_ know that this is
+an admirable book, and that it grips the difficulties of the weekly
+portion and throws them in masterly style. No one else could do it half
+so well. I have stopped in every chapter to notice some instance of
+ingenuity, or some happy turn of writing; and I am absolutely certain
+that you never did half so well yourself.
+
+So go on and prosper, and let me see some more, when you have enough
+(for your own satisfaction) to show me. I think of coming in to back you
+up if I can get an idea for my series of gossiping papers. One of those
+days, please God, we may do a story together; I have very odd
+half-formed notions, in a mist, of something that might be done that
+way.
+
+                                                  Ever affectionately.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. John Forster.]
+
+              11, WELLINGTON STREET, NORTH STRAND, LONDON, W.C.,
+                                           _Wednesday, May 2nd, 1860._
+
+MY DEAR FORSTER,
+
+It did not occur to me in reading your most excellent, interesting, and
+remarkable book, that it could with any reason be called one-sided. If
+Clarendon had never written his "History of the Rebellion," then I can
+understand that it might be. But just as it would be impossible to
+answer an advocate who had misstated the merits of a case for his own
+purpose, without, in the interests of truth, and not of the other side
+merely, re-stating the merits and showing them in their real form, so I
+cannot see the practicability of telling what you had to tell without
+in some sort championing the misrepresented side, and I think that you
+don't do that as an advocate, but as a judge.
+
+The evidence has been suppressed and coloured, and the judge goes
+through it and puts it straight. It is not _his_ fault if it all goes
+one way and tends to one plain conclusion. Nor is it his fault that it
+goes the further when it is laid out straight, or seems to do so,
+because it was so knotted and twisted up before.
+
+I can understand any man's, and particularly Carlyle's, having a
+lingering respect that does not like to be disturbed for those (in the
+best sense of the word) loyal gentlemen of the country who went with the
+king and were so true to him. But I don't think Carlyle sufficiently
+considers that the great mass of those gentlemen _didn't know the
+truth_, that it was a part of their loyalty to believe what they were
+told on the king's behalf, and that it is reasonable to suppose that the
+king was too artful to make known to _them_ (especially after failure)
+what were very acceptable designs to the desperate soldiers of fortune
+about Whitehall. And it was to me a curious point of adventitious
+interest arising out of your book, to reflect on the probability of
+their having been as ignorant of the real scheme in Charles's head, as
+their descendants and followers down to this time, and to think with
+pity and admiration that they believed the cause to be so much better
+than it was. This is a notion I was anxious to have expressed in our
+account of the book in these pages. For I don't suppose Clarendon, or
+any other such man to sit down and tell posterity something that he has
+not "tried on" in his own time. Do you?
+
+In the whole narrative I saw nothing anywhere to which I demurred. I
+admired it all, went with it all, and was proud of my friend's having
+written it all. I felt it to be all square and sound and right, and to
+be of enormous importance in these times. Firstly, to the people who
+(like myself) are so sick of the shortcomings of representative
+government as to have no interest in it. Secondly, to the humbugs at
+Westminster who have come down--a long, long way--from those men, as you
+know. When the great remonstrance came out, I was in the thick of my
+story, and was always busy with it; but I am very glad I didn't read it
+then, as I shall read it now to much better purpose. All the time I was
+at work on the "Two Cities," I read no books but such as had the air of
+the time in them.
+
+To return for a final word to the Five Members. I thought the marginal
+references overdone. Here and there, they had a comical look to me for
+that reason, and reminded me of shows and plays where everything is in
+the bill.
+
+Lastly, I should have written to you--as I had a strong inclination to
+do, and ought to have done, immediately after reading the book--but for
+a weak reason; of all things in the world I have lost heart in one--I
+hope no other--I cannot, times out of calculation, make up my mind to
+write a letter.
+
+                          Ever, my dear Forster, affectionately yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: M. de Cerjat.]
+
+                           TAVISTOCK HOUSE, _Thursday, May 3rd, 1860._
+
+MY DEAR CERJAT,
+
+The date of this letter would make me horribly ashamed of myself, if I
+didn't know that _you_ know how difficult letter-writing is to one whose
+trade it is to write.
+
+You asked me on Christmas Eve about my children. My second daughter is
+going to be married in the course of the summer to Charles Collins, the
+brother of Wilkie Collins, the novelist. The father was one of the most
+famous painters of English green lanes and coast pieces. He was bred an
+artist; is a writer, too, and does "The Eye Witness," in "All the Year
+Round." He is a gentleman, accomplished, and amiable. My eldest daughter
+has not yet started any conveyance on the road to matrimony (that I know
+of); but it is likely enough that she will, as she is very agreeable and
+intelligent. They are both very pretty. My eldest boy, Charley, has been
+in Barings' house for three or four years, and is now going to Hong
+Kong, strongly backed up by Barings, to buy tea on his own account, as a
+means of forming a connection and seeing more of the practical part of a
+merchant's calling, before starting in London for himself. His brother
+Frank (Jeffrey's godson) I have just recalled from France and Germany,
+to come and learn business, and qualify himself to join his brother on
+his return from the Celestial Empire. The next boy, Sydney Smith, is
+designed for the navy, and is in training at Portsmouth, awaiting his
+nomination. He is about three foot high, with the biggest eyes ever
+seen, and is known in the Portsmouth parts as "Young Dickens, who can do
+everything."
+
+Another boy is at school in France; the youngest of all has a private
+tutor at home. I have forgotten the second in order, who is in India. He
+went out as ensign of a non-existent native regiment, got attached to
+the 42nd Highlanders, one of the finest regiments in the Queen's
+service; has remained with them ever since, and got made a lieutenant by
+the chances of the rebellious campaign, before he was eighteen. Miss
+Hogarth, always Miss Hogarth, is the guide, philosopher, and friend of
+all the party, and a very close affection exists between her and the
+girls. I doubt if she will ever marry. I don't know whether to be glad
+of it or sorry for it.
+
+I have laid down my pen and taken a long breath after writing this
+family history. I have also considered whether there are any more
+children, and I don't think there are. If I should remember two or three
+others presently, I will mention them in a postscript.
+
+We think Townshend looking a little the worse for the winter, and we
+perceive Bully to be decidedly old upon his legs, and of a most
+diabolical turn of mind. When they first arrived the weather was very
+dark and cold, and kept them indoors. It has since turned very warm and
+bright, but with a dusty and sharp east wind. They are still kept
+indoors by this change, and I begin to wonder what change will let them
+out. Townshend dines with us every Sunday. You may be sure that we
+always talk of you and yours, and drink to you heartily.
+
+Public matters here are thought to be rather improving; the deep
+mistrust of the gentleman in Paris being counteracted by the vigorous
+state of preparation into which the nation is getting. You will have
+observed, of course, that we establish a new defaulter in respect of
+some great trust, about once a quarter. The last one, the cashier of a
+City bank, is considered to have distinguished himself greatly, a
+quarter of a million of money being high game.
+
+No, my friend, I have not shouldered my rifle yet, but I should do so on
+more pressing occasion. Every other man in the row of men I know--if
+they were all put in a row--is a volunteer though. There is a tendency
+rather to overdo the wearing of the uniform, but that is natural enough
+in the case of the youngest men. The turn-out is generally very
+creditable indeed. At the ball they had (in a perfectly unventilated
+building), their new leather belts and pouches smelt so fearfully that
+it was, as my eldest daughter said, like shoemaking in a great prison.
+She, consequently, distinguished herself by fainting away in the most
+inaccessible place in the whole structure, and being brought out
+(horizontally) by a file of volunteers, like some slain daughter of
+Albion whom they were carrying into the street to rouse the indignant
+valour of the populace.
+
+Lord, my dear Cerjat, when I turn to that page of your letter where you
+write like an ancient sage in whom the fire has paled into a meek-eyed
+state of coolness and virtue, I half laugh and half cry! _You_ old!
+_You_ a sort of hermit? Boh! Get out.
+
+With this comes my love and all our loves, to you and Mrs. Cerjat, and
+your daughter. I add my special and particular to the sweet "singing
+cousin." When shall you and I meet, and where? Must I come to see
+Townshend? I begin to think so.
+
+                 Ever, my dear Cerjat, your affectionate and faithful.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Sir Edward Bulwer Lytton.]
+
+                                GAD'S HILL, _Tuesday, June 5th, 1860._
+
+MY DEAR BULWER LYTTON,
+
+I am very much interested and gratified by your letter concerning "A
+Tale of Two Cities." I do not quite agree with you on two points, but
+that is no deduction from my pleasure.
+
+In the first place, although the surrender of the feudal privileges (on
+a motion seconded by a nobleman of great rank) was the occasion of a
+sentimental scene, I see no reason to doubt, but on the contrary, many
+reasons to believe, that some of these privileges had been used to the
+frightful oppression of the peasant, quite as near to the time of the
+Revolution as the doctor's narrative, which, you will remember, dates
+long before the Terror. And surely when the new philosophy was the talk
+of the salons and the slang of the hour, it is not unreasonable or
+unallowable to suppose a nobleman wedded to the old cruel ideas, and
+representing the time going out, as his nephew represents the time
+coming in; as to the condition of the peasant in France generally at
+that day, I take it that if anything be certain on earth it is certain
+that it was intolerable. No _ex post facto_ enquiries and provings by
+figures will hold water, surely, against the tremendous testimony of men
+living at the time.
+
+There is a curious book printed at Amsterdam, written to make out no
+case whatever, and tiresome enough in its literal dictionary-like
+minuteness, scattered up and down the pages of which is full authority
+for my marquis. This is "Mercier's Tableau de Paris." Rousseau is the
+authority for the peasant's shutting up his house when he had a bit of
+meat. The tax-taker was the authority for the wretched creature's
+impoverishment.
+
+I am not clear, and I never have been clear, respecting that canon of
+fiction which forbids the interposition of accident in such a case as
+Madame Defarge's death. Where the accident is inseparable from the
+passion and emotion of the character, where it is strictly consistent
+with the whole design, and arises out of some culminating proceeding on
+the part of the character which the whole story has led up to, it seems
+to me to become, as it were, an act of divine justice. And when I use
+Miss Pross (though this is quite another question) to bring about that
+catastrophe, I have the positive intention of making that half-comic
+intervention a part of the desperate woman's failure, and of opposing
+that mean death--instead of a desperate one in the streets, which she
+wouldn't have minded--to the dignity of Carton's wrong or right; this
+_was_ the design, and seemed to be in the fitness of things.
+
+Now, as to the reading. I am sorry to say that it is out of the question
+this season. I have had an attack of rheumatism--quite a stranger to
+me--which remains hovering about my left side, after having doubled me
+up in the back, and which would disable me from standing for two hours.
+I have given up all dinners and town engagements, and come to my little
+Falstaff House here, sensible of the necessity of country training all
+through the summer. Smith would have proposed any appointment to see you
+on the subject, but he has been dreadfully ill with tic. Whenever I read
+in London, I will gladly put a night aside for your purpose, and we will
+plot to connect your name with it, and give it some speciality. But this
+could not be before Christmas time, as I should not be able to read
+sooner, for in the hot weather it would be useless. Let me hear from you
+about this when you have considered it. It would greatly diminish the
+expenses, remember.
+
+                                   Ever affectionately and faithfully.
+
+
+[Sidenote: The Lord John Russell.]
+
+                    GAD'S HILL PLACE, HIGHAM BY ROCHESTER, KENT,
+                                            _Sunday, June 17th, 1860._
+
+MY DEAR LORD JOHN RUSSELL,
+
+I cannot thank you enough for your kind note and its most welcome
+enclosure. My sailor-boy comes home from Portsmouth to-morrow, and will
+be overjoyed. His masters have been as anxious for getting his
+nomination as though it were some distinction for themselves.
+
+                                       Ever your faithful and obliged.
+
+
+[Sidenote: The Earl of Carlisle.]
+
+                    GAD'S HILL PLACE, HIGHAM BY ROCHESTER, KENT,
+                                          _Wednesday, Aug. 8th, 1860._
+
+MY DEAR LORD CARLISLE,
+
+Coming back here after an absence of three days in town, I find your
+kind and cordial letter lying on my table. I heartily thank you for it,
+and highly esteem it. I understand that the article on the spirits to
+which you refer was written by ---- (he played an Irish porter in one
+scene of Bulwer's comedy at Devonshire House). Between ourselves, I
+think it must be taken with a few grains of salt, imperial measure. The
+experiences referred to "came off" at ----, where the spirit of ----
+(among an extensive and miscellaneous bodiless circle) _dines_
+sometimes! Mr. ----, the high priest of the mysteries, I have some
+considerable reason--derived from two honourable men--for mistrusting.
+And that some of the disciples are very easy of belief I know.
+
+This is Falstaff's own Gad's Hill, and I live on the top of it. All goes
+well with me, thank God! I should be thoroughly delighted to see you
+again, and to show you where the robbery was done. My eldest daughter
+keeps my house, and it is one I was extraordinarily fond of when a
+child.
+
+                     My dear Lord Carlisle, ever affectionately yours.
+
+P.S.--I am prowling about, meditating a new book.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. W. H. Wills.]
+
+                                  OFFICE OF "ALL THE YEAR ROUND,"
+                                           _Tuesday, Sept. 4th, 1860._
+
+MY DEAR WILLS,
+
+Your description of your sea-castle makes your room here look uncommonly
+dusty. Likewise the costermongers in the street outside, and the one
+customer (drunk, with his head on the table) in the Crown Coffee House
+over the way, in York Street, have an earthy, and, as I may say, a
+land-lubberly aspect. Cape Horn, to the best of _my_ belief, is a
+tremendous way off, and there are more bricks and cabbage-leaves between
+this office and that dismal point of land than _you_ can possibly
+imagine.
+
+Coming here from the station this morning, I met, coming from the
+execution of the Wentworth murderer, such a tide of ruffians as never
+could have flowed from any point but the gallows. Without any figure of
+speech it turned one white and sick to behold them.
+
+Tavistock House is cleared to-day, and possession delivered up. I must
+say that in all things the purchaser has behaved thoroughly well, and
+that I cannot call to mind any occasion when I have had money dealings
+with a Christian that have been so satisfactory, considerate, and
+trusting.
+
+I am ornamented at present with one of my most intensely preposterous
+and utterly indescribable colds. If you were to make a voyage from Cape
+Horn to Wellington Street, you would scarcely recognise in the bowed
+form, weeping eyes, rasped nose, and snivelling wretch whom you would
+encounter here, the once gay and sparkling, etc. etc.
+
+Everything else here is as quiet as possible. Business reports you
+receive from Holsworth. Wilkie looked in to-day, going to
+Gloucestershire for a week. The office is full of discarded curtains and
+coverings from Tavistock House, which Georgina is coming up this evening
+to select from and banish. Mary is in raptures with the beauties of
+Dunkeld, but is not very well in health. The Admiral (Sydney) goes up
+for his examination to-morrow. If he fails to pass with credit, I will
+never believe in anybody again, so in that case look out for your own
+reputation with me.
+
+This is really all the news I have, except that I am lazy, and that
+Wilkie dines here next Tuesday, in order that we may have a talk about
+the Christmas number.
+
+I beg to send my kind regard to Mrs. Wills, and to enquire how she likes
+wearing a hat, which of course she does. I also want to know from her
+in confidence whether _Crwllm festidiniog llymthll y wodd_?
+
+Yesterday I burnt, in the field at Gad's Hill, the accumulated letters
+and papers of twenty years. They sent up a smoke like the genie when he
+got out of the casket on the seashore; and as it was an exquisite day
+when I began, and rained very heavily when I finished, I suspect my
+correspondence of having overcast the face of the heavens.
+
+                                                      Ever faithfully.
+
+P.S.--Kind regard to Mr. and Mrs. Novelli.[6]
+
+I have just sent out for _The Globe_. No news.
+
+Hullah's daughter (an artist) tells me that certain female students have
+addressed the Royal Academy, entreating them to find a place for their
+education. I think it a capital move, for which I can do something
+popular and telling in _The Register_. Adelaide Procter is active in the
+business, and has a copy of their letter. Will you write to her for
+that, and anything else she may have about it, telling her that I
+strongly approve, and want to help them myself?
+
+
+[Sidenote: The Hon. Mrs. Watson.]
+
+                    GAD'S HILL PLACE, HIGHAM BY ROCHESTER, KENT,
+                                     _Friday Night, Sept. 14th, 1860._
+
+MY DEAR MRS. WATSON,
+
+I lose no time in answering your letter; and first as to business, the
+school in the High Town at Boulogne was excellent. The boys all English,
+the two proprietors an old Eton master and one of the Protestant
+clergymen of the town. The teaching unusually sound and good. The manner
+and conduct developed in the boys quite admirable. But I have never
+seen a gentleman so perfectly acquainted with boy-nature as the Eton
+master. There was a perfect understanding between him and his charges;
+nothing pedantic on his part, nothing slavish on their parts. The result
+was, that either with him or away from him, the boys combined an ease
+and frankness with a modesty and sense of responsibility that was really
+above all praise. Alfred went from there to a great school at Wimbledon,
+where they train for India and the artillery and engineers. Sydney went
+from there to Mr. Barrow, at Southsea. In both instances the new masters
+wrote to me of their own accord, bearing quite unsolicited testimony to
+the merits of the old, and expressing their high recognition of what
+they had done. These things speak for themselves.
+
+Sydney has just passed his examination as a naval cadet and come home,
+all eyes and gold buttons. He has twelve days' leave before going on
+board the training-ship. Katie and her husband are in France, and seem
+likely to remain there for an indefinite period. Mary is on a month's
+visit in Scotland; Georgina, Frank, and Plorn are at home here; and we
+all want Mary and her little dog back again. I have sold Tavistock
+House, am making this rather complete in its way, and am on the restless
+eve of beginning a new big book; but mean to have a furnished house in
+town (in some accessible quarter) from February or so to June. May we
+meet there.
+
+Your handwriting is always so full of pleasant memories to me, that when
+I took it out of the post-office at Rochester this afternoon it quite
+stirred my heart. But we must not think of old times as sad times, or
+regard them as anything but the fathers and mothers of the present. We
+must all climb steadily up the mountain after the talking bird, the
+singing tree, and the yellow water, and must all bear in mind that the
+previous climbers who were scared into looking back got turned into
+black stone.
+
+Mary Boyle was here a little while ago, as affectionate at heart as
+ever, as young, and as pleasant. Of course we talked often of you. So
+let me know when you are established in Halfmoon Street, and I shall be
+truly delighted to come and see you.
+
+For my attachments are strong attachments and never weaken. In right of
+bygones, I feel as if "all Northamptonshire" belonged to me, as all
+Northumberland did to Lord Bateman in the ballad. In memory of your
+warming your feet at the fire in that waste of a waiting-room when I
+read at Brighton, I have ever since taken that watering-place to my
+bosom as I never did before. And you and Switzerland are always one to
+me, and always inseparable.
+
+Charley was heard of yesterday, from Shanghai, going to Japan, intending
+to meet his brother Walter at Calcutta, and having an idea of beguiling
+the time between whiles by asking to be taken as an amateur with the
+English Chinese forces. Everybody caressed him and asked him everywhere,
+and he seemed to go. With kind regards, my dear Mrs. Watson,
+
+                                            Ever affectionately yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. Edmund Yates.]
+
+                    GAD'S HILL PLACE, HIGHAM BY ROCHESTER, KENT,
+                                           _Sunday, Sept. 23rd, 1860._
+
+                       ON THE DEATH OF HIS MOTHER.
+
+MY DEAR E. Y.,
+
+I did not write to you in your bereavement, because I knew that the
+girls had written to you, and because I instinctively shrunk from making
+a form of what was so real. _You_ knew what a loving and faithful
+remembrance I always had of your mother as a part of my youth--no more
+capable of restoration than my youth itself. All the womanly goodness,
+grace, and beauty of my drama went out with her. To the last I never
+could hear her voice without emotion. I think of her as of a beautiful
+part of my own youth, and this dream that we are all dreaming seems to
+darken.
+
+But it is not to say this that I write now. It comes to the point of my
+pen in spite of me.
+
+"Holding up the Mirror" is in next week's number. I have taken out all
+this funeral part of it. Not because I disliked it (for, indeed, I
+thought it the best part of the paper), but because it rather grated on
+me, going over the proof at that time, as a remembrance that would be
+better reserved a little while. Also because it made rather a mixture of
+yourself as an individual, with something that does not belong or attach
+to you as an individual. You can have the MS.; and as a part of a paper
+describing your own juvenile remembrances of a theatre, there it is,
+needing no change or adaption.
+
+                                                      Ever faithfully.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Dickens.]
+
+                    GAD'S HILL PLACE, HIGHAM BY ROCHESTER, KENT,
+                                           _Sunday, Sept. 23rd, 1860._
+
+MY DEAREST MAMIE,
+
+If you had been away from us and ill with anybody in the world but our
+dear Mrs. White, I should have been in a state of the greatest anxiety
+and uneasiness about you. But as I know it to be impossible that you
+could be in kinder or better hands, I was not in the least restless
+about you, otherwise than as it grieved me to hear of my poor dear
+girl's suffering such pain. I hope it is over now for many a long day,
+and that you will come back to us a thousand times better in health than
+you left us.
+
+Don't come back too soon. Take time and get well restored. There is no
+hurry, the house is not near to-rights yet, and though we all want you,
+and though Boy wants you, we all (including Boy) deprecate a fatiguing
+journey being taken too soon.
+
+As to the carpenters, they are absolutely maddening. They are always at
+work, yet never seem to do anything. Lillie was down on Friday, and said
+(his eye fixed on Maidstone, and rubbing his hand to conciliate his
+moody employer) that "he didn't think there would be very much left to
+do after Saturday, the 29th."
+
+I didn't throw him out of the window. Your aunt tells you all the news,
+and leaves me no chance of distinguishing myself, I know. You have been
+told all about my brackets in the drawing-room, all about the glass
+rescued from the famous stage-wreck of Tavistock House, all about
+everything here and at the office. The office is really a success. As
+comfortable, cheerful, and private as anything of the kind can possibly
+be.
+
+I took the Admiral (but this you know too, no doubt) to Dollond's, the
+mathematical instrument maker's, last Monday, to buy that part of his
+outfit. His sextant (which is about the size and shape of a cocked hat),
+on being applied to his eye, entirely concealed him. Not the faintest
+vestige of the distinguished officer behind it was perceptible to the
+human vision. All through the City, people turned round and stared at
+him with the sort of pleasure people take in a little model. We went on
+to Chatham this day week, in search of some big man-of-war's-man who
+should be under obligation to salute him--unfortunately found none. But
+this no doubt you know too, and all my news falls flat.
+
+I am driven out of my room by paint, and am writing in the best spare
+room. The whole prospect is excessively wet; it does not rain now, but
+yesterday it did tremendously, and it rained very heavily in the night.
+We are even muddy; and that is saying a great deal in this dry country
+of chalk and sand. Everywhere the corn is lying out and saturated with
+wet. The hops (nearly everywhere) look as if they had been burnt.
+
+In my mind's eye I behold Mrs. Bouncer, still with some traces of her
+late anxiety on her faithful countenance, balancing herself a little
+unequally on her bow fore-legs, pricking up her ears, with her head on
+one side, and slightly opening her intellectual nostrils. I send my
+loving and respectful duty to her.
+
+To dear Mrs. White, and to White, and to Clara, say anything from me
+that is loving and grateful.
+
+                    My dearest Mamie,
+                          Ever and ever your most affectionate Father.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Hogarth.]
+
+                                  OFFICE OF "ALL THE YEAR ROUND,"
+                                     _Monday Night, Sept. 24th, 1860._
+
+MY DEAREST GEORGY,
+
+At the Waterloo station we were saluted with "Hallo! here's Dickens!"
+from divers naval cadets, and Sir Richard Bromley introduced himself to
+me, who had his cadet son with him, a friend of Sydney's. We went down
+together, and the boys were in the closest alliance. Bromley being
+Accountant-General of the Navy, and having influence on board, got their
+hammocks changed so that they would be serving side by side, at which
+they were greatly pleased. The moment we stepped on board, the "Hul-lo!
+here's Dickens!" was repeated on all sides, and the Admiral (evidently
+highly popular) shook hands with about fifty of his messmates. Taking
+Bromley for my model (with whom I fraternised in the most pathetic
+manner), I gave Sydney a sovereign before stepping over the side. He was
+as little overcome as it was possible for a boy to be, and stood waving
+the gold-banded cap as we came ashore in a boat.
+
+There is no denying that he looks very small aboard a great ship, and
+that a boy must have a strong and decided speciality for the sea to take
+to such a life. Captain Harris was not on board, but the other chief
+officers were, and were highly obliging. We went over the ship. I should
+say that there can be little or no individuality of address to any
+particular boy, but that they all tumble through their education in a
+crowded way. The Admiral's servant (I mean our Admiral's) had an idiotic
+appearance, but perhaps it did him injustice (a mahogany-faced marine by
+station). The Admiral's washing apparatus is about the size of a
+muffin-plate, and he could easily live in his chest. The meeting with
+Bromley was a piece of great good fortune, and the dear old chap could
+not have been left more happily.
+
+                      Ever, my dearest Georgy, your most affectionate.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Power.]
+
+                                  OFFICE OF "ALL THE YEAR ROUND,"
+                                          _Tuesday, Sept. 25th, 1860._
+
+MY DEAR MARGUERITE,
+
+I like the article exceedingly, and think the translations
+_admirable_--spirited, fresh, bold, and evidently faithful. I will get
+the paper into the next number I make up, No. 78. I will send a proof to
+you for your correction, either next Monday or this day week. Or would
+you like to come here next Monday and dine with us at five, and go over
+to Madame Céleste's opening? Then you could correct your paper on the
+premises, as they drink their beer at the beer-shops.
+
+Some of the introductory remarks on French literature I propose to
+strike out, as a little too essayical for this purpose, and likely to
+throw out a large portion of the large audience at starting, as
+suggesting some very different kind of article. My daring pen shall have
+imbued its murderous heart with ink before you see the proof.
+
+                                    With kind regards,
+                                                  Ever affectionately.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. John Forster.]
+
+                    GAD'S HILL PLACE, HIGHAM BY ROCHESTER, KENT,
+                                           _Thursday, Oct. 4th, 1860._
+
+MY DEAR FORSTER,
+
+It would be a great pleasure to me to come to you, an immense pleasure,
+and to sniff the sea I love (from the shore); but I fear I must come
+down one morning and come back at night. I will tell you why.
+
+Last week, I got to work on a new story. I called a council of war at
+the office on Tuesday. It was perfectly clear that the one thing to be
+done was, for me to strike in. I have therefore decided to begin a
+story, the length of the "Tale of Two Cities," on the 1st of
+December--begin publishing, that is. I must make the most I can out of
+the book. When I come down, I will bring you the first two or three
+weekly parts. The name is, "GREAT EXPECTATIONS." I think a good name?
+
+Now the preparations to get ahead, combined with the absolute necessity
+of my giving a good deal of time to the Christmas number, will tie me to
+the grindstone pretty tightly. It will be just as much as I can hope to
+do. Therefore, what I had hoped would be a few days at Eastbourne
+diminish to a few hours.
+
+I took the Admiral down to Portsmouth. Every maritime person in the town
+knew him. He seemed to know every boy on board the _Britannia_, and was
+a tremendous favourite evidently. It was very characteristic of him that
+they good-naturedly helped him, he being so very small, into his hammock
+at night. But he couldn't rest in it on these terms, and got out again
+to learn the right way of getting in independently. Official report
+stated that "after a few spills, he succeeded perfectly, and went to
+sleep." He is perfectly happy on board, takes tea with the captain,
+leads choruses on Saturday nights, and has an immense marine for a
+servant.
+
+I saw Edmund Yates at the office, and he told me that during all his
+mother's wanderings of mind, which were almost incessant at last, she
+never once went back to the old Adelphi days until she was just dying,
+when he heard her say, in great perplexity: "I can _not_ get the words."
+
+Best love to Mrs. Forster.
+
+                                Ever, my dear Forster, affectionately.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. W. Wilkie Collins.]
+
+                                  OFFICE OF "ALL THE YEAR ROUND,"
+                                         _Wednesday, Oct. 24th, 1860._
+
+MY DEAR WILKIE,
+
+I have been down to Brighton to see Forster, and found your letter there
+on arriving by express this morning. I also found a letter from
+Georgina, describing that Mary's horse went down suddenly on a stone,
+and how Mary was thrown, and had her riding-habit torn to pieces, and
+has a deep cut just above the knee--fortunately not in the knee itself,
+which is doing exceedingly well, but which will probably incapacitate
+her from walking for days and days to come. It is well it was no worse.
+The accident occurred at Milton, near Gravesend, and they found Mary in
+a public-house there, wonderfully taken care of and looked after.
+
+I propose that we start on Thursday morning, the 1st of November. The
+train for Penzance leaves the Great Western terminus at a quarter-past
+nine in the morning. It is a twelve hours' journey. Shall we meet at the
+terminus at nine? I shall be here all the previous day, and shall dine
+here.
+
+Your account of your passage goes to my heart through my stomach. What a
+pity I was not there on board to present that green-visaged, but
+sweet-tempered and uncomplaining spectacle of imbecility, at which I am
+so expert under stormy circumstances, in the poet's phrase:
+
+        As I sweep
+        Through the deep,
+        When the stormy winds do blow.
+
+What a pity I am not there, at Meurice's, to sleep the sleep of infancy
+through the long plays where the gentlemen stand with their backs to the
+mantelpieces. What a pity I am not with you to make a third at the Trois
+Frères, and drink no end of bottles of Bordeaux, without ever getting a
+touch of redness in my (poet's phrase again) "innocent nose." But I must
+go down to Gad's to-night, and get to work again. Four weekly numbers
+have been ground off the wheel, and at least another must be turned
+before we meet. They shall be yours in the slumberous railway-carriage.
+
+I don't think Forster is at all in good health. He was tremendously
+hospitable and hearty. I walked six hours and a half on the downs
+yesterday, and never stopped or sat. Early in the morning, before
+breakfast, I went to the nearest baths to get a shower-bath. They kept
+me waiting longer than I thought reasonable, and seeing a man in a cap
+in the passage, I went to him and said: "I really must request that
+you'll be good enough to see about this shower-bath;" and it was Hullah!
+waiting for another bath.
+
+Rumours were brought into the house on Saturday night, that there was a
+"ghost" up at Larkins's monument. Plorn was frightened to death, and I
+was apprehensive of the ghost's spreading and coming there, and causing
+"warning" and desertion among the servants. Frank was at home, and
+Andrew Gordon was with us. Time, nine o'clock. Village talk and
+credulity, amazing. I armed the two boys with a short stick apiece, and
+shouldered my double-barrelled gun, well loaded with shot. "Now
+observe," says I to the domestics, "if anybody is playing tricks and has
+got a head, I'll blow it off." Immense impression. New groom evidently
+convinced that he has entered the service of a bloodthirsty demon. We
+ascend to the monument. Stop at the gate. Moon is rising. Heavy shadows.
+"Now, look out!" (from the bloodthirsty demon, in a loud, distinct
+voice). "If the ghost is here and I see him, so help me God I'll fire at
+him!" Suddenly, as we enter the field, a most extraordinary noise
+responds--terrific noise--human noise--and yet superhuman noise. B. T.
+D. brings piece to shoulder. "Did you hear that, pa?" says Frank. "I
+did," says I. Noise repeated--portentous, derisive, dull, dismal,
+damnable. We advance towards the sound. Something white comes lumbering
+through the darkness. An asthmatic sheep! Dead, as I judge, by this
+time. Leaving Frank to guard him, I took Andrew with me, and went all
+round the monument, and down into the ditch, and examined the field
+well, thinking it likely that somebody might be taking advantage of the
+sheep to frighten the village. Drama ends with discovery of no one, and
+triumphant return to rum-and-water.
+
+                                                  Ever affectionately.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Hogarth.]
+
+              BIDEFORD, NORTH DEVON, _Thursday Night, Nov. 1st, 1860._
+
+MY DEAREST GEORGY,
+
+I write (with the most impracticable iron pen on earth) to report our
+safe arrival here, in a beastly hotel. We start to-morrow morning at
+nine on a two days' posting between this and Liskeard in Cornwall. We
+are due in Liskeard (but nobody seems to know anything about the roads)
+on Saturday afternoon, and we purpose making an excursion in that
+neighbourhood on Sunday, and coming up from Liskeard on Monday by Great
+Western fast train, which will get us to London, please God, in good
+time on Monday evening. There I shall hear from you, and know whether
+dear Mamie will move to London too.
+
+We had a pleasant journey down here, and a beautiful day. No adventures
+whatever. Nothing has happened to Wilkie, and he sends love.
+
+We had stinking fish for dinner, and have been able to drink nothing,
+though we have ordered wine, beer, and brandy-and-water. There is
+nothing in the house but two tarts and a pair of snuffers. The landlady
+is playing cribbage with the landlord in the next room (behind a thin
+partition), and they seem quite comfortable.
+
+                      Ever, my dearest Georgy, your most affectionate.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Mary Boyle.]
+
+                                  OFFICE OF "ALL THE YEAR ROUND,"
+                                            _Friday, Dec. 28th, 1860._
+
+MY DEAR MARY,
+
+I cannot tell you how much I thank you for the beautiful cigar-case, and
+how seasonable, and friendly, and good, and warm-hearted it looked when
+I opened it at Gad's Hill. Besides which, it is a cigar-case, and will
+hold cigars; two crowning merits that I never yet knew to be possessed
+by any article claiming the same name. For all of these reasons, but
+more than all because it comes from you, I love it, and send you
+eighteen hundred and sixty kisses, with one in for the new year.
+
+Both excellent stories and perfectly new. Your Joe swears that he never
+heard either--never a word or syllable of either--after he laughed at
+'em this blessed day.
+
+I have no news, except that I am not quite well, and am being doctored.
+Pray read "Great Expectations." I think it is very droll. It is a very
+great success, and seems universally liked. I suppose because it opens
+funnily, and with an interest too.
+
+I pass my time here (I am staying here alone) in working, taking physic,
+and taking a stall at a theatre every night. On Boxing Night I was at
+Covent Garden. A dull pantomime was "worked" (as we say) better than I
+ever saw a heavy piece worked on a first night, until suddenly and
+without a moment's warning, every scene on that immense stage fell over
+on its face, and disclosed chaos by gaslight behind! There never was
+such a business; about sixty people who were on the stage being
+extinguished in the most remarkable manner. Not a soul was hurt. In the
+uproar, some moon-calf rescued a porter pot, six feet high (out of which
+the clown had been drinking when the accident happened), and stood it on
+the cushion of the lowest proscenium box, P.S., beside a lady and
+gentleman, who were dreadfully ashamed of it. The moment the house knew
+that nobody was injured, they directed their whole attention to this
+gigantic porter pot in its genteel position (the lady and gentleman
+trying to hide behind it), and roared with laughter. When a modest
+footman came from behind the curtain to clear it, and took it up in his
+arms like a Brobdingnagian baby, we all laughed more than ever we had
+laughed in our lives. I don't know why.
+
+We have had a fire here, but our people put it out before the
+parish-engine arrived, like a drivelling perambulator, with _the beadle
+in it_, like an imbecile baby. Popular opinion, disappointed in the fire
+having been put out, snowballed the beadle. God bless it!
+
+Over the way at the Lyceum, there is a very fair Christmas piece, with
+one or two uncommonly well-done nigger songs--one remarkably gay and
+mad, done in the finale to a scene. Also a very nice transformation,
+though I don't know what it means.
+
+The poor actors waylay me in Bow Street, to represent their necessities;
+and I often see one cut down a court when he beholds me coming, cut
+round Drury Lane to face me, and come up towards me near this door in
+the freshest and most accidental way, as if I was the last person he
+expected to see on the surface of this globe. The other day, there thus
+appeared before me (simultaneously with a scent of rum in the air) one
+aged and greasy man, with a pair of pumps under his arm. He said he
+thought if he could get down to somewhere (I think it was Newcastle), he
+would get "taken on" as Pantaloon, the existing Pantaloon being "a
+stick, sir--a mere muff." I observed that I was sorry times were so bad
+with him. "Mr. Dickens, you know our profession, sir--no one knows it
+better, sir--there is no right feeling in it. I was Harlequin on your
+own circuit, sir, for five-and-thirty years, and was displaced by a boy,
+sir!--a boy!"
+
+So no more at present, except love to Mrs. Watson and Bedgey Prig and
+all, from my dear Mary.
+
+                                              Your ever affectionate
+                                                                  JOE.
+
+P.S.--DON'T I pine neither?
+
+P.P.S.--I did my best to arouse Forster's worst feelings; but he had got
+into a Christmas habit of mind, and wouldn't respond.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[6] With whom Mr. and Mrs. Wills were staying at Aberystwith.
+
+
+
+
+NARRATIVE.
+
+1861.
+
+
+This, as far as his movements were concerned, was again a very unsettled
+year with Charles Dickens. He hired a furnished house in the Regent's
+Park, which he, with his household, occupied for some months. During the
+season he gave several readings at St. James's Hall. After a short
+summer holiday at Gad's Hill, he started, in the autumn, on a reading
+tour in the English provinces. Mr. Arthur Smith, being seriously ill,
+could not accompany him in this tour; and Mr. Headland, who was formerly
+in office at the St. Martin's Hall, was engaged as business-manager of
+these readings. Mr. Arthur Smith died in October, and Charles Dickens's
+distress at the loss of this loved friend and companion is touchingly
+expressed in many of his letters of this year.
+
+There are also sorrowful allusions to the death of his brother-in-law,
+Mr. Henry Austin, which sad event likewise happened in October. And the
+letter we give to Mrs. Austin ("Letitia") has reference to her sad
+affliction.
+
+In June of this year he paid a short visit to Sir E. B. Lytton at
+Knebworth, accompanied by his daughter and sister-in-law, who also
+during his autumn tour joined him in Edinburgh. But this course of
+readings was brought rather suddenly to an end on account of the death
+of the Prince Consort.
+
+Besides being constantly occupied with the business of these readings,
+Charles Dickens was still at work on his story of "Great Expectations,"
+which was appearing weekly in "All the Year Round." The story closed on
+the 3rd of August, when it was published as a whole in three volumes,
+and inscribed to Mr. Chauncey Hare Townshend. The Christmas number of
+"All the Year Round" was called "Tom Tiddler's Ground," to which Charles
+Dickens contributed three stories.
+
+Our second letter in this year is given more as a specimen of the claims
+which were constantly being made upon Charles Dickens's time and
+patience, than because we consider the letter itself to contain much
+public interest; excepting, indeed, as showing his always considerate
+and courteous replies to such constant applications.
+
+"The fire" mentioned in the letter to Mr. Forster was the great fire in
+Tooley Street. The "Morgan" was an American sea-captain, well known in
+those days, and greatly liked and respected. It may interest our readers
+to know that the character of Captain Jorgan, in the Christmas number of
+the previous year, was suggested by this pleasant sailor, for whom
+Charles Dickens had a hearty liking. Young Mr. Morgan was, during the
+years he passed in England, a constant visitor at Gad's Hill. The
+"Elwin" mentioned in the letter written from Bury St. Edmunds, was the
+Rev. Whitwell Elwin, a Norfolk gentleman, well known in the literary
+world, and who was for many years editor of "The Quarterly Review."
+
+The explanation of the letter to Mr. John Agate, of Dover, we give in
+that gentleman's own words:
+
+"There are few public men with the strain upon their time and energies
+which he had particularly (and which I know better now that I have read
+his life), who would have spared the time to have written such a long
+courteous letter.
+
+"I wrote to him rather in anger, and left the letter myself at The Lord
+Warden, as I and my family were very much disappointed, after having
+purchased our tickets so long before, to find we could not got into the
+room, as money was being received, but his kind letter explained all."
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Hogarth.]
+
+                                  OFFICE OF "ALL THE YEAR ROUND,"
+                                          _Wednesday, Jan. 9th, 1861._
+
+MY DEAREST GEORGY,
+
+"We" are in the full swing of stopping managers from playing "A Message
+from the Sea." I privately doubt the strength of our position in the
+Court of Chancery, if we try it; but it is worth trying.
+
+I am aware that Mr. Lane of the Britannia sent an emissary to Gad's Hill
+yesterday. It unfortunately happens that the first man "we" have to
+assert the principle against is a very good man, whom I really respect.
+
+I have no news, except that I really hope and believe I am gradually
+getting well. If I have no check, I hope to be soon discharged by the
+medico.
+
+                                                  Ever affectionately.
+
+P.S.--Best love to Mamie, also to the boys and Miss Craufurd.
+
+
+    OFFICE OF "ALL THE YEAR ROUND," 26, WELLINGTON STREET, W.C.,
+                                    _Tuesday Evening, Jan. 9th, 1861._
+
+DEAR SIR,
+
+I feel it quite hopeless to endeavour to present my position before you,
+in reference to such a letter as yours, in its plain and true light.
+When you suppose it would have cost Mr. Thackeray "but a word" to use
+his influence to obtain you some curatorship or the like, you fill me
+with the sense of impossibility of leading you to a more charitable
+judgment of Mr. Dickens.
+
+Nevertheless, I will put the truth before you. Scarcely a day of my life
+passes, or has passed for many years, without bringing me some letters
+similar to yours. Often they will come by dozens--scores--hundreds. My
+time and attention would be pretty well occupied without them, and the
+claims upon me (some very near home), for all the influence and means of
+help that I do and do not possess, are not commonly heavy. I have no
+power to aid you towards the attainment of your object. It is the simple
+exact truth, and nothing can alter it. So great is the disquietude I
+constantly undergo from having to write to some new correspondent in
+this strain, that, God knows, I would resort to another relief if I
+could.
+
+Your studies from nature appear to me to express an excellent
+observation of nature, in a loving and healthy spirit. But what then?
+The dealers and dealers' prices of which you complain will not be
+influenced by that honest opinion. Nor will it have the least effect
+upon the President of the Royal Academy, or the Directors of the School
+of Design. Assuming your supposition to be correct that these
+authorities are adverse to you, I have no more power than you have to
+render them favourable. And assuming them to be quite disinterested and
+dispassionate towards you, I have no voice or weight in any appointment
+that any of them make.
+
+I will retain your packet over to-morrow, and will then cause it to be
+sent to your house. I write under the pressure of occupation and
+business, and therefore write briefly.
+
+                                                     Faithfully yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: M. de Cerjat.]
+
+             OFFICE OF "ALL THE YEAR ROUND," _Friday, Feb. 1st, 1861._
+
+MY DEAR CERJAT,
+
+You have read in the papers of our heavy English frost. At Gad's Hill it
+was so intensely cold, that in our warm dining-room on Christmas Day we
+could hardly sit at the table. In my study on that morning, long after a
+great fire of coal and wood had been lighted, the thermometer was I
+don't know where below freezing. The bath froze, and all the pipes
+froze, and remained in a stony state for five or six weeks. The water in
+the bedroom-jugs froze, and blew up the crockery. The snow on the top of
+the house froze, and was imperfectly removed with axes. My beard froze
+as I walked about, and I couldn't detach my cravat and coat from it
+until I was thawed at the fire. My boys and half the officers stationed
+at Chatham skated away without a check to Gravesend--five miles off--and
+repeated the performance for three or four weeks. At last the thaw came,
+and then everything split, blew up, dripped, poured, perspired, and got
+spoilt. Since then we have had a small visitation of the plague of
+servants; the cook (in a riding-habit) and the groom (in a dress-coat
+and jewels) having mounted Mary's horse and mine, in our absence, and
+scoured the neighbouring country at a rattling pace. And when I went
+home last Saturday, I innocently wondered how the horses came to be out
+of condition, and gravely consulted the said groom on the subject, who
+gave it as his opinion "which they wanted reg'lar work." We are now
+coming to town until midsummer. Having sold my own house, to be more
+free and independent, I have taken a very pretty furnished house, No. 3,
+Hanover Terrace, Regent's Park. This, of course, on my daughter's
+account. For I have very good and cheerful bachelor rooms here, with an
+old servant in charge, who is the cleverest man of his kind in the
+world, and can do anything, from excellent carpentery to excellent
+cookery, and has been with me three-and-twenty years.
+
+The American business is the greatest English sensation at present. I
+venture to predict that the struggle of violence will be a very short
+one, and will be soon succeeded by some new compact between the Northern
+and Southern States. Meantime the Lancashire mill-owners are getting
+very uneasy.
+
+The Italian state of things is not regarded as looking very cheerful.
+What from one's natural sympathies with a people so oppressed as the
+Italians, and one's natural antagonism to a pope and a Bourbon (both of
+which superstitions I do suppose the world to have had more than enough
+of), I agree with you concerning Victor Emmanuel, and greatly fear that
+the Southern Italians are much degraded. Still, an united Italy would be
+of vast importance to the peace of the world, and would be a rock in
+Louis Napoleon's way, as he very well knows. Therefore the idea must be
+championed, however much against hope.
+
+My eldest boy, just home from China, was descried by Townshend's Henri
+the moment he landed at Marseilles, and was by him borne in triumph to
+Townshend's rooms. The weather was snowy, slushy, beastly; and
+Marseilles was, as it usually is to my thinking, well-nigh intolerable.
+My boy could not stay with Townshend, as he was coming on by express
+train; but he says: "I sat with him and saw him dine. He had a leg of
+lamb, and a tremendous cold." That is the whole description I have been
+able to extract from him.
+
+This journal is doing gloriously, and "Great Expectations" is a great
+success. I have taken my third boy, Frank (Jeffrey's godson), into this
+office. If I am not mistaken, he has a natural literary taste and
+capacity, and may do very well with a chance so congenial to his mind,
+and being also entered at the Bar.
+
+Dear me, when I have to show you about London, and we dine _en garçon_
+at odd places, I shall scarcely know where to begin. Only yesterday I
+walked out from here in the afternoon, and thought I would go down by
+the Houses of Parliament. When I got there, the day was so beautifully
+bright and warm, that I thought I would walk on by Millbank, to see the
+river. I walked straight on _for three miles_ on a splendid broad
+esplanade overhanging the Thames, with immense factories, railway works,
+and what-not erected on it, and with the strangest beginnings and ends
+of wealthy streets pushing themselves into the very Thames. When I was a
+rower on that river, it was all broken ground and ditch, with here and
+there a public-house or two, an old mill, and a tall chimney. I had
+never seen it in any state of transition, though I suppose myself to
+know this rather large city as well as anyone in it.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. E. M. Ward, R.A.]
+
+                              3, HANOVER TERRACE, REGENT'S PARK,
+                                    _Saturday Night, March 9th, 1861._
+
+MY DEAR WARD,
+
+I cannot tell you how gratified I have been by your letter, and what a
+splendid recompense it is for any pleasure I am giving you. Such
+generous and earnest sympathy from such a brother-artist gives me true
+delight. I am proud of it, believe me, and moved by it to do all the
+better.
+
+                                                Ever faithfully yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. W. C. Macready.]
+
+              "ALL THE YEAR ROUND" OFFICE, _Tuesday, June 11th, 1861._
+
+MY DEAREST MACREADY,
+
+There is little doubt, I think, of my reading at Cheltenham somewhere
+about November. I submit myself so entirely to Arthur Smith's
+arrangements for me, that I express my sentiments on this head with
+modesty. But I think there is scarcely a doubt of my seeing you then.
+
+I have just finished my book of "Great Expectations," and am the worse
+for wear. Neuralgic pains in the face have troubled me a good deal, and
+the work has been pretty close. But I hope that the book is a good book,
+and I have no doubt of very soon throwing off the little damage it has
+done me.
+
+What with Blondin at the Crystal Palace and Léotard at Leicester Square,
+we seem to be going back to barbaric excitements. I have not seen, and
+don't intend to see, the Hero of Niagara (as the posters call him), but
+I have been beguiled into seeing Léotard, and it is at once the most
+fearful and most graceful thing I have ever seen done.
+
+Clara White (grown pretty) has been staying with us.
+
+I am sore afraid that _The Times_, by playing fast and loose with the
+American question, has very seriously compromised this country. The
+Americans northward are perfectly furious on the subject; and Motley the
+historian (a very sensible man, strongly English in his sympathies)
+assured me the other day that he thought the harm done very serious
+indeed, and the dangerous nature of the daily widening breach scarcely
+calculable.
+
+Kindest and best love to all. Wilkie Collins has just come in, and sends
+best regard.
+
+                        Ever most affectionately, my dearest Macready.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. John Forster.]
+
+                                 GAD'S HILL, _Monday, July 1st, 1861._
+
+MY DEAR FORSTER,
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+You will be surprised to hear that I have changed the end of "Great
+Expectations" from and after Pip's return to Joe's, and finding his
+little likeness there.
+
+Bulwer (who has been, as I think I told you, extraordinarily taken by
+the book), so strongly urged it upon me, after reading the proofs, and
+supported his views with such good reasons, that I resolved to make the
+change. You shall have it when you come back to town. I have put in a
+very pretty piece of writing, and I have no doubt the story will be more
+acceptable through the alteration.
+
+I have not seen Bulwer's changed story. I brought back the first month
+with me, and I know the nature of his changes throughout; but I have not
+yet had the revised proofs. He was in a better state at Knebworth than I
+have ever seen him in all these years, a little weird occasionally
+regarding magic and spirits, but perfectly fair and frank under
+opposition. He was talkative, anecdotical, and droll; looked young and
+well, laughed heartily, and enjoyed some games we played with great
+zest. In his artist character and talk he was full of interest and
+matter, but that he always is. Socially, he seemed to me almost a new
+man. I thoroughly enjoyed myself, and so did Georgina and Mary.
+
+The fire I did not see until the Monday morning, but it was blazing
+fiercely then, and was blazing hardly less furiously when I came down
+here again last Friday. I was here on the night of its breaking out. If
+I had been in London I should have been on the scene, pretty surely.
+
+You will be perhaps surprised to hear that it is Morgan's conviction
+(his son was here yesterday), that the North will put down the South,
+and that speedily. In his management of his large business, he is
+proceeding steadily on that conviction. He says that the South has no
+money and no credit, and that it is impossible for it to make a
+successful stand. He may be all wrong, but he is certainly a very shrewd
+man, and he has never been, as to the United States, an enthusiast of
+any class.
+
+Poor Lord Campbell's seems to me as easy and good a death as one could
+desire. There must be a sweep of these men very soon, and one feels as
+if it must fall out like the breaking of an arch--one stone goes from a
+prominent place, and then the rest begin to drop. So one looks towards
+Brougham, and Lyndhurst, and Pollock.
+
+I will add no more to this, or I know I shall not send it; for I am in
+the first desperate laziness of having done my book, and think of
+offering myself to the village school as a live example of that vice for
+the edification of youth.
+
+                                Ever, my dear Forster, affectionately.
+
+
+[Sidenote: The Hon. Mrs. Watson.]
+
+                    GAD'S HILL PLACE, HIGHAM BY ROCHESTER, KENT,
+                                             _Monday, July 8th, 1861._
+
+MY DEAR MRS. WATSON,
+
+I have owed you a letter for so long a time that I fear you may
+sometimes have misconstrued my silence. But I hope that the sight of the
+handwriting of your old friend will undeceive you, if you have, and will
+put that right.
+
+During the progress of my last story, I have been working so hard that
+very, very little correspondence--except enforced correspondence on
+business--has passed this pen. And now that I am free again, I devote a
+few of my first leisure moments to this note.
+
+You seemed in your last to think that I had forgotten you in respect of
+the Christmas number. Not so at all. I discussed with them here where
+you were, how you were to be addressed, and the like; finally left the
+number in a blank envelope, and did not add the address to it until it
+would have been absurd to send you such stale bread. This was my fault,
+but this was all. And I should be so pained at heart if you supposed me
+capable of failing in my truth and cordiality, or in the warm
+remembrance of the time we have passed together, that perhaps I make
+more of it than you meant to do.
+
+My sailor-boy is at home--I was going to write, for the holidays, but I
+suppose I must substitute "on leave." Under the new regulations, he must
+not pass out of the _Britannia_ before December. The younger boys are
+all at school, and coming home this week for the holidays. Mary keeps
+house, of course, and Katie and her husband surprised us yesterday, and
+are here now. Charley is holiday-making at Guernsey and Jersey. He has
+been for some time seeking a partnership in business, and has not yet
+found one. The matter is in the hands of Mr. Bates, the managing partner
+in Barings' house, and seems as slow a matter to adjust itself as ever I
+looked on at. Georgina is, as usual, the general friend and confidante
+and factotum of the whole party.
+
+Your present correspondent read at St. James's Hall in the beginning of
+the season, to perfectly astounding audiences; but finding that fatigue
+and excitement very difficult to manage in conjunction with a story,
+deemed it prudent to leave off reading in high tide and mid-career, the
+rather by reason of something like neuralgia in the face. At the end of
+October I begin again; and if you are at Brighton in November, I shall
+try to see you there. I deliver myself up to Mr. Arthur Smith, and I
+know it is one of the places for which he has put me down.
+
+This is all about me and mine, and next I want to know why you never
+come to Gad's Hill, and whether you are never coming. The stress I lay
+on these questions you will infer from the size of the following note of
+interrogation[HW: =?=]
+
+I am in the constant receipt of news from Lausanne. Of Mary Boyle, I
+daresay you have seen and heard more than I have lately. Rumours
+occasionally reach me of her acting in every English shire incessantly,
+and getting in a harvest of laurels all the year round. Cavendish I have
+not seen for a long time, but when I did see him last, it was at
+Tavistock House, and we dined together jovially. Mention of that
+locality reminds me that when you DO come here, you will see the
+pictures looking wonderfully better, and more precious than they ever
+did in town. Brought together in country light and air, they really are
+quite a baby collection and very pretty.
+
+I direct this to Rockingham, supposing you to be there in this summer
+time. If you are as leafy in Northamptonshire as we are in Kent, you are
+greener than you have been for some years. I hope you may have seen a
+large-headed photograph with little legs, representing the undersigned,
+pen in hand, tapping his forehead to knock an idea out. It has just
+sprung up so abundantly in all the shops, that I am ashamed to go about
+town looking in at the picture-windows, which is my delight. It seems to
+me extraordinarily ludicrous, and much more like than the grave portrait
+done in earnest. It made me laugh when I first came upon it, until I
+shook again, in open sunlighted Piccadilly.
+
+Pray be a good Christian to me, and don't be retributive in measuring
+out the time that shall pass before you write to me. And believe me
+ever,
+
+                                       Your affectionate and faithful.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. W. Wilkie Collins.]
+
+                                  OFFICE OF "ALL THE YEAR ROUND,"
+                                         _Wednesday, Aug. 28th, 1861._
+
+MY DEAR WILKIE,
+
+I have been going to write to you ever since I received your letter from
+Whitby, and now I hear from Charley that you are coming home, and must
+be addressed in the Rue Harley. Let me know whether you will dine here
+this day week at the usual five. I am at present so addle-headed (having
+hard Wednesday work in Wills's absence) that I can't write much.
+
+I have got the "Copperfield" reading ready for delivery, and am now
+going to blaze away at "Nickleby," which I don't like half as well.
+Every morning I "go in" at these marks for two or three hours, and then
+collapse and do nothing whatever (counting as nothing much cricket and
+rounders).
+
+In my time that curious railroad by the Whitby Moor was so much the more
+curious, that you were balanced against a counter-weight of water, and
+that you did it like Blondin. But in these remote days the one inn of
+Whitby was up a back-yard, and oyster-shell grottoes were the only view
+from the best private room. Likewise, sir, I have posted to Whitby.
+"Pity the sorrows of a poor old man."
+
+The sun is glaring in at these windows with an amount of ferocity
+insupportable by one of the landed interest, who lies upon his back with
+an imbecile hold on grass, from lunch to dinner. Feebleness of mind and
+head are the result.
+
+                                                  Ever affectionately.
+
+P.S.--The boys have multiplied themselves by fifty daily, and have
+seemed to appear in hosts (especially in the hottest days) round all the
+corners at Gad's Hill. I call them the prowlers, and each has a
+distinguishing name attached, derived from his style of prowling.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. Arthur Smith.]
+
+                    GAD'S HILL PLACE, HIGHAM BY ROCHESTER, KENT,
+                                           _Tuesday, Sept. 3rd, 1861._
+
+MY DEAR ARTHUR,
+
+I cannot tell you how sorry I am to receive your bad account of your
+health, or how anxious I shall be to receive a better one as soon as you
+can possibly give it.
+
+If you go away, don't you think in the main you would be better here
+than anywhere? You know how well you would be nursed, what care we
+should take of you, and how perfectly quiet and at home you would be,
+until you become strong enough to take to the Medway. Moreover, I think
+you would be less anxious about the tour, here, than away from such
+association. I would come to Worthing to fetch you, I needn't say, and
+would take the most careful charge of you. I will write no more about
+this, because I wish to avoid giving you more to read than can be
+helped; but I do sincerely believe it would be at once your wisest and
+least anxious course. As to a long journey into Wales, or any long
+journey, it would never do. Nice is not to be thought of. Its dust, and
+its sharp winds (I know it well), towards October are very bad indeed.
+
+I send you the enclosed letters, firstly, because I have no circular to
+answer them with, and, secondly, because I fear I might confuse your
+arrangements by interfering with the correspondence. I shall hope to
+have a word from you very soon. I am at work for the tour every day,
+except my town Wednesdays.
+
+                                                      Ever faithfully.
+
+P.S.--Kindest regards from all.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. John Watkins.]
+
+                    GAD'S HILL PLACE, HIGHAM BY ROCHESTER, KENT,
+                                   _Saturday Night, Sept. 28th, 1861._
+
+DEAR MR. WATKINS,
+
+In reply to your kind letter I must explain that I have not yet brought
+down any of your large photographs of myself, and therefore cannot
+report upon their effect here. I think the "cartes" are all liked.
+
+A general howl of horror greeted the appearance of No. 18, and a riotous
+attempt was made to throw it out of window. I calmed the popular fury
+by promising that it should never again be beheld within these walls. I
+think I mentioned to you when you showed it to me, that I felt persuaded
+it would not be liked. It has a grim and wasted aspect, and perhaps
+might be made useful as a portrait of the Ancient Mariner.
+
+I feel that I owe you an apology for being (innocently) a difficult
+subject. When I once excused myself to Ary Scheffer while sitting to
+him, he received the apology as strictly his due, and said with a vexed
+air: "At this moment, _mon cher_ Dickens, you look more like an
+energetic Dutch admiral than anything else;" for which I apologised
+again.
+
+In the hope that the pains you have bestowed upon me will not be thrown
+away, but that your success will prove of some use to you, believe me,
+
+                                                     Faithfully yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. Edmund Yates.]
+
+                    GAD'S HILL PLACE, HIGHAM BY ROCHESTER, KENT,
+                                             _Sunday, Oct. 6th, 1861._
+
+              AFTER THE DEATH OF MR. ARTHUR SMITH.
+
+MY DEAR EDMUND,
+
+Coming back here to-day, I find your letter.
+
+I was so very much distressed last night in thinking of it all, and I
+find it so very difficult to preserve my composure when I dwell in my
+mind on the many times fast approaching when I shall sorely miss the
+familiar face, that I am hardly steady enough yet to refer to the
+readings like a man. But your kind reference to them makes me desirous
+to tell you that I took Headland (formerly of St. Martin's Hall, who has
+always been with us in London) to conduct the business, when I knew that
+our poor dear fellow could never do it, even if he had recovered
+strength to go; and that I consulted with himself about it when I saw
+him for the last time on earth, and that it seemed to please him, and he
+said: "We couldn't do better."
+
+Write to me before you come; and remember that I go to town Wednesday
+mornings.
+
+                                                      Ever faithfully.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Dickens.]
+
+                             OFFICE OF "ALL THE YEAR ROUND,"
+                                          _Thursday, Oct. 10th, 1861._
+
+MY DEAREST MAMIE,
+
+I received your affectionate little letter here this morning, and was
+very glad to get it. Poor dear Arthur is a sad loss to me, and indeed I
+was very fond of him. But the readings must be fought out, like all the
+rest of life.
+
+                                               Ever your affectionate.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. W. C. Macready.]
+
+                    GAD'S HILL PLACE, HIGHAM BY ROCHESTER, KENT,
+                                            _Sunday, Oct. 13th, 1861._
+
+MY DEAREST MACREADY,
+
+This is a short note. But the moment I know for certain what is designed
+for me at Cheltenham, I write to you in order that you may know it from
+me and not by chance from anyone else.
+
+I am to read there on the evening of Friday, the 3rd of January, and on
+the morning of Saturday, the 4th; as I have nothing to do on Thursday,
+the 2nd, but come from Leamington, I shall come to you, please God, for
+a quiet dinner that day.
+
+The death of Arthur Smith has caused me great distress and anxiety. I
+had a great regard for him, and he made the reading part of my life as
+light and pleasant as it _could_ be made. I had hoped to bring him to
+see you, and had pictured to myself how amused and interested you would
+have been with his wonderful tact and consummate mastery of arrangement.
+But it's all over.
+
+I begin at Norwich on the 28th, and am going north in the middle of
+November. I am going to do "Copperfield," and shall be curious to test
+its effect on the Edinburgh people. It has been quite a job so to piece
+portions of the long book together as to make something continuous out
+of it; but I hope I have got something varied and dramatic. I am also
+(not to slight _your_ book) going to do "Nickleby at Mr. Squeers's." It
+is clear that both must be trotted out at Cheltenham.
+
+With kindest love and regard to all your house,
+
+                    Ever, my dearest Macready, your most affectionate.
+
+P.S.--Fourth edition of "Great Expectations" almost gone!
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Hogarth.]
+
+                                  ANGEL HOTEL, BURY ST. EDMUNDS,
+                                         _Wednesday, Oct. 13th, 1861._
+
+MY DEAREST GEORGY,
+
+I have just now received your welcome letter, and I hasten to report
+(having very little time) that we had a splendid hall last night, and
+that I think "Nickleby" tops all the readings. Somehow it seems to have
+got in it, by accident, exactly the qualities best suited to the
+purpose, and it went last night not only with roars, but with a general
+hilarity and pleasure that I have never seen surpassed.
+
+We are full here for to-night.
+
+Fancy this: last night at about six, who should walk in but Elwin! He
+was exactly in his usual state, only more demonstrative than ever, and
+had been driven in by some neighbours who were coming to the reading. I
+had tea up for him, and he went down at seven with me to the dismal den
+where I dressed, and sat by the fire while I dressed, and was childishly
+happy in that great privilege! During the reading he sat on a corner of
+the platform and roared incessantly. He brought in a lady and gentleman
+to introduce while I was undressing, and went away in a perfect and
+absolute rapture.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Hogarth.]
+
+                     ROYAL HOTEL, NORWICH, _Tuesday, Oct. 29th, 1861._
+
+I cannot say that we began well last night. We had not a good hall, and
+they were a very lumpish audience indeed. This did not tend to cheer the
+strangeness I felt in being without Arthur, and I was not at all myself.
+We have a large let for to-night, I think two hundred and fifty stalls,
+which is very large, and I hope that both they and I will go better. I
+could have done perfectly last night, if the audience had been bright,
+but they were an intent and staring audience. They laughed though very
+well, and the storm made them shake themselves again. But they were not
+magnetic, and the great big place was out of sorts somehow.
+
+To-morrow I will write you another short note, however short. It is
+"Nickleby" and the "Trial" to-night; "Copperfield" again to-morrow. A
+wet day here, with glimpses of blue. I shall not forget Katey's health
+at dinner. A pleasant journey down.
+
+                      Ever, my dearest Georgy, your most affectionate.
+
+
+[Sidenote: The same.]
+
+             THE GREAT WHITE HORSE, IPSWICH, _Friday, Nov. 1st, 1861._
+
+I cannot quite remember in the whirl of travelling and reading, whether
+or no I wrote you a line from Bury St. Edmunds. But I think (and hope)
+I did. We had a fine room there, and "Copperfield" made a great
+impression. At mid-day we go on to Colchester, where I shall expect the
+young Morgans. I sent a telegram on yesterday, after receiving your
+note, to secure places for them. The answer returned by telegraph was:
+"No box-seats left but on the fourth row." If they prefer to sit on the
+stage (for I read in the theatre, there being no other large public
+room), they shall. Meantime I have told John, who went forward this
+morning with the other men, to let the people at the inn know that if
+three travellers answering that description appear before my
+dinner-time, they are to dine with me.
+
+Plorn's admission that he likes the school very much indeed, is the
+great social triumph of modern times.
+
+I am looking forward to Sunday's rest at Gad's, and shall be down by the
+ten o'clock train from town. I miss poor Arthur dreadfully. It is
+scarcely possible to imagine how much. It is not only that his loss to
+me socially is quite irreparable, but that the sense I used to have of
+compactness and comfort about me while I was reading is quite gone. And
+when I come out for the ten minutes, when I used to find him always
+ready for me with something cheerful to say, it is forlorn. I cannot but
+fancy, too, that the audience must miss the old speciality of a
+pervading gentleman.
+
+Nobody I know has turned up yet except Elwin. I have had many
+invitations to all sorts of houses in all sorts of places, and have of
+course accepted them every one.
+
+Love to Mamie, if she has come home, and to Bouncer, if _she_ has come;
+also Marguerite, who I hope is by this time much better.
+
+                         Ever, my dear Georgy, your most affectionate.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mrs. Henry Austin.]
+
+                                 GAD'S HILL, _Sunday, Nov. 3rd, 1861._
+
+EXTRACT.
+
+I am heartily glad to hear that you have been out in the air, and I hope
+you will go again very soon and make a point of continuing to go. There
+is a soothing influence in the sight of the earth and sky, which God put
+into them for our relief when He made the world in which we are all to
+suffer, and strive, and die.
+
+I will not fail to write to you from many points of my tour, and if you
+ever want to write to me you may be sure of a quick response, and may be
+certain that I am sympathetic and true.
+
+                                                  Ever affectionately.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Dickens.]
+
+            FOUNTAIN HOTEL, CANTERBURY, _Windy Night, Nov. 4th, 1861._
+
+MY DEAREST MAMIE,
+
+A word of report before I go to bed. An excellent house to-night, and an
+audience positively perfect. The greatest part of it stalls, and an
+intelligent and delightful response in them, like the touch of a
+beautiful instrument. "Copperfield" wound up in a real burst of feeling
+and delight.
+
+                                                  Ever affectionately.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. John Agate.]
+
+                LORD WARDEN HOTEL, DOVER, _Wednesday, Nov. 6th, 1861._
+
+SIR,
+
+I am exceedingly sorry to find, from the letter you have addressed to
+me, that you had just cause of complaint in being excluded from my
+reading here last night. It will now and then unfortunately happen when
+the place of reading is small (as in this case), that some confusion
+and inconvenience arise from the local agents over-estimating, in
+perfect good faith and sincerity, the capacity of the room. Such a
+mistake, I am assured, was made last night; and thus all the available
+space was filled before the people in charge were at all prepared for
+that circumstance.
+
+You may readily suppose that I can have no personal knowledge of the
+proceedings of the people in my employment at such a time. But I wish to
+assure you very earnestly, that they are all old servants, well
+acquainted with my principles and wishes, and that they are under the
+strongest injunction to avoid any approach to mercenary dealing; and to
+behave to all comers equally with as much consideration and politeness
+as they know I should myself display. The recent death of a
+much-regretted friend of mine, who managed this business for me, and on
+whom these men were accustomed to rely in any little difficulty, caused
+them (I have no doubt) to feel rather at a loss in your case. Do me the
+favour to understand that under any other circumstances you would, as a
+matter of course, have been provided with any places whatever that could
+be found, without the smallest reference to what you had originally
+paid. This is scanty satisfaction to you, but it is so strictly the
+truth, that yours is the first complaint of the kind I have ever
+received.
+
+I hope to read in Dover again, but it is quite impossible that I can
+make any present arrangement for that purpose. Whenever I may return
+here, you may be sure I shall not fail to remember that I owe you a
+recompense for a disappointment. In the meanwhile I very sincerely
+regret it.
+
+                                                     Faithfully yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Hogarth.]
+
+                  BEDFORD HOTEL, BRIGHTON, _Thursday, Nov. 7th, 1861._
+
+MY DEAR GEORGY,
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The Duchess of Cambridge comes to-night to "Copperfield." The bad
+weather has not in the least touched us, and beyond all doubt a great
+deal of money has been left untaken at each place.
+
+The storm was most magnificent at Dover. All the great side of The Lord
+Warden next the sea had to be emptied, the break of the sea was so
+prodigious, and the noise was so utterly confounding. The sea came in
+like a great sky of immense clouds, for ever breaking suddenly into
+furious rain. All kinds of wreck were washed in. Miss Birmingham and I
+saw, among other things, a very pretty brass-bound chest being thrown
+about like a feather. On Tuesday night, the unhappy Ostend packet could
+not get in, neither could she go back, and she beat about the Channel
+until noon yesterday. I saw her come in then, _with five men at the
+wheel_; such a picture of misery, as to the crew (of passengers there
+were no signs), as you can scarcely imagine.
+
+Tho effect at Hastings and at Dover really seems to have outdone the
+best usual impression, and at Dover they wouldn't go, but sat applauding
+like mad. The most delicate audience I have seen in any provincial place
+is Canterbury. The audience with the greatest sense of humour certainly
+is Dover. The people in the stalls set the example of laughing, in the
+most curiously unreserved way; and they really laughed when Squeers read
+the boys' letters, with such cordial enjoyment, that the contagion
+extended to me, for one couldn't hear them without laughing too.
+
+So, thank God, all goes well, and the recompense for the trouble is in
+every way great. There is rather an alarming breakdown at Newcastle, in
+respect of all the bills having been, in some inscrutable way, lost on
+the road. I have resolved to send Berry there, with full powers to do
+all manner of things, early next week.
+
+The amended route-list is not printed yet, because I am trying to get
+off Manchester and Liverpool; both of which I strongly doubt, in the
+present state of American affairs. Therefore I can't send it for
+Marguerite; but I can, and do, send her my love and God-speed. This is
+addressed to the office because I suppose you will be there to-morrow.
+
+                                                  Ever affectionately.
+
+
+[Sidenote: The Earl of Carlisle.]
+
+                    GAD'S HILL PLACE, HIGHAM BY ROCHESTER, KENT,
+                                                _November 15th, 1861._
+
+MY DEAR LORD CARLISLE,
+
+You know poor Austin, and what his work was, and how he did it. If you
+have no private objection to signing the enclosed memorial (which will
+receive the right signatures before being presented), I think you will
+have no public objection. I shall be heartily glad if you can put your
+name to it, and shall esteem your doing so as a very kind service. Will
+you return the memorial under cover to Mr. Tom Taylor, at the Local
+Government Act Office, Whitehall? He is generously exerting himself in
+furtherance of it, and so delay will be avoided.
+
+                       My dear Lord Carlisle, faithfully yours always.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Mary Boyle.]
+
+                    GAD'S HILL PLACE, HIGHAM BY ROCHESTER, KENT,
+                                            _Sunday, Nov. 17th, 1861._
+
+MY DEAR MARY,
+
+I am perfectly enraptured with the quilt. It is one of the most
+tasteful, lively, elegant things I have ever seen; and I need not tell
+you that while it is valuable to me for its own ornamental sake, it is
+precious to me as a rainbow-hint of your friendship and affectionate
+remembrance.
+
+Please God you shall see it next summer occupying its allotted place of
+state in my brand-new bedroom here. You shall behold it then, with all
+cheerful surroundings, the envy of mankind.
+
+My readings have been doing absolute wonders. Your Duchess and Princess
+came to hear first "Nickleby" and the "Pickwick Trial," then
+"Copperfield," at Brighton. I think they were pleased with me, and I am
+sure I was with them; for they are the very best audience one could
+possibly desire. I shall always have a pleasant remembrance of them.
+
+On Wednesday I am away again for the longest part of my trip.
+
+Yes, Mary dear, I must say that I like my Carton, and I have a faint
+idea sometimes that if I had acted him, I could have done something with
+his life and death.
+
+                    Believe me, ever your affectionate and faithful
+                                                                  JOE.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Hogarth.]
+
+                   QUEEN'S HEAD, NEWCASTLE, _Friday, Nov. 22nd, 1861._
+
+I received your letter this morning, and grieve to report that the
+unlucky Headland has broken down most awfully!
+
+First, as perhaps you remember, this is the place where the bills were
+"lost" for a week or two. The consequence has been that the agent could
+not announce all through the "Jenny Lind" time (the most important for
+announcing), and could but stand still and stare when people came to ask
+what I was going to read. Last night I read "Copperfield" to the most
+enthusiastic and appreciative audience imaginable, but in numbers about
+half what they might have been. To-night we shall have a famous house;
+but we might have had it last night too. To-morrow (knowing by this time
+what can, of a certainty, be done with "Copperfield"), I had, of course,
+given out "Copperfield" to be read again. Conceive my amazement and
+dismay when I find the printer to have announced "Little Dombey"!!!
+This, I declare, I had no more intention of reading than I had of
+reading an account of the solar system. And this, after a sensation last
+night, of a really extraordinary nature in its intensity and delight!
+
+Says the unlucky Headland to this first head of misery: "Johnson's
+mistake" (Johnson being the printer).
+
+Second, I read at Edinburgh for the first time--observe the day--_next
+Wednesday_. Jenny Lind's concert at Edinburgh is to-night. This morning
+comes a frantic letter from the Edinburgh agent. "I have no bills, no
+tickets; I lose all the announcement I would have made to hundreds upon
+hundreds of people to-night, all of the most desirable class to be well
+informed beforehand. I can't announce what Mr. Dickens is going to read;
+I can answer no question; I have, upon my responsibility, put a dreary
+advertisement into the papers announcing that he _is_ going to read so
+many times, and that particulars will shortly be ready; and I stand
+bound hand and foot." "Johnson's mistake," says the unlucky Headland.
+
+Of course, I know that the man who never made a mistake in poor Arthur's
+time is not likely to be always making mistakes now. But I have written
+by this post to Wills, to go to him and investigate. I have also
+detached Berry from here, and have sent him on by train at a few
+minutes' notice to Edinburgh, and then to Glasgow (where I have no doubt
+everything is wrong too). Glasgow we may save; Edinburgh I hold to be
+irretrievably damaged. If it can be picked up at all, it can only be at
+the loss of the two first nights, and by the expenditure of no end of
+spirits and force. And this is the harder, because it is impossible not
+to see that the last readings polished and prepared the audiences in
+general, and that I have not to work them up in any place where I have
+been before, but that they start with a London intelligence, and with a
+respect and preparation for what they are going to hear.
+
+I hope by the time you and Mamie come to me, we shall have got into some
+good method. I must take the thing more into my own hands and look after
+it from hour to hour. If such a thing as this Edinburgh business could
+have happened under poor Arthur, I really believe he would have fallen
+into a fit, or gone distracted. No one can ever know what he was but I
+who have been with him and without him. Headland is so anxious and so
+good-tempered that I cannot be very stormy with him; but it is the
+simple fact that he has no notion of the requirements of such work as
+this. Without him, and with a larger salary to Berry (though there are
+objections to the latter as _first_ man), I could have done a hundred
+times better.
+
+As Forster will have a strong interest in knowing all about the
+proceedings, perhaps you will send him this letter to read. There is no
+very tremendous harm, indeed, done as yet. At Edinburgh I KNOW what I
+can do with "Copperfield." I think it is not too much to say that for
+every one who does come to hear it on the first night, I can get back
+fifty on the second. And whatever can be worked up there will tell on
+Glasgow. Berry I shall continue to send on ahead, and I shall take
+nothing on trust and more as being done.
+
+On Sunday morning at six, I have to start for Berwick. From Berwick, in
+the course of that day, I will write again; to Mamie next time.
+
+With best love to her and Mrs. B.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Dickens.]
+
+                                QUEEN'S HEAD, NEWCASTLE-ON-TYNE,
+                                          _Saturday, Nov. 23rd, 1861._
+
+A most tremendous hall here last night; something almost terrible in the
+cram. A fearful thing might have happened. Suddenly, when they were all
+very still over Smike, my gas batten came down, and it looked as if the
+room was falling. There were three great galleries crammed to the roof,
+and a high steep flight of stairs, and a panic must have destroyed
+numbers of people. A lady in the front row of stalls screamed, and ran
+out wildly towards me, and for one instant there was a terrible wave in
+the crowd. I addressed that lady laughing (for I knew she was in sight
+of everybody there), and called out as if it happened every night,
+"There's nothing the matter, I assure you; don't be alarmed; pray sit
+down;" and she sat down directly, and there was a thunder of applause.
+It took some few minutes to mend, and I looked on with my hands in my
+pockets; for I think if I had turned my back for a moment there might
+still have been a move. My people were dreadfully alarmed, Boylett in
+particular, who I suppose had some notion that the whole place might
+have taken fire.
+
+"But there stood the master," he did me the honour to say afterwards, in
+addressing the rest, "as cool as ever I see him a-lounging at a railway
+station."
+
+A telegram from Berry at Edinburgh yesterday evening, to say that he
+had got the bills, and that they would all be up and dispersed yesterday
+evening under his own eyes. So no time was lost in setting things as
+right as they can be set. He has now gone on to Glasgow.
+
+P.S.--Duty to Mrs. Bouncer.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Hogarth.]
+
+                          BERWICK-ON-TWEED, _Monday, Nov. 25th, 1861._
+
+I write (in a gale of wind, with a high sea running), to let you know
+that we go on to Edinburgh at half-past eight to-morrow morning.
+
+A most ridiculous room was designed for me in this odd out-of-the-way
+place. An immense Corn Exchange made of glass and iron, round,
+dome-topped, lofty, utterly absurd for any such purpose, and full of
+thundering echoes, with a little lofty crow's-nest of a stone gallery
+breast high, deep in the wall, into which it was designed to put _me_! I
+instantly struck, of course, and said I would either read in a room
+attached to this house (a very snug one, capable of holding five hundred
+people) or not at all. Terrified local agents glowered, but fell
+prostrate.
+
+Berry has this moment come back from Edinburgh and Glasgow with hopeful
+accounts. He seems to have done the business extremely well, and he says
+that it was quite curious and cheering to see how the Glasgow people
+assembled round the bills the instant they were posted, and evidently
+with a great interest in them.
+
+We left Newcastle yesterday morning in the dark, when it was intensely
+cold and froze very hard. So it did here. But towards night the wind
+went round to the S.W., and all night it has been blowing very hard
+indeed. So it is now.
+
+Tell Mamie that I have the same sitting-room as we had when we came here
+with poor Arthur, and that my bedroom is the room out of it which she
+and Katie had. Surely it is the oddest town to read in! But it is taken
+on poor Arthur's principle that a place in the way pays the expenses of
+a through journey; and the people would seem to be coming up to the
+scratch gallantly. It was a dull Sunday, though; O it _was_ a dull
+Sunday, without a book! For I had forgotten to buy one at Newcastle,
+until it was too late. So after dark I made a jug of whisky-punch, and
+drowned the unlucky Headland's remembrance of his failures.
+
+I shall hope to hear very soon that the workmen have "broken through,"
+and that you have been in the state apartments, and that upholstery
+measurements have come off.
+
+There has been a horrible accident in Edinburgh. One of the seven-storey
+old houses in the High Street fell when it was full of people. Berry was
+at the bill-poster's house, a few doors off, waiting for him to come
+home, when he heard what seemed like thunder, and then the air was
+darkened with dust, "as if an immense quantity of steam had been blown
+off," and then all that dismal quarter set up shrieks, which he says
+were most dreadful.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Dickens.]
+
+              WATERLOO HOTEL, EDINBURGH, _Wednesday, Nov. 27th, 1861._
+
+Mrs. Bouncer must decidedly come with you to Carlisle. She shall be
+received with open arms. Apropos of Carlisle, let me know _when_ you
+purpose coming there. We shall be there, please God, on the Saturday in
+good time, as I finish at Glasgow on the Friday night.
+
+I have very little notion of the state of affairs here, as Headland
+brought no more decisive information from the agents yesterday (he never
+_can_ get decisive information from any agents), than "the teeckets air
+joost moving reecht and left." I hope this may be taken as satisfactory.
+Jenny Lind carried off a world of money from here. Miss Glyn, or Mrs.
+Dallas, is playing Lady Macbeth at the theatre, and Mr. Shirley Brooks
+is giving two lectures at the Philosophical Society on the House of
+Commons and Horace Walpole. Grisi's farewell benefits are (I think) on
+my last two nights here.
+
+Gordon dined with me yesterday. He is, if anything, rather better, I
+think, than when we last saw him in town. He was immensely pleased to be
+with me. I went with him (as his office goes anywhere) right into and
+among the ruins of the fallen building yesterday. They were still at
+work trying to find two men (brothers), a young girl, and an old woman,
+known to be all lying there. On the walls two or three common clocks are
+still hanging; one of them, judging from the time at which it stopped,
+would seem to have gone for an hour or so after the fall. Great interest
+had been taken in a poor linnet in a cage, hanging in the wind and rain
+high up against the broken wall. A fireman got it down alive, and great
+exultation had been raised over it. One woman, who was dug out unhurt,
+staggered into the street, stared all round her, instantly ran away, and
+has never been heard of since. It is a most extraordinary sight, and of
+course makes a great sensation.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Dickens.]
+
+                 WATERLOO HOTEL, EDINBURGH, _Friday, Nov. 29th, 1861._
+
+I think it is my turn to write to you, and I therefore send a brief
+despatch, like a telegram, to let you know that in a gale of wind and a
+fierce rain, last night, we turned away a thousand people. There was no
+getting into the hall, no getting near the hall, no stirring among the
+people, no getting out, no possibility of getting rid of them. And yet,
+in spite of all that, and of their being steaming wet, they never
+flagged for an instant, never made a complaint, and took up the trial
+upon their very shoulders, to the last word, in a triumphant roar.
+
+The talk about "Copperfield" rings through the whole place. It is done
+again to-morrow night. To-morrow morning I read "Dombey." To-morrow
+morning is Grisi's "farewell" morning concert, and last night was her
+"farewell" evening concert. Neither she, nor Jenny Lind, nor anything,
+nor anybody seems to make the least effect on the draw of the readings.
+
+I lunch with Blackwood to-day. He was at the reading last night; a
+capital audience. Young Blackwood has also called here. A very good
+young fellow, I think.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Hogarth.]
+
+            CARRICK'S ROYAL HOTEL, GLASGOW, _Tuesday, Dec. 3rd, 1861._
+
+I send you by this post another _Scotsman_. From a paragraph in it, a
+letter, and an advertisement, you may be able to form some dim guess of
+the scene at Edinburgh last night. Such a pouring of hundreds into a
+place already full to the throat, such indescribable confusion, such a
+rending and tearing of dresses, and yet such a scene of good humour on
+the whole. I never saw the faintest approach to it. While I addressed
+the crowd in the room, Gordon addressed the crowd in the street. Fifty
+frantic men got up in all parts of the hall and addressed me all at
+once. Other frantic men made speeches to the walls. The whole Blackwood
+family were borne in on the top of a wave, and landed with their faces
+against the front of the platform. I read with the platform crammed with
+people. I got them to lie down upon it, and it was like some impossible
+tableau or gigantic picnic; one pretty girl in full dress lying on her
+side all night, holding on to one of the legs of my table. It was the
+most extraordinary sight. And yet from the moment I began to the moment
+of my leaving off, they never missed a point, and they ended with a
+burst of cheers.
+
+The confusion was decidedly owing to the local agents. But I think it
+may have been a little heightened by Headland's way of sending them the
+tickets to sell in the first instance.
+
+Now, as I must read again in Edinburgh on Saturday night, your
+travelling arrangements are affected. So observe carefully (you and
+Mamie) all that I am going to say. It appears to me that the best course
+will be for you to come to _Edinburgh_ on Saturday; taking the fast
+train from the Great Northern station at nine in the morning. This would
+bring you to the Waterloo at Edinburgh, at about nine or so at night,
+and I should be home at ten. We could then have a quiet Sunday in
+Edinburgh, and go over to Carlisle on the Monday morning.
+
+The expenditure of lungs and spirits was (as you may suppose) rather
+great last night, and to sleep well was out of the question; I am
+therefore rather fagged to-day. And as the hall in which I read to-night
+is a large one, I must make my letter a short one.
+
+My people were torn to ribbons last night. They have not a hat among
+them, and scarcely a coat.
+
+Give my love to Mamie. To her question, "Will there be war with
+America?" I answer, "Yes;" I fear the North to be utterly mad, and war
+to be unavoidable.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. W. H. Wills.]
+
+                   VICTORIA HOTEL, PRESTON, _Friday, Dec. 13th, 1861._
+
+MY DEAR WILLS,
+
+The news of the Christmas number is indeed glorious, and nothing can
+look brighter or better than the prospects of the illustrious
+publication.
+
+Both Carlisle and Lancaster have come out admirably, though I doubted
+both, as you did. But, unlike you, I always doubted this place. I do so
+still. It is a poor place at the best (you remember?), and the mills are
+working half time, and trade is very bad. The expenses, however, will be
+a mere nothing. The accounts from Manchester for to-morrow, and from
+Liverpool for the readings generally, are very cheering indeed.
+
+The young lady who sells the papers at the station is just the same as
+ever. Has orders for to-night, and is coming "with a person." "_The_
+person?" said I. "Never _you_ mind," said she.
+
+I was so charmed with Robert Chambers's "Traditions of Edinburgh" (which
+I read _in_ Edinburgh), that I was obliged to write to him and say so.
+
+Glasgow finished nobly, and the last night in Edinburgh was signally
+successful and positively splendid.
+
+Will you give my small Admiral, on his personal application, one
+sovereign? I have told him to come to you for that recognition of his
+meritorious services.
+
+                                                      Ever faithfully.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. W. H. Wills.]
+
+                  ADELPHI HOTEL, LIVERPOOL, _Sunday, Dec. 15th, 1861._
+
+MY DEAR WILLS,
+
+I sent you a telegram to-day, and I write before the answer has come to
+hand.
+
+I have been very doubtful what to do here. We have a great let for
+to-morrow night. The Mayor recommends closing to-morrow, and going on on
+Tuesday and Wednesday, so does the town clerk, so do the agents. But I
+have a misgiving that they hardly understand what the public general
+sympathy with the Queen will be. Further, I feel personally that the
+Queen has always been very considerate and gracious to me, and I would
+on no account do anything that might seem unfeeling or disrespectful. I
+shall attach great weight, in this state of indecision, to your
+telegram.
+
+A capital audience at Preston. Not a capacious room, but full. Great
+appreciation.
+
+The scene at Manchester last night was really magnificent. I had had the
+platform carried forward to our "Frozen Deep" point, and my table and
+screen built in with a proscenium and room scenery. When I went in
+(there was a very fine hall), they applauded in the most tremendous
+manner; and the extent to which they were taken aback and taken by storm
+by "Copperfield" was really a thing to see.
+
+The post closes early here on a Sunday, and I shall close this also
+without further reference to "a message from the" W. H. W. being
+probably on the road.
+
+Radley is ill, and supposed to be fast declining, poor fellow. The house
+is crammed, the assizes on, and troops perpetually embarking for Canada,
+and their officers passing through the hotel.
+
+                                     Kindest regards, ever faithfully.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Mary Boyle.]
+
+                          GAD'S HILL, HIGHAM BY ROCHESTER, KENT,
+                                          _Saturday, Dec. 28th, 1861._
+
+MY DEAR MARY,
+
+On Monday (as you know) I am away again, but I am not sorry to see land
+and a little rest before me; albeit, these are great experiences of the
+public heart.
+
+The little Admiral has gone to visit America in the _Orlando_, supposed
+to be one of the foremost ships in the Service, and the best found, best
+manned, and best officered that ever sailed from England. He went away
+much gamer than any giant, attended by a chest in which he could easily
+have stowed himself and a wife and family of his own proportions.
+
+                                 Ever and always, your affectionate
+                                                                  JOE.
+
+
+
+
+1862.
+
+NARRATIVE.
+
+
+At the beginning of this year, Charles Dickens resumed the reading tour
+which he had commenced at the close of the previous year and continued
+up to Christmas. The first letter which follows, to Mr. Wills, a New
+Year's greeting, is written from a railway station between one town and
+another on this journey. Mr. Macready, who had married for the second
+time not very long before this, was now settled at Cheltenham. Charles
+Dickens had arranged to give readings there, chiefly for the pleasure of
+visiting him, and of having him as one of his audience.
+
+This reading tour went on until the beginning of February. One of the
+last of the series was in his favourite "beautiful room," the St.
+George's Hall at Liverpool. In February, he made an exchange of houses
+with his friends Mr. and Mrs. Hogge, they going to Gad's Hill, and he
+and his family to Mr. Hogge's house in Hyde Park Gate South. In March he
+commenced a series of readings at St. James's Hall, which went on until
+the middle of June, when he, very gladly, returned to his country home.
+
+A letter beginning "My dear Girls," addressed to some American ladies
+who happened to be at Colchester, in the same inn with him when he was
+reading there, was published by one of them under the name of "Our
+Letter," in the "St. Nicholas Magazine," New York, in 1877. We think it
+best to explain it in the young lady's own words, which are, therefore,
+appended to the letter.
+
+Mr. Walter Thornbury was one of Charles Dickens's most valuable
+contributors to "All the Year Round." His letters to him about the
+subjects of his articles for that journal, are specimens of the minute
+and careful attention and personal supervision, never neglected or
+distracted by any other work on which he might be engaged, were it ever
+so hard or engrossing.
+
+The letter addressed to Mr. Baylis we give chiefly because it has, since
+Mr. Baylis's death, been added to the collection of MSS. in the British
+Museum. He was a very intimate and confidential friend of the late Lord
+Lytton, and accompanied him on a visit to Gad's Hill in that year.
+
+We give an extract from another letter from Charles Dickens to his
+sister, as a beautiful specimen of a letter of condolence and
+encouragement to one who was striving, very bravely, but by very slow
+degrees, to recover from the overwhelming grief of her bereavement. Mr.
+Wilkie Collins was at this time engaged on his novel of "No Name," which
+appeared in "All the Year Round," and was threatened with a very serious
+breakdown in health. Charles Dickens wrote the letter which we give, to
+relieve Mr. Collins's mind as to his work. Happily he recovered
+sufficiently to make an end to his own story without any help; but the
+true friendship and kindness which suggested the offer were none the
+less appreciated, and may, very likely, by lessening his anxiety, have
+helped to restore his health. At the end of October in this year,
+Charles Dickens, accompanied by his daughter and sister-in-law, went to
+reside for a couple of months in Paris, taking an apartment in the Rue
+du Faubourg St. Honoré. From thence he writes to M. Charles Fechter. He
+had been greatly interested in this fine artist from the time of his
+first appearance in England, and was always one of his warmest friends
+and supporters during his stay in this country. M. Fechter was, at this
+time, preparing for the opening of the Lyceum Theatre, under his own
+management, at the beginning of the following year.
+
+Just before Christmas, Charles Dickens returned to Gad's Hill. The
+Christmas number for this year was "Somebody's Luggage."
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. W. H. Wills.]
+
+
+                AT THE BIRMINGHAM STATION, _Thursday, Jan. 2nd, 1862._
+
+MY DEAR WILLS,
+
+Being stationed here for an hour, on my way from Leamington to
+Cheltenham, I write to you.
+
+Firstly, to reciprocate all your cordial and affectionate wishes for the
+New Year, and to express my earnest hope that we may go on through many
+years to come, as we have gone on through many years that are gone. And
+I think we can say that we doubt whether any two men can have gone on
+more happily and smoothly, or with greater trust and confidence in one
+another.
+
+A little packet will come to you from Hunt and Roskell's, almost at the
+same time, I think, as this note.
+
+The packet will contain a claret-jug. I hope it is a pretty thing in
+itself for your table, and I know that you and Mrs. Wills will like it
+none the worse because it comes from me.
+
+It is not made of a perishable material, and is so far expressive of our
+friendship. I have had your name and mine set upon it, in token of our
+many years of mutual reliance and trustfulness. It will never be so full
+of wine as it is to-day of affectionate regard.
+
+                                                Ever faithfully yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Hogarth.]
+
+                                 CHELTENHAM, _Friday, Jan. 3rd, 1862._
+
+MY DEAREST GEORGY,
+
+Mrs. Macready in voice is very like poor Mrs. Macready dead and gone;
+not in the least like her otherwise. She is perfectly satisfactory, and
+exceedingly winning. Quite perfect in her manner with him and in her
+ease with his children, sensible, gay, pleasant, sweet-tempered; not in
+the faintest degree stiff or pedantic; accessible instantly. I have very
+rarely seen a more agreeable woman. The house is (on a smaller scale)
+any house we have known them in. Furnished with the old furniture,
+pictures, engravings, mirrors, tables, and chairs. Butty is too tall for
+strength, I am afraid, but handsome, with a face of great power and
+character, and a very nice girl. Katie you know all about. Macready,
+decidedly much older and infirm. Very much changed. His old force has
+gone out of him strangely. I don't think I left off talking a minute
+from the time of my entering the house to my going to bed last night,
+and he was as much amused and interested as ever I saw him; still he
+was, and is, unquestionably aged.
+
+And even now I am obliged to cut this letter short by having to go and
+look after Headland. It would never do to be away from the rest of them.
+I have no idea what we are doing here; no notion whether things are
+right or wrong; no conception where the room is; no hold of the business
+at all. For which reason I cannot rest without going and looking after
+the worthy man.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Hogarth.]
+
+                                 TORQUAY, _Wednesday, Jan. 8th, 1862._
+
+You know, I think, that I was very averse to going to Plymouth, and
+would not have gone there again but for poor Arthur. But on the last
+night I read "Copperfield," and positively enthralled the people. It was
+a most overpowering effect, and poor Andrew[7] came behind the screen,
+after the storm, and cried in the best and manliest manner. Also there
+were two or three lines of his shipmates and other sailors, and they
+were extraordinarily affected. But its culminating effect was on
+Macready at Cheltenham. When I got home after "Copperfield," I found him
+quite unable to speak, and able to do nothing but square his dear old
+jaw all on one side, and roll his eyes (half closed), like Jackson's
+picture of him. And when I said something light about it, he returned:
+"No--er--Dickens! I swear to Heaven that, as a piece of passion and
+playfulness--er--indescribably mixed up together, it does--er--no,
+really, Dickens!--amaze me as profoundly as it moves me. But as a piece
+of art--and you know--er--that I--no, Dickens! By ----! have seen the
+best art in a great time--it is incomprehensible to me. How is it got
+at--er--how is it done--er--how one man can--well? It lays me on
+my--er--back, and it is of no use talking about it!" With which he put
+his hand upon my breast and pulled out his pocket-handkerchief, and I
+felt as if I were doing somebody to his Werner. Katie, by-the-bye, is a
+wonderful audience, and has a great fund of wild feeling in her. Johnny
+not at all unlike Plorn.
+
+I have not yet seen the room here, but imagine it to be very small.
+Exeter I know, and that is small also. I am very much used up, on the
+whole, for I cannot bear this moist warm climate. It would kill me very
+soon. And I have now got to the point of taking so much out of myself
+with "Copperfield," that I might as well do Richard Wardour.
+
+You have now, my dearest Georgy, the fullest extent of my tidings. This
+is a very pretty place--a compound of Hastings, Tunbridge Wells, and
+little bits of the hills about Naples; but I met four respirators as I
+came up from the station, and three pale curates without them, who
+seemed in a bad way.
+
+Frightful intelligence has just been brought in by Boylett, concerning
+the small size of the room. I have terrified Headland by sending him to
+look at it, and swearing that if it's too small I will go away to
+Exeter.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Hogarth.]
+
+                  ADELPHI HOTEL, LIVERPOOL, _Tuesday, Jan. 28th, 1862._
+
+The beautiful room was crammed to excess last night, and numbers were
+turned away. Its beauty and completeness when it is lighted up are most
+brilliant to behold, and for a reading it is simply perfect. You
+remember that a Liverpool audience is usually dull, but they put me on
+my mettle last night, for I never saw such an audience--no, not even in
+Edinburgh!
+
+I slept horribly last night, and have been over to Birkenhead for a
+little change of air to-day. My head is dazed and worn by gas and heat,
+and I fear that "Copperfield" and "Bob" together to-night won't mend it.
+
+Best love to Mamie and Katie, if still at Gad's. I am going to bring the
+boys some toffee.
+
+
+[Sidenote: The Misses Armstrong]
+
+                    GAD'S HILL PLACE, HIGHAM BY ROCHESTER, KENT,
+                                            _Monday, Feb. 10th, 1862._
+
+MY DEAR GIRLS,
+
+For if I were to write "young friends," it would look like a
+schoolmaster; and if I were to write "young ladies," it would look like
+a schoolmistress; and worse than that, neither form of words would look
+familiar and natural, or in character with our snowy ride that
+tooth-chattering morning.
+
+I cannot tell you both how gratified I was by your remembrance, or how
+often I think of you as I smoke the admirable cigars. But I almost think
+you must have had some magnetic consciousness across the Atlantic, of my
+whiffing my love towards you from the garden here.
+
+My daughter says that when you have settled those little public affairs
+at home, she hopes you will come back to England (possibly in united
+states) and give a minute or two to this part of Kent. _Her_ words are,
+"a day or two;" but I remember your Italian flights, and correct the
+message.
+
+I have only just now finished my country readings, and have had nobody
+to make breakfast for me since the remote ages of Colchester!
+
+                                                Ever faithfully yours.
+
+
+OUR LETTER.
+
+By M. F. ARMSTRONG.
+
+"From among all my treasures--to each one of which some pleasant history
+is bound--I choose this letter, written on coarse blue paper.
+
+The letter was received in answer to cigars sent from America to Mr.
+Dickens.
+
+The 'little public affairs at home' refers to the war of the Rebellion.
+
+At Colchester, he read 'The Trial' from 'Pickwick,' and selections from
+'Nicholas Nickleby.'
+
+The lady, her two sisters, and her brother were Mr. Dickens's guests at
+the queer old English inn at Colchester.
+
+Through the softly falling snow we came back together to London, and on
+the railway platform parted, with a hearty hand-shaking, from the man
+who will for ever be enshrined in our hearts as the kindest and most
+generous, not to say most brilliant of hosts."
+
+
+[Sidenote: M. de Cerjat.]
+
+                      16, HYDE PARK GATE, SOUTH KENSINGTON GORE,
+                                           _Sunday, March 16th, 1862._
+
+MY DEAR CERJAT,
+
+My daughter naturally liking to be in town at this time of year, I have
+changed houses with a friend for three months.
+
+My eldest boy is in business as an Eastern merchant in the City, and
+will do well if he can find continuous energy; otherwise not. My second
+boy is with the 42nd Highlanders in India. My third boy, a good steady
+fellow, is educating expressly for engineers or artillery. My fourth
+(this sounds like a charade), a born little sailor, is a midshipman in
+H.M.S. _Orlando_, now at Bermuda, and will make his way anywhere.
+Remaining two at school, elder of said remaining two very bright and
+clever. Georgina and Mary keeping house for me; and Francis Jeffrey (I
+ought to have counted him as the third boy, so we'll take him in here as
+number two and a half) in my office at present. Now you have the family
+bill of fare.
+
+You ask me about Fechter and his Hamlet. It was a performance of
+extraordinary merit; by far the most coherent, consistent, and
+intelligible Hamlet I ever saw. Some of the delicacies with which he
+rendered his conception clear were extremely subtle; and in particular
+he avoided that brutality towards Ophelia which, with a greater or less
+amount of coarseness, I have seen in all other Hamlets. As a mere _tour
+de force_, it would have been very remarkable in its disclosure of a
+perfectly wonderful knowledge of the force of the English language; but
+its merit was far beyond and above this. Foreign accent, of course, but
+not at all a disagreeable one. And he was so obviously safe and at ease,
+that you were never in pain for him as a foreigner. Add to this a
+perfectly picturesque and romantic "make up," and a remorseless
+destruction of all conventionalities, and you have the leading virtues
+of the impersonation. In Othello he did not succeed. In Iago he is very
+good. He is an admirable artist, and far beyond anyone on our stage. A
+real artist and a gentleman.
+
+Last Thursday I began reading again in London--a condensation of
+"Copperfield," and "Mr. Bob Sawyer's Party," from "Pickwick," to finish
+merrily. The success of "Copperfield" is astounding. It made an
+impression that _I_ must not describe. I may only remark that I was half
+dead when I had done; and that although I had looked forward, all
+through the summer, when I was carefully getting it up, to its being a
+London sensation; and that although Macready, hearing it at Cheltenham,
+told me to be prepared for a great effect, it even went beyond my hopes.
+I read again next Thursday, and the rush for places is quite furious.
+Tell Townshend this with my love, if you see him before I have time to
+write to him; and tell him that I thought the people would never let me
+go away, they became so excited, and showed it so very warmly. I am
+trying to plan out a new book, but have not got beyond trying.
+
+                                                 Yours affectionately.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. Walter Thornbury.]
+
+                                  OFFICE OF "ALL THE YEAR ROUND,"
+                                           _Friday, April 18th, 1862._
+
+
+MY DEAR THORNBURY,
+
+The Bow Street runners ceased out of the land soon after the
+introduction of the new police. I remember them very well as standing
+about the door of the office in Bow Street. They had no other uniform
+than a blue dress-coat, brass buttons (I am not even now sure that that
+was necessary), and a bright red cloth waistcoat. The waistcoat was
+indispensable, and the slang name for them was "redbreasts," in
+consequence.
+
+They kept company with thieves and the like, much more than the
+detective police do. I don't know what their pay was, but I have no
+doubt their principal complements were got under the rose. It was a very
+slack institution, and its head-quarters were The Brown Bear, in Bow
+Street, a public-house of more than doubtful reputation, opposite the
+police-office; and either the house which is now the theatrical costume
+maker's, or the next door to it.
+
+Field, who advertises the Secret Enquiry Office, was a Bow Street
+runner, and can tell you all about it; Goddard, who also advertises an
+enquiry office, was another of the fraternity. They are the only two I
+know of as yet existing in a "questionable shape."
+
+                                              Faithfully yours always.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. Baylis.]
+
+                        GAD'S HILL, ETC., _Wednesday, July 2nd, 1862._
+
+MY DEAR MR. BAYLIS,
+
+I have been in France, and in London, and in other parts of Kent than
+this, and everywhere but here, for weeks and weeks. Pray excuse my not
+having (for this reason specially) answered your kind note sooner.
+
+After carefully cross-examining my daughter, I do NOT believe her to be
+worthy of the fernery. Last autumn we transplanted into the shrubbery a
+quantity of evergreens previously clustered close to the front of the
+house, and trained more ivy about the wall and the like. When I ask her
+where she would have the fernery and what she would do with it, the
+witness falters, turns pale, becomes confused, and says: "Perhaps it
+would be better not to have it at all." I am quite confident that the
+constancy of the young person is not to be trusted, and that she had
+better attach her fernery to one of her châteaux in Spain, or one of her
+English castles in the air. None the less do I thank you for your more
+than kind proposal.
+
+We have been in great anxiety respecting Miss Hogarth, the sudden
+decline of whose health and spirits has greatly distressed us. Although
+she is better than she was, and the doctors are, on the whole, cheerful,
+she requires great care, and fills us with apprehension. The necessity
+of providing change for her will probably take us across the water very
+early in the autumn; and this again unsettles home schemes here, and
+withers many kinds of fern. If they knew (by "they" I mean my daughter
+and Miss Hogarth) that I was writing to you, they would charge me with
+many messages of regard. But as I am shut up in my room in a ferocious
+and unapproachable condition, owing to the great accumulation of letters
+I have to answer, I will tell them at lunch that I have anticipated
+their wish. As I know they have bills for me to pay, and are at present
+shy of producing them, I wish to preserve a gloomy and repellent
+reputation.
+
+                          My dear Mr. Baylis, faithfully yours always.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mrs. Henry Austin.]
+
+                                GAD'S HILL, _Tuesday, Oct. 7th, 1862._
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+I do not preach consolation because I am unwilling to preach at any
+time, and know my own weakness too well. But in this world there is no
+stay but the hope of a better, and no reliance but on the mercy and
+goodness of God. Through those two harbours of a shipwrecked heart, I
+fully believe that you will, in time, find a peaceful resting-place even
+on this careworn earth. Heaven speed the time, and do you try hard to
+help it on! It is impossible to say but that our prolonged grief for the
+beloved dead may grieve them in their unknown abiding-place, and give
+them trouble. The one influencing consideration in all you do as to
+your disposition of yourself (coupled, of course, with a real earnest
+strenuous endeavour to recover the lost tone of spirit) is, that you
+think and feel you _can_ do. I do not in the least regard your change of
+course in going to Havre as any evidence of instability. But I rather
+hope it is likely that through such restlessness you will come to a far
+quieter frame of mind. The disturbed mind and affections, like the
+tossed sea, seldom calm without an intervening time of confusion and
+trouble.
+
+But nothing is to be attained without striving. In a determined effort
+to settle the thoughts, to parcel out the day, to find occupation
+regularly or to make it, to be up and doing something, are chiefly to be
+found the mere mechanical means which must come to the aid of the best
+mental efforts.
+
+It is a wilderness of a day, here, in the way of blowing and raining,
+and as darkly dismal, at four o'clock, as need be. My head is but just
+now raised from a day's writing, but I will not lose the post without
+sending you a word.
+
+Katie was here yesterday, just come back from Clara White's (that was),
+in Scotland. In the midst of her brilliant fortune, it is too clear to
+me that she is already beckoned away to follow her dead sisters.
+Macready was here from Saturday evening to yesterday morning, older but
+looking wonderfully well, and (what is very rare in these times) with
+the old thick sweep of hair upon his head. Georgina being left alone
+here the other day, was done no good to by a great consternation among
+the servants. On going downstairs, she found Marsh (the stableman)
+seated with great dignity and anguish in an arm-chair, and incessantly
+crying out: "I am dead." To which the women servants said with great
+pathos (and with some appearance of reason): "No, you ain't, Marsh!" And
+to which he persisted in replying: "Yes, I am; I am dead!" Some
+neighbouring vagabond was impressed to drive a cart over to Rochester
+and fetch the doctor, who said (the patient and his consolers being all
+very anxious that the heart should be the scene of affliction):
+"Stomach."
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. W. Wilkie Collins.]
+
+                    GAD'S HILL PLACE, HIGHAM BY ROCHESTER, KENT,
+                                     _Tuesday Night, Oct. 14th, 1862._
+
+MY DEAR WILKIE,
+
+Frank Beard has been here this evening, of course since I posted my this
+day's letter to you, and has told me that you are not at all well, and
+how he has given you something which he hopes and believes will bring
+you round. It is not to convey this insignificant piece of intelligence,
+or to tell you how anxious I am that you should come up with a wet sheet
+and a flowing sail (as we say at sea when we are not sick), that I
+write. It is simply to say what follows, which I hope may save you some
+mental uneasiness. For I was stricken ill when I was doing "Bleak
+House," and I shall not easily forget what I suffered under the fear of
+not being able to come up to time.
+
+Dismiss that fear (if you have it) altogether from your mind. Write to
+me at Paris at any moment, and say you are unequal to your work, and
+want me, and I will come to London straight and do your work. I am quite
+confident that, with your notes and a few words of explanation, I could
+take it up at any time and do it. Absurdly unnecessary to say that it
+would be a makeshift! But I could do it at a pinch, so like you as that
+no one should find out the difference. Don't make much of this offer in
+your mind; it is nothing, except to ease it. If you should want help, I
+am as safe as the bank. The trouble would be nothing to me, and the
+triumph of overcoming a difficulty great. Think it a Christmas number,
+an "Idle Apprentice," a "Lighthouse," a "Frozen Deep." I am as ready as
+in any of these cases to strike in and hammer the hot iron out.
+
+You won't want me. You will be well (and thankless!) in no time. But
+there I am; and I hope that the knowledge may be a comfort to you. Call
+me, and I come.
+
+As Beard always has a sense of medical responsibility, and says anything
+important about a patient in confidence, I have merely remarked here
+that "Wilkie" is out of sorts. Charley (who is here with Katie) has no
+other cue from me.
+
+                                                  Ever affectionately.
+
+
+[Sidenote: M. Charles Fechter.]
+
+                          PARIS, RUE DU FAUBOURG ST. HONORÉ, 27,
+                                            _Tuesday, Nov. 4th, 1862._
+
+MY DEAR FECHTER,
+
+You know, I believe, how our letters crossed, and that I am here until
+Christmas. Also, you know with what pleasure and readiness I should have
+responded to your invitation if I had been in London.
+
+Pray tell Paul Féval that I shall be charmed to know him, and that I
+shall feel the strongest interest in making his acquaintance. It almost
+puts me out of humour with Paris (and it takes a great deal to do that!)
+to think that I was not at home to prevail upon him to come with you,
+and be welcomed to Gad's Hill; but either there or here, I hope to
+become his friend before this present old year is out. Pray tell him so.
+
+You say nothing in your note of your Lyceum preparations. I trust they
+are all going on well. There is a fine opening for you, I am sure, with
+a good beginning; but the importance of a good beginning is very great.
+If you ever have time and inclination to tell me in a short note what
+you are about, you can scarcely interest me more, as my wishes and
+strongest sympathies are for and with your success--_mais cela va sans
+dire_.
+
+I went to the Châtelet (a beautiful theatre!) the other night to see
+"Rothomago," but was so mortally _gêné_ with the poor nature of the
+piece and of the acting, that I came out again when there was a week or
+two (I mean an hour or two, but the hours seemed weeks) yet to get
+through.
+
+                        My dear Fechter, very faithfully yours always.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. Clarkson Stanfield, R.A.]
+
+                          PARIS, RUE DU FAUBOURG ST. HONORÉ, 27,
+                                             _Friday, Dec. 5th, 1862._
+
+MY DEAR STANNY,
+
+We have been here for two months, and I shall probably come back here
+after Christmas (we go home for Christmas week) and stay on into
+February. But I shall write and propose a theatre before Christmas is
+out, so this is to warn you to get yourself into working pantomime
+order!
+
+I hope Wills has duly sent you our new Christmas number. As you may like
+to know what I myself wrote of it, understand the Dick contributions to
+be, _his leaving it till called for_, and _his wonderful end_, _his
+boots_, and _his brown paper parcel_.
+
+Since you were at Gad's Hill I have been travelling a good deal, and
+looking up many odd things for use. I want to know how you are in health
+and spirits, and it would be the greatest of pleasures to me to have a
+line under your hand.
+
+God bless you and yours with all the blessings of the time of year, and
+of all times!
+
+                                Ever your affectionate and faithful
+                                                                 DICK.
+
+
+[Sidenote: M. Charles Fechter.]
+
+                                    PARIS, _Saturday, Dec. 6th, 1862._
+
+MY DEAR FECHTER,
+
+I have read "The White Rose" attentively, and think it an extremely good
+play. It is vigorously written with a great knowledge of the stage, and
+presents many striking situations. I think the close particularly fine,
+impressive, bold, and new.
+
+But I greatly doubt the expediency of your doing _any_ historical play
+early in your management. By the words "historical play," I mean a play
+founded on any incident in English history. Our public are accustomed to
+associate historical plays with Shakespeare. In any other hands, I
+believe they care very little for crowns and dukedoms. What you want is
+something with an interest of a more domestic and general nature--an
+interest as romantic as you please, but having a more general and wider
+response than a disputed succession to the throne can have for
+Englishmen at this time of day. Such interest culminated in the last
+Stuart, and has worn itself out. It would be uphill work to evoke an
+interest in Perkin Warbeck.
+
+I do not doubt the play's being well received, but my fear is that these
+people would be looked upon as mere abstractions, and would have but a
+cold welcome in consequence, and would not lay hold of your audience.
+Now, when you _have_ laid hold of your audience and have accustomed them
+to your theatre, you may produce "The White Rose," with far greater
+justice to the author, and to the manager also. Wait. Feel your way.
+Perkin Warbeck is too far removed from analogy with the sympathies and
+lives of the people for a beginning.
+
+                               My dear Fechter, ever faithfully yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Mary Boyle.]
+
+                    GAD'S HILL PLACE, HIGHAM BY ROCHESTER, KENT,
+                                          _Saturday, Dec. 27th, 1862._
+
+MY DEAR MARY,
+
+I must send you my Christmas greeting and happy New Year wishes in
+return for yours; most heartily and fervently reciprocating your
+interest and affection. You are among the few whom I most care for and
+best love.
+
+Being in London two evenings in the opening week, I tried to persuade my
+legs (for whose judgment I have the highest respect) to go to an evening
+party. But I _could not_ induce them to pass Leicester Square. The
+faltering presentiment under which they laboured so impressed me, that
+at that point I yielded to their terrors. They immediately ran away to
+the east, and I accompanied them to the Olympic, where I saw a very good
+play, "Camilla's Husband," very well played. Real merit in Mr. Neville
+and Miss Saville.
+
+We came across directly after the gale, with the Channel all bestrewn
+with floating wreck, and with a hundred and fifty sick schoolboys from
+Calais on board. I am going back on the morning after Fechter's opening
+night, and have promised to read "Copperfield" at the Embassy, for a
+British charity.
+
+Georgy continues wonderfully well, and she and Mary send you their best
+love. The house is pervaded by boys; and every boy has (as usual) an
+unaccountable and awful power of producing himself in every part of the
+house at every moment, apparently in fourteen pairs of creaking boots.
+
+                              My dear Mary, ever affectionately your
+                                                                  JOE.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[7] Lieutenant Andrew Gordon, R.N., son of the Sheriff of Midlothian.
+
+
+
+
+1863.
+
+NARRATIVE.
+
+
+At the beginning of this year, Charles Dickens was in Paris for the
+purpose of giving a reading at the English Embassy.
+
+He remained in Paris until the beginning of February, staying with his
+servant "John" at the Hôtel du Helder. There was a series of readings in
+London this season at the Hanover Square Rooms. The Christmas number of
+"All the Year Round" was entitled "Mrs. Lirriper's Lodgings," to which
+Charles Dickens contributed the first and last chapter.
+
+The Lyceum Theatre, under the management of M. Fechter, was opened in
+January with "The Duke's Motto," and the letter given here has reference
+to this first night.
+
+We regret very much having no letters to Lady Molesworth, who was an old
+and dear friend of Charles Dickens. But this lady explains to us that
+she has long ceased to preserve any letters addressed to her.
+
+The "Mr. and Mrs. Humphery" (now Sir William and Lady Humphery)
+mentioned in the first letter for this year, were dear and intimate
+friends of his eldest daughter, and were frequent guests in her father's
+house. Mrs. Humphery and her sister Lady Olliffe were daughters of the
+late Mr. William Cubitt, M.P.
+
+We have in this year the first letter of Charles Dickens to Mr. Percy
+Fitzgerald. This gentleman had been a valuable contributor to his
+journal before he became personally known to Charles Dickens. The
+acquaintance once made soon ripened into friendship, and for the future
+Mr. Fitzgerald was a constant and always a welcome visitor to Gad's
+Hill.
+
+The letter to Mr. Charles Reade alludes to his story, "Hard Cash," which
+was then appearing in "All the Year Round." As a writer, and as a
+friend, he was held by Charles Dickens in the highest estimation.
+
+Charles Dickens's correspondence with his solicitor and excellent
+friend, Mr. Frederic Ouvry (now a vice-president of the Society of
+Antiquaries), was almost entirely of a business character; but we are
+glad to give one or two notes to that gentleman, although of little
+public interest, in order to have the name in our book of one of the
+kindest of our own friends.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Dickens.]
+
+                          PARIS, HÔTEL DU HELDER, RUE DU HELDER,
+                                            _Friday, Jan. 16th, 1863._
+
+MY DEAREST MAMIE,
+
+As I send a line to your aunt to-day and know that you will not see it,
+I send another to you to report my safe (and neuralgic) arrival here. My
+little rooms are perfectly comfortable, and I like the hotel better than
+any I have ever put up at in Paris. John's amazement at, and
+appreciation of, Paris are indescribable. He goes about with his mouth
+open, staring at everything and being tumbled over by everybody.
+
+The state dinner at the Embassy, yesterday, coming off in the room where
+I am to read, the carpenters did not get in until this morning. But
+their platforms were ready--or supposed to be--and the preparations are
+in brisk progress. I think it will be a handsome affair to look at--a
+very handsome one. There seems to be great artistic curiosity in Paris,
+to know what kind of thing the reading is.
+
+I know a "rela-shon" (with one weak eye), who is in the gunmaking line,
+very near here. There is a strong family resemblance--but no muzzle.
+Lady Molesworth and I have not begun to "toddle" yet, but have exchanged
+affectionate greetings. I am going round to see her presently, and I
+dine with her on Sunday. The only remaining news is, that I am beset by
+mysterious adorers, and smuggle myself in and out of the house in the
+meanest and basest manner.
+
+With kind regard to Mr. and Mrs. Humphery,
+
+                     Ever, my dearest Mamey, your affectionate Father.
+
+P.S.--_Hommage à Madame B.!_
+
+
+[Sidenote: Monsieur Regnier.]
+
+                                      PARIS, _Sunday, Feb. 1st, 1863._
+
+MY DEAR REGNIER,
+
+I was charmed by the receipt of your cordial and sympathetic letter, and
+I shall always preserve it carefully as a most noble tribute from a
+great and real artist.
+
+I wished you had been at the Embassy on Friday evening. The audience was
+a fine one, and the "Carol" is particularly well adapted to the purpose.
+It is an uncommon pleasure to me to learn that I am to meet you on
+Tuesday, for there are not many men whom I meet with greater pleasure
+than you. Heaven! how the years roll by! We are quite old friends now,
+in counting by years. If we add sympathies, we have been friends at
+least a thousand years.
+
+                                            Affectionately yours ever.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Dickens.]
+
+                     HÔTEL DU HELDER, PARIS, _Sunday, Feb. 1st, 1863._
+
+MY DEAREST MAMIE,
+
+I cannot give you any idea of the success of the readings here, because
+no one can imagine the scene of last Friday night at the Embassy. Such
+audiences and such enthusiasm I have never seen, but the thing
+culminated on Friday night in a two hours' storm of excitement and
+pleasure. They actually recommenced and applauded right away into their
+carriages and down the street.
+
+You know your parent's horror of being lionised, and will not be
+surprised to hear that I am half dead of it. I cannot leave here until
+Thursday (though I am every hour in danger of running away) because I
+have to dine out, to say nothing of breakfasting--think of me
+breakfasting!--every intervening day. But my project is to send John
+home on Thursday, and then to go on a little perfectly quiet tour for
+about ten days, touching the sea at Boulogne. When I get there, I will
+write to your aunt (in case you should not be at home), saying when I
+shall arrive at the office. I must go to the office instead of Gad's,
+because I have much to do with Forster about Elliotson.
+
+I enclose a short note for each of the little boys. Give Harry ten
+shillings pocket-money, and Plorn six.
+
+The Olliffe girls, very nice. Florence at the readings, prodigiously
+excited.
+
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Hogarth.]
+
+                                      PARIS, _Sunday, Feb. 1st, 1863._
+
+From my hurried note to Mamie, you will get some faint general idea of a
+new star's having arisen in Paris. But of its brightness you can have no
+adequate conception.
+
+[John has locked me up and gone out, and the little bell at the door is
+ringing demoniacally while I write.]
+
+You have never heard me read yet. I have been twice goaded and lifted
+out of myself into a state that astonished _me_ almost as much as the
+audience. I have a cold, but no neuralgia, and am "as well as can be
+expected."
+
+I forgot to tell Mamie that I went (with Lady Molesworth) to hear
+"Faust" last night. It is a splendid work, in which that noble and sad
+story is most nobly and sadly rendered, and perfectly delighted me. But
+I think it requires too much of the audience to do for a London opera
+house. The composer must be a very remarkable man indeed. Some
+management of light throughout the story is also very poetical and fine.
+We had Carvalho's box. I could hardly bear the thing, it affected me so.
+
+But, as a certain Frenchman said, "No weakness, Danton!" So I leave off.
+
+
+[Sidenote: M. Charles Fechter.]
+
+                                   PARIS, _Wednesday, Feb. 4th, 1863._
+
+MY DEAR FECHTER,
+
+A thousand congratulations on your great success! Never mind what they
+say, or do, _pour vous écraser_; you have the game in your hands. The
+romantic drama, thoroughly well done (with a touch of Shakespeare now
+and then), is the speciality of your theatre. Give the public the
+picturesque, romantic drama, with yourself in it; and (as I told you in
+the beginning) you may throw down your gauntlet in defiance of all
+comers.
+
+It is a most brilliant success indeed, and it thoroughly rejoices my
+heart!
+
+Unfortunately I cannot now hope to see "Maquet," because I am packing up
+and going out to dinner (it is late in the afternoon), and I leave
+to-morrow morning when all sensible people, except myself, are in bed;
+and I do not come back to Paris or near it. I had hoped to see him at
+breakfast last Monday, but he was not there. Paul Féval was there, and I
+found him a capital fellow. If I can do anything to help you on with
+"Maquet"[8] when I come back I will most gladly do it.
+
+My readings here have had the finest possible reception, and have
+achieved a most noble success. I never before read to such fine
+audiences, so very quick of perception, and so enthusiastically
+responsive.
+
+I shall be heartily pleased to see you again, my dear Fechter, and to
+share your triumphs with the real earnestness of a real friend. And so
+go on and prosper, and believe me, as I truly am,
+
+
+                                                 Most cordially yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. W. C. Macready.]
+
+                                  OFFICE OF "ALL THE YEAR ROUND,"
+                                          _Thursday, Feb. 19th, 1863._
+
+MY DEAREST MACREADY,
+
+I have just come back from Paris, where the readings--"Copperfield,"
+"Dombey" and "Trial," and "Carol" and "Trial"--have made a sensation
+which modesty (my natural modesty) renders it impossible for me to
+describe. You know what a noble audience the Paris audience is! They
+were at their very noblest with me.
+
+I was very much concerned by hearing hurriedly from Georgy that you
+were ill. But when I came home at night, she showed me Katie's letter,
+and that set me up again. Ah, you have the best of companions and
+nurses, and can afford to be ill now and then for the happiness of being
+so brought through it. But don't do it again yet awhile for all that.
+
+Legouvé (whom you remember in Paris as writing for the Ristori) was
+anxious that I should bring you the enclosed. A manly and generous
+effort, I think? Regnier desired to be warmly remembered to you. He
+looks just as of yore.
+
+Paris generally is about as wicked and extravagant as in the days of the
+Regency. Madame Viardot in the "Orphée," most splendid. An opera of
+"Faust," a very sad and noble rendering of that sad and noble story.
+Stage management remarkable for some admirable, and really poetical,
+effects of light. In the more striking situations, Mephistopheles
+surrounded by an infernal red atmosphere of his own. Marguerite by a
+pale blue mournful light. The two never blending. After Marguerite has
+taken the jewels placed in her way in the garden, a weird evening draws
+on, and the bloom fades from the flowers, and the leaves of the trees
+droop and lose their fresh green, and mournful shadows overhang her
+chamber window, which was innocently bright and gay at first. I couldn't
+bear it, and gave in completely.
+
+Fechter doing wonders over the way here, with a picturesque French
+drama. Miss Kate Terry, in a small part in it, perfectly charming. You
+may remember her making a noise, years ago, doing a boy at an inn, in
+"The Courier of Lyons"? She has a tender love-scene in this piece, which
+is a really beautiful and artistic thing. I saw her do it at about three
+in the morning of the day when the theatre opened, surrounded by
+shavings and carpenters, and (of course) with that inevitable hammer
+going; and I told Fechter: "That is the very best piece of womanly
+tenderness I have ever seen on the stage, and you'll find that no
+audience can miss it." It is a comfort to add that it was instantly
+seized upon, and is much talked of.
+
+Stanfield was very ill for some months, then suddenly picked up, and is
+really rosy and jovial again. Going to see him when he was very
+despondent, I told him the story of Fechter's piece (then in rehearsal)
+with appropriate action; fighting a duel with the washing-stand, defying
+the bedstead, and saving the life of the sofa-cushion. This so kindled
+his old theatrical ardour, that I think he turned the corner on the
+spot.
+
+With love to Mrs. Macready and Katie, and (be still my heart!)
+Benvenuta, and the exiled Johnny (not too attentive at school, I hope?),
+and the personally-unknown young Parr,
+
+                    Ever, my dearest Macready, your most affectionate.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Power.]
+
+                                  OFFICE OF "ALL THE YEAR ROUND,"
+                                          _Thursday, Feb. 26th, 1863._
+
+MY DEAR MARGUERITE,
+
+I think I have found a first-rate title for your book, with an early and
+a delightful association in most people's minds, and a strong suggestion
+of Oriental pictures:
+
+                        "ARABIAN DAYS AND NIGHTS."
+
+I have sent it to Low's. If they have the wit to see it, do you in your
+first chapter touch that string, so as to bring a fanciful explanation
+in aid of the title, and sound it afterwards, now and again, when you
+come to anything where Haroun al Raschid, and the Grand Vizier, and
+Mesrour, the chief of the guard, and any of that wonderful _dramatis
+personæ_ are vividly brought to mind.
+
+                                                  Ever affectionately.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. Charles Knight.]
+
+                                  OFFICE OF "ALL THE YEAR ROUND,"
+                                         _Wednesday, March 4th, 1863._
+
+MY DEAR CHARLES KNIGHT,
+
+At a quarter to seven on Monday, the 16th, a stately form will be
+descried breathing birthday cordialities and affectionate amenities, as
+it descends the broken and gently dipping ground by which the level
+country of the Clifton Road is attained. A practised eye will be able to
+discern two humble figures in attendance, which from their flowing
+crinolines may, without exposing the prophet to the imputation of
+rashness, be predicted to be women. Though certes their importance,
+absorbed and as it were swallowed up in the illustrious bearing and
+determined purpose of the maturer stranger, will not enthrall the gaze
+that wanders over the forest of San Giovanni as the night gathers in.
+
+                                           Ever affectionately,
+                                                       G. P. R. JAMES.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mrs. Dallas.[9]]
+
+
+EXTRACT.
+
+THE TIME OF THE PRINCESS ALEXANDRA'S ARRIVAL IN LONDON.
+
+It is curious to see London gone mad. Down in the Strand here, the
+monomaniacal tricks it is playing are grievous to behold, but along
+Fleet Street and Cheapside it gradually becomes frenzied, dressing
+itself up in all sorts of odds and ends, and knocking itself about in a
+most amazing manner. At London Bridge it raves, principally about the
+Kings of Denmark and their portraits. I have been looking among them for
+Hamlet's uncle, and have discovered one personage with a high nose, who
+I think is the man.
+
+                                              Faithfully yours always.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mrs. Lehmann.]
+
+      OFFICE OF "ALL THE YEAR ROUND," NO. 26, WELLINGTON STREET,
+                               STRAND, LONDON, W.C.,
+                                          _Tuesday, March 10th, 1863._
+
+DEAR MRS. LEHMANN,
+
+Two stalls for to-morrow's reading were sent to you by post before I
+heard from you this morning. Two will always come to you while you
+remain a Gummidge, and I hope I need not say that if you want more, none
+could be better bestowed in my sight.
+
+Pray tell Lehmann, when you next write to him, that I find I owe him a
+mint of money for the delightful Swedish sleigh-bells. They are the
+wonder, awe, and admiration of the whole country side, and I never go
+out without them.
+
+Let us make an exchange of child stories. I heard of a little fellow the
+other day whose mamma had been telling him that a French governess was
+coming over to him from Paris, and had been expatiating on the blessings
+and advantages of having foreign tongues. After leaning his plump little
+cheek against the window glass in a dreary little way for some minutes,
+he looked round and enquired in a general way, and not as if it had any
+special application, whether she didn't think "that the Tower of Babel
+was a great mistake altogether?"
+
+                                                Ever faithfully yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mrs. Major.[10]]
+
+  OFFICE OF "ALL THE YEAR ROUND," A WEEKLY JOURNAL, ETC. ETC.,
+                     26, WELLINGTON STREET, STRAND,
+                                         _Thursday, March 12th, 1863._
+
+MY DEAR MARY,
+
+I am quite concerned to hear that you and your party (including your
+brother Willie) paid for seats at my reading last night. You must
+promise me never to do so any more. My old affections and attachments
+are not so lightly cherished or so easily forgotten as that I can bear
+the thought of you and yours coming to hear me like so many strangers.
+It will at all times delight me if you will send a little note to me, or
+to Georgina, or to Mary, saying when you feel inclined to come, and how
+many stalls you want. You may always be certain, even on the fullest
+nights, of room being made for you. And I shall always be interested and
+pleased by knowing that you are present.
+
+Mind! You are to be exceedingly penitent for last night's offence, and
+to make me a promise that it shall never be repeated. On which condition
+accept my noble forgiveness.
+
+With kind regard to Mr. Major, my dear Mary,
+
+                                                 Affectionately yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. W. C. Macready.]
+
+                    GAD'S HILL PLACE, HIGHAM BY ROCHESTER, KENT,
+                                         _Thursday, March 31st, 1863._
+
+MY DEAREST MACREADY,
+
+I mean to go on reading into June. For the sake of the finer effects (in
+"Copperfield" principally), I have changed from St. James's Hall to the
+Hanover Square Room. The latter is quite a wonderful room for sound, and
+so easy that the least inflection will tell anywhere in the place
+exactly as it leaves your lips; but I miss my dear old shilling
+galleries--six or eight hundred strong--with a certain roaring sea of
+response in them, that you have stood upon the beach of many and many a
+time.
+
+The summer, I hope and trust, will quicken the pace at which you grow
+stronger again. I am but in dull spirits myself just now, or I should
+remonstrate with you on your slowness.
+
+Having two little boys sent home from school "to see the illuminations"
+on the marriage-night, I chartered an enormous van, at a cost of five
+pounds, and we started in majesty from the office in London, fourteen
+strong. We crossed Waterloo Bridge with the happy design of beginning
+the sight at London Bridge, and working our way through the City to
+Regent Street. In a by-street in the Borough, over against a dead wall
+and under a railway bridge, we were blocked for four hours. We were
+obliged to walk home at last, having seen nothing whatever. The wretched
+van turned up in the course of the next morning; and the best of it was
+that at Rochester here they illuminated the fine old castle, and really
+made a very splendid and picturesque thing (so my neighbours tell me).
+
+With love to Mrs. Macready and Katie,
+
+                    Ever, my dearest Macready, your most affectionate.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. W. Wilkie Collins.]
+
+                    GAD'S HILL PLACE, HIGHAM BY ROCHESTER, KENT,
+                                        _Wednesday, April 22nd, 1863._
+
+
+                  ON THE DEATH OF MR. EGG.
+
+EXTRACT.
+
+Ah, poor Egg! I knew what you would think and feel about it. When we saw
+him in Paris on his way out I was struck by his extreme nervousness, and
+derived from it an uneasy foreboding of his state. What a large piece of
+a good many years he seems to have taken with him! How often have I
+thought, since the news of his death came, of his putting his part in
+the saucepan (with the cover on) when we rehearsed "The Lighthouse;" of
+his falling out of the hammock when we rehearsed "The Frozen Deep;" of
+his learning Italian numbers when he ate the garlic in the carriage; of
+the thousands (I was going to say) of dark mornings when I apostrophised
+him as "Kernel;" of his losing my invaluable knife in that beastly
+stage-coach; of his posting up that mysterious book[11] every night! I
+hardly know why, but I have always associated that volume most with
+Venice. In my memory of the dear gentle little fellow, he will be (as
+since those days he always has been) eternally posting up that book at
+the large table in the middle of our Venice sitting-room, incidentally
+asking the name of an hotel three weeks back! And his pretty house is to
+be laid waste and sold. If there be a sale on the spot I shall try to
+buy something in loving remembrance of him, good dear little fellow.
+Think what a great "Frozen Deep" lay close under those boards we acted
+on! My brother Alfred, Luard, Arthur, Albert, Austin, Egg. Even among
+the audience, Prince Albert and poor Stone! "I heard the"--I forget what
+it was I used to say--"come up from the great deep;" and it rings in my
+ears now, like a sort of mad prophecy.
+
+However, this won't do. We must close up the ranks and march on.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Rev. W. Brookfield.]
+
+                                         GAD'S HILL, _May 17th, 1863._
+
+MY DEAR BROOKFIELD,
+
+It occurs to me that you may perhaps know, or know of, a kind of man
+that I want to discover.
+
+One of my boys (the youngest) now is at Wimbledon School. He is a
+docile, amiable boy of fair abilities, but sensitive and shy. And he
+writes me so very earnestly that he feels the school to be confusingly
+large for him, and that he is sure he could do better with some
+gentleman who gave his own personal attention to the education of
+half-a-dozen or a dozen boys, as to impress me with the belief that I
+ought to heed his conviction.
+
+Has any such phenomenon as a good and reliable man in this wise ever
+come in your way? Forgive my troubling you, and believe me,
+
+                                                      Cordially yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Rev. W. Brookfield.]
+
+                    GAD'S HILL PLACE, HIGHAM BY ROCHESTER, KENT,
+                                                     _May 24th, 1863._
+
+MY DEAR BROOKFIELD,
+
+I am most truly obliged to you for your kind and ready help.
+
+When I am in town next week, I will call upon the Bishop of Natal, more
+to thank him than with the hope of profiting by that gentleman of whom
+he writes, as the limitation to "little boys" seems to stop the way. I
+want to find someone with whom this particular boy could remain; if
+there were a mutual interest and liking, that would be a great point
+gained.
+
+Why did the kings in the fairy tales want children? I suppose in the
+weakness of the royal intellect.
+
+Concerning "Nickleby," I am so much of your mind (comparing it with
+"Copperfield"), that it was a long time before I could take a pleasure
+in reading it. But I got better, as I found the audience always taking
+to it. I have been trying, alone by myself, the "Oliver Twist" murder,
+but have got something so horrible out of it that I am afraid to try it
+in public.
+
+                                                Ever faithfully yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: M. de Cerjat.]
+
+                    GAD'S HILL PLACE, HIGHAM BY ROCHESTER, KENT,
+                                           _Thursday, May 28th, 1863._
+
+MY DEAR CERJAT,
+
+I don't wonder at your finding it difficult to reconcile your mind to a
+French Hamlet; but I assure you that Fechter's is a very remarkable
+performance perfectly consistent with itself (whether it be my
+particular Hamlet, or your particular Hamlet, or no), a coherent and
+intelligent whole, and done by a true artist. I have never seen, I
+think, an intelligent and clear view of the whole character so well
+sustained throughout; and there is a very captivating air of romance and
+picturesqueness added, which is quite new. Rely upon it, the public were
+right. The thing could not have been sustained by oddity; it would have
+perished upon that, very soon. As to the mere accent, there is far less
+drawback in that than you would suppose. For this reason, he obviously
+knows English so thoroughly that you feel he is safe. You are never in
+pain for him. This sense of ease is gained directly, and then you think
+very little more about it.
+
+The Colenso and Jowett matter is a more difficult question, but
+here again I don't go with you. The position of the writers of "Essays
+and Reviews" is, that certain parts of the Old Testament have done
+their intended function in the education of the world _as it was_;
+but that mankind, like the individual man, is designed by the Almighty
+to have an infancy and a maturity, and that as it advances, the
+machinery of its education must advance too. For example: inasmuch as
+ever since there was a sun and there was vapour, there _must have_ been
+a rainbow under certain conditions, so surely it would be better now to
+recognise that indisputable fact. Similarly, Joshua might command the
+sun to stand still, under the impression that it moved round the earth;
+but he could not possibly have inverted the relations of the earth and
+the sun, whatever his impressions were. Again, it is contended that the
+science of geology is quite as much a revelation to man, as books of an
+immense age and of (at the best) doubtful origin, and that your
+consideration of the latter must reasonably be influenced by the former.
+As I understand the importance of timely suggestions such as these, it
+is, that the Church should not gradually shock and lose the more
+thoughtful and logical of human minds; but should be so gently and
+considerately yielding as to retain them, and, through them, hundreds
+of thousands. This seems to me, as I understand the temper and tendency
+of the time, whether for good or evil, to be a very wise and necessary
+position. And as I understand the danger, it is not chargeable on those
+who take this ground, but on those who in reply call names and argue
+nothing. What these bishops and such-like say about revelation, in
+assuming it to be finished and done with, I can't in the least understand.
+Nothing is discovered without God's intention and assistance, and I
+suppose every new knowledge of His works that is conceded to man to be
+distinctly a revelation by which men are to guide themselves. Lastly,
+in the mere matter of religious doctrine and dogmas, these men
+(Protestants--protestors--successors of the men who protested against
+human judgment being set aside) talk and write as if they were all
+settled by the direct act of Heaven; not as if they had been, as we know
+they were, a matter of temporary accommodation and adjustment among
+disputing mortals as fallible as you or I.
+
+Coming nearer home, I hope that Georgina is almost quite well. She has
+no attack of pain or flurry now, and is in all respects immensely
+better. Mary is neither married nor (that I know of) going to be. She
+and Katie and a lot of them have been playing croquet outside my window
+here for these last four days, to a mad and maddening extent. My
+sailor-boy's ship, the _Orlando_, is fortunately in Chatham Dockyard--so
+he is pretty constantly at home--while the shipwrights are repairing a
+leak in her. I am reading in London every Friday just now. Great crams
+and great enthusiasm. Townshend I suppose to have left Lausanne
+somewhere about this day. His house in the park is hermetically sealed,
+ready for him. The Prince and Princess of Wales go about (wisely) very
+much, and have as fair a chance of popularity as ever prince and
+princess had. The City ball in their honour is to be a tremendously
+gorgeous business, and Mary is highly excited by her father's being
+invited, and she with him. Meantime the unworthy parent is devising all
+kinds of subterfuges for sending her and getting out of it himself. A
+very intelligent German friend of mine, just home from America,
+maintains that the conscription will succeed in the North, and that the
+war will be indefinitely prolonged. _I_ say "No," and that however mad
+and villainous the North is, the war will finish by reason of its not
+supplying soldiers. We shall see. The more they brag the more I don't
+believe in them.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. Percy Fitzgerald.]
+
+
+                   GAD'S HILL PLACE, _Saturday Night, July 4th_, 1863.
+
+MY DEAR MR. FITZGERALD,
+
+I have been most heartily gratified by the perusal of your article on my
+dogs. It has given me an amount and a kind of pleasure very unusual, and
+for which I thank you earnestly. The owner of the renowned dog Cæsar
+understands me so sympathetically, that I trust with perfect confidence
+to his feeling what I really mean in these few words. You interest me
+very much by your kind promise, the redemption of which I hereby claim,
+to send me your life of Sterne when it comes out. If you should be in
+England before this, I should be delighted to see you here on the top of
+Falstaff's own Gad's Hill. It is a very pretty country, not thirty
+miles from London; and if you could spare a day or two for its fine
+walks, I and my two latest dogs, a St. Bernard and a bloodhound, would
+be charmed with your company as one of ourselves.
+
+                                    Believe me, very faithfully yours.
+
+
+                                        _Friday, July 10th, 1863._[12]
+
+DEAR MADAM,
+
+I hope you will excuse this tardy reply to your letter. It is often
+impossible for me, by any means, to keep pace with my correspondents. I
+must take leave to say, that if there be any general feeling on the part
+of the intelligent Jewish people, that I have done them what you
+describe as "a great wrong," they are a far less sensible, a far less
+just, and a far less good-tempered people than I have always supposed
+them to be. Fagin, in "Oliver Twist," is a Jew, because it unfortunately
+was true of the time to which that story refers, that that class of
+criminal almost invariably was a Jew. But surely no sensible man or
+woman of your persuasion can fail to observe--firstly, that all the rest
+of the wicked _dramatis personæ_ are Christians; and secondly, that he
+is called the "Jew," not because of his religion, but because of his
+race. If I were to write a story, in which I described a Frenchman or a
+Spaniard as "the Roman Catholic," I should do a very indecent and
+unjustifiable thing; but I make mention of Fagin as the Jew, because he
+is one of the Jewish people, and because it conveys that kind of idea of
+him which I should give my readers of a Chinaman, by calling him a
+Chinese.
+
+The enclosed is quite a nominal subscription towards the good object in
+which you are interested; but I hope it may serve to show you that I
+have no feeling towards the Jewish people but a friendly one. I always
+speak well of them, whether in public or in private, and bear my
+testimony (as I ought to do) to their perfect good faith in such
+transactions as I have ever had with them; and in my "Child's History of
+England," I have lost no opportunity of setting forth their cruel
+persecution in old times.
+
+                                         Dear Madam, faithfully yours.
+
+
+In reply to this, the Jewish lady thanks him for his kind letter and its
+enclosure, still remonstrating and pointing out that though, as he
+observes, "all the other criminal characters were Christians, they are,
+at least, contrasted with characters of good Christians; this wretched
+Fagin stands alone as the Jew."
+
+The reply to _this_ letter afterwards was the character of Riah, in "Our
+Mutual Friend," and some favourable sketches of Jewish character in the
+lower class, in some articles in "All the Year Round."
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. Ouvry.]
+
+                    GAD'S HILL PLACE, HIGHAM BY ROCHESTER, KENT,
+                                   _Wednesday Night, July 29th, 1863._
+
+MY DEAR OUVRY,
+
+I have had some undefined idea that you were to let me know if you were
+coming to the archæologs at Rochester. (I myself am keeping out of their
+way, as having had enough of crowding and speech-making in London.) Will
+you tell me where you are, whether you are in this neighbourhood or out
+of it, whether you will come here on Saturday and stay till Monday or
+till Tuesday morning? If you will come, I _know_ I can give you the
+heartiest welcome in Kent, and I _think_ I can give you the best wine in
+this part of it. Send me a word in reply. I will fetch you from
+anywhere, at any indicated time.
+
+We have very pretty places in the neighbourhood, and are not
+uncomfortable people (I believe) to stay with.
+
+                                                Faithfully yours ever.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. Charles Reade.]
+
+                                  OFFICE OF "ALL THE YEAR ROUND,"
+                                        _Wednesday, Sept. 30th, 1863._
+
+MY DEAR READE,
+
+I _must_ write you one line to say how interested I am in your story,
+and to congratulate you upon its admirable art and its surprising grace
+and vigour.
+
+And to hint my hope, at the same time, that you will be able to find
+leisure for a little dash for the Christmas number. It would be a really
+great and true pleasure to me if you could.
+
+                                              Faithfully yours always.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Hogarth.]
+
+                    GAD'S HILL PLACE, HIGHAM BY ROCHESTER, KENT,
+                                          _Wednesday, Oct. 7th, 1863._
+
+MY DEAREST GEORGY,
+
+You will see by to-day's _Times_ that it _was_ an earthquake that shook
+me, and that my watch showed exactly the same time as the man's who
+writes from Blackheath so near us--twenty minutes past three.
+
+It is a great satisfaction to me to make it out so precisely; I wish you
+would enquire whether the servants felt it. I thought it was the voice
+of the cook that answered me, but that was nearly half an hour later. I
+am strongly inclined to think that there is a peculiar susceptibility in
+iron--at all events in our part of the country--to the shock, as though
+there were something magnetic in it. For, whereas my long iron bedstead
+was so violently shaken, I certainly heard nothing rattle in the room.
+
+I will write about my return as soon as I get on with the still unbegun
+"Uncommercial."
+
+                                                  Ever affectionately.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. W. H. Wills.]
+
+                                GAD'S HILL, _Sunday, Dec. 20th, 1863._
+
+MY DEAR WILLS,
+
+I am clear that you took my cold. Why didn't you do the thing
+completely, and take it away from me? for it hangs by me still.
+
+Will you tell Mrs. Linton that in looking over her admirable account
+(_most_ admirable) of Mrs. Gordon's book, I have taken out the
+references to Lockhart, not because I in the least doubt their justice,
+but because I knew him and he liked me; and because one bright day in
+Rome, I walked about with him for some hours when he was dying fast, and
+all the old faults had faded out of him, and the now ghost of the
+handsome man I had first known when Scott's daughter was at the head of
+his house, had little more to do with this world than she in her grave,
+or Scott in his, or small Hugh Littlejohn in his. Lockhart had been
+anxious to see me all the previous day (when I was away on the
+Campagna), and as we walked about I knew very well that _he_ knew very
+well why. He talked of getting better, but I never saw him again. This
+makes me stay Mrs. Linton's hand, gentle as it is.
+
+Mrs. Lirriper is indeed a most brilliant old lady. God bless her.
+
+I am glad to hear of your being "haunted," and hope to increase your
+stock of such ghosts pretty liberally.
+
+                                                      Ever faithfully.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[8] Alluding to a translation of a play by M. Maquet, which M. Fechter
+was then preparing for his theatre.
+
+[9] Now Mrs. Dallas Glyn.
+
+[10] Formerly Miss Talfourd.
+
+[11] His travelling journal.
+
+[12] Answer to letter from Jewish lady, remonstrating with him on
+injustice to the Jews, shown in the character of Fagin, and asking for
+subscription for the benefit of the Jewish poor.
+
+
+
+
+1864.
+
+NARRATIVE.
+
+
+Charles Dickens was, as usual, at Gad's Hill, with a family and friendly
+party, at the opening of this year, and had been much shocked and
+distressed by the news of the sudden death of Mr. Thackeray, brought to
+him by friends arriving from London on the Christmas Eve of 1863, the
+day on which the sad event happened. He writes of it, in the first
+letter of the year, to Mr. Wilkie Collins, who was passing the winter in
+Italy. He tells him, also, of his having got well to work upon a new
+serial story, the first number of which ("Our Mutual Friend") was
+published on the 1st of May.
+
+The year began very sadly for Charles Dickens. On the 7th of February
+(his own birthday) he received the mournful announcement of the death of
+his second son, Walter Landor (a lieutenant in the 42nd Royal
+Highlanders), who had died quite suddenly at Calcutta, on the last night
+of the year of 1863, at the age of twenty-three. His third son, Francis
+Jeffrey, had started for India at the end of January.
+
+His annual letter to M. de Cerjat contains an allusion to "another
+generation beginning to peep above the table"--the children of his son
+Charles, who had been married three years before, to Miss Bessie Evans.
+
+In the middle of February he removed to a house in London (57,
+Gloucester Place, Hyde Park), where he made a stay of the usual
+duration, up to the middle of June, all the time being hard at work upon
+"Our Mutual Friend" and "All the Year Round." Mr. Marcus Stone was the
+illustrator of the new monthly work, and we give a specimen of one of
+many letters which he wrote to him about his "subjects."
+
+His old friend, Mr. Charles Knight, with whom for many years Charles
+Dickens had dined on his birthday, was staying, this spring, in the Isle
+of Wight. To him he writes of the death of Walter, and of another sad
+death which happened at this time, and which affected him almost as
+much. Clara, the last surviving daughter of Mr. and Mrs. White, who had
+been happily married to Mr. Gordon, of Cluny, not more than two years,
+had just died at Bonchurch. Her father, as will be seen by the touching
+allusion to him in this letter, had died a short time after this
+daughter's marriage.
+
+A letter to Mr. Edmund Ollier has reference to certain additions which
+Charles Dickens wished him to make to an article (by Mr. Ollier) on
+Working Men's Clubs, published in "All the Year Round."
+
+We are glad to have one letter to the Lord Chief Baron, Sir Frederick
+Pollock, which shows the great friendship and regard Charles Dickens had
+for him, and his admiration of his qualities in his judicial capacity.
+
+We give a pleasant letter to Mrs. Storrar, for whom, and for her
+husband, Dr. Storrar, Charles Dickens had affectionate regard, because
+we are glad to have their names in our book. The letter speaks for
+itself and needs no explanation.
+
+The latter part of the year was uneventful. Hard at work, he passed the
+summer and autumn at Gad's Hill, taking holidays by receiving visitors
+at home (among them, this year, Sir J. Emerson Tennent, his wife and
+daughter, who were kindly urgent for his paying them a return visit in
+Ireland) and occasional "runs" into France. The last letters we give are
+his annual one to M. de Cerjat, and a graceful little New Year's note to
+his dear old friend "Barry Cornwall."
+
+The Christmas number was "Mrs. Lirriper's Legacy," the first and last
+part written by himself, as in the case of the previous year's "Mrs.
+Lirriper."
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. W. Wilkie Collins.]
+
+                                GAD'S HILL, _Monday, Jan. 24th, 1864._
+
+                              EXTRACT.
+
+MY DEAR WILKIE,
+
+I am horribly behindhand in answering your welcome letter; but I have
+been so busy, and have had the house so full for Christmas and the New
+Year, and have had so much to see to in getting Frank out to India,
+that I have not been able to settle down to a regular long letter, which
+I mean this to be, but which it may not turn out to be, after all.
+
+First, I will answer your enquiries about the Christmas number and the
+new book. The Christmas number has been the greatest success of all; has
+shot ahead of last year; has sold about two hundred and twenty thousand;
+and has made the name of Mrs. Lirriper so swiftly and domestically
+famous as never was. I had a very strong belief in her when I wrote
+about her, finding that she made a great effect upon me; but she
+certainly has gone beyond my hopes. (Probably you know nothing about
+her? which is a very unpleasant consideration.) Of the new book, I have
+done the two first numbers, and am now beginning the third. It is a
+combination of drollery with romance which requires a great deal of
+pains and a perfect throwing away of points that might be amplified; but
+I hope it is _very good_. I confess, in short, that I think it is.
+Strange to say, I felt at first quite dazed in getting back to the large
+canvas and the big brushes; and even now, I have a sensation as of
+acting at the San Carlo after Tavistock House, which I could hardly have
+supposed would have come upon so old a stager.
+
+You will have read about poor Thackeray's death--sudden, and yet not
+sudden, for he had long been alarmingly ill. At the solicitation of Mr.
+Smith and some of his friends, I have done what I would most gladly have
+excused myself from doing, if I felt I could--written a couple of pages
+about him in what was his own magazine.
+
+Concerning the Italian experiment, De la Rue is more hopeful than you.
+He and his bank are closely leagued with the powers at Turin, and he has
+long been devoted to Cavour; but he gave me the strongest assurances
+(with illustrations) of the fusion between place and place, and of the
+blending of small mutually antagonistic characters into one national
+character, progressing cheeringly and certainly. Of course there must be
+discouragements and discrepancies in the first struggles of a country
+previously so degraded and enslaved, and the time, as yet, has been very
+short.
+
+I should like to have a day with you at the Coliseum, and on the Appian
+Way, and among the tombs, and with the Orvieto. But Rome and I are wide
+asunder, physically as well as morally. I wonder whether the dramatic
+stable, where we saw the marionettes, still receives the Roman public?
+And Lord! when I think of you in that hotel, how I think of poor dear
+Egg in the long front drawing-room, giving on to the piazza, posting up
+that wonderful necromantic volume which we never shall see opened!
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. Marcus Stone.]
+
+                    57, GLOUCESTER PLACE, HYDE PARK,, HYDE PARK,
+                                           _Tuesday, Feb. 23rd, 1864._
+
+MY DEAR MARCUS,
+
+I think the design for the cover _excellent_, and do not doubt its
+coming out to perfection. The slight alteration I am going to suggest
+originates in a business consideration not to be overlooked.
+
+The word "Our" in the title must be out in the open like "Mutual
+Friend," making the title three distinct large lines--"Our" as big as
+"Mutual Friend." This would give you too much design at the bottom. I
+would therefore take out the dustman, and put the Wegg and Boffin
+composition (which is capital) in its place. I don't want Mr. Inspector
+or the murder reward bill, because these points are sufficiently
+indicated in the river at the top. Therefore you can have an indication
+of the dustman in Mr. Inspector's place. Note, that the dustman's face
+should be droll, and not horrible. Twemlow's elbow will still go out of
+the frame as it does now, and the same with Lizzie's skirts on the
+opposite side. With these changes, work away!
+
+Mrs. Boffin, as I judge of her from the sketch, "very good, indeed." I
+want Boffin's oddity, without being at all blinked, to be an oddity of a
+very honest kind, that people will like.
+
+The doll's dressmaker is immensely better than she was. I think she
+should now come extremely well. A weird sharpness not without beauty is
+the thing I want.
+
+                                                Affectionately always.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. Charles Knight.]
+
+                                       57, GLOUCESTER PLACE, W.,
+                                           _Tuesday, March 1st, 1864._
+
+MY DEAR KNIGHT,
+
+We knew of your being in the Isle of Wight, and had said that we should
+have this year to drink your health in your absence. Rely on my being
+always ready and happy to renew our old friendship in the flesh. In the
+spirit it needs no renewal, because it has no break.
+
+Ah, poor Mrs. White! A sad, sad story! It is better for poor White that
+that little churchyard by the sea received his ashes a while ago, than
+that he should have lived to this time.
+
+My poor boy was on his way home from an up-country station, on sick
+leave. He had been very ill, but was not so at the time. He was talking
+to some brother-officers in the Calcutta hospital about his preparations
+for home, when he suddenly became excited, had a rush of blood from the
+mouth, and was dead. His brother Frank would arrive out at Calcutta,
+expecting to see him after six years, and he would have been dead a
+month.
+
+My "working life" is resolving itself at the present into another book,
+in twenty green leaves. You work like a Trojan at Ventnor, but you do
+that everywhere; and that's why you are so young.
+
+Mary and Georgina unite in kindest regard to you, and to Mrs. Knight,
+and to your daughters. So do I. And I am ever, my dear Knight,
+
+                                                 Affectionately yours.
+
+P.S.--Serene View! What a placid address!
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. Edmund Ollier.]
+
+                           "ALL THE YEAR ROUND" OFFICE, _March, 1864._
+
+                                 EXTRACT.
+
+I want the article on "Working Men's Clubs" to refer back to "The Poor
+Man and his Beer" in No. 1, and to maintain the principle involved in
+that effort.
+
+Also, emphatically, to show that trustfulness is at the bottom of all
+social institutions, and that to trust a man, as one of a body of men,
+is to place him under a wholesome restraint of social opinion, and is a
+very much better thing than to make a baby of him.
+
+Also, to point out that the rejection of beer in this club, tobacco in
+that club, dancing or what-not in another club, are instances that such
+clubs are founded on mere whims, and therefore cannot successfully
+address human nature in the general, and hope to last.
+
+Also, again to urge that patronage is the curse and blight of all such
+endeavours, and to impress upon the working men that they must originate
+and manage for themselves. And to ask them the question, can they
+possibly show their detestation of drunkenness better, or better strive
+to get rid of it from among them, than to make it a hopeless
+disqualification in all their clubs, and a reason for expulsion.
+
+Also, to encourage them to declare to themselves and their fellow
+working men that they want social rest and social recreation for
+themselves and their families; and that these clubs are intended for
+that laudable and necessary purpose, and do not need educational
+pretences or flourishes. Do not let them be afraid or ashamed of wanting
+to be amused and pleased.
+
+
+[Sidenote: The Lord Chief Baron.]
+
+                    57, GLOUCESTER PLACE, _Tuesday, March 15th, 1864._
+
+MY DEAR CHIEF BARON,
+
+Many thanks for your kind letter, which I find on my return from a
+week's holiday.
+
+Your answer concerning poor Thackeray I will duly make known to the
+active spirit in that matter, Mr. Shirley Brooks.
+
+Your kind invitation to me to come and see you and yours, and hear the
+nightingales, I shall not fail to discuss with Forster, and with an eye
+to spring. I expect to see him presently; the rather as I found a note
+from him when I came back yesterday, describing himself somewhat
+gloomily as not having been well, and as feeling a little out of heart.
+
+It is not out of order, I hope, to remark that you have been much in my
+thoughts and on my lips lately? For I really have not been able to
+repress my admiration of the vigorous dignity and sense and spirit, with
+which one of the best of judges set right one of the dullest of juries
+in a recent case.
+
+                               Believe me ever, very faithfully yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. John Forster.]
+
+                     57, GLOUCESTER PLACE, _Tuesday, March 29th, 1864._
+
+MY DEAR FORSTER,
+
+I meant to write to you last night, but to enable Wills to get away I
+had to read a book of Fitzgerald's through before I went to bed.
+
+Concerning Eliot, I sat down, as I told you, and read the book through
+with the strangest interest and the highest admiration. I believe it to
+be as honest, spirited, patient, reliable, and gallant a piece of
+biography as ever was written, the care and pains of it astonishing, the
+completeness of it masterly; and what I particularly feel about it is
+that the dignity of the man, and the dignity of the book that tells
+about the man, always go together, and fit each other. This same quality
+has always impressed me as the great leading speciality of the
+Goldsmith, and enjoins sympathy with the subject, knowledge of it, and
+pursuit of it in its own spirit; but I think it even more remarkable
+here. I declare that apart from the interest of having been so put into
+the time, and enabled to understand it, I personally feel quite as much
+the credit and honour done to literature by such a book. It quite clears
+out of the remembrance a thousand pitiful things, and sets one up in
+heart again. I am not surprised in the least by Bulwer's enthusiasm. I
+was as confident about the effect of the book when I closed the first
+volume, as I was when I closed the second with a full heart. No man less
+in earnest than Eliot himself could have done it, and I make bold to add
+that it never could have been done by a man who was so distinctly born
+to do the work as Eliot was to do his.
+
+Saturday at Hastings I must give up. I have wavered and considered, and
+considered and wavered, but if I take that sort of holiday, I must have
+a day to spare after it, and at this critical time I have not. If I were
+to lose a page of the five numbers I have purposed to myself to be
+ready by the publication day, I should feel that I had fallen short. I
+have grown hard to satisfy, and write very slowly, and I have so much
+bad fiction, that _will_ be thought of when I don't want to think of it,
+that I am forced to take more care than I ever took.
+
+                                                  Ever affectionately.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mrs. Storrar.]
+
+                    GAD'S HILL PLACE, HIGHAM BY ROCHESTER, KENT,
+                                     _Sunday Morning, May 15th, 1864._
+
+MY DEAR MRS. STORRAR,
+
+Our family dinner must come off at Gad's Hill, where I have improvements
+to exhibit, and where I shall be truly pleased to see you and the doctor
+again. I have deferred answering your note, while I have been scheming
+and scheming for a day between this time and our departure. But it is
+all in vain. My engagements have accumulated, and become such a whirl,
+that no day is left me. Nothing is left me but to get away. I look
+forward to my release from this dining life with an inexpressible
+longing after quiet and my own pursuits. What with public speechifying,
+private eating and drinking, and perpetual simmering in hot rooms, I
+have made London too hot to hold me and my work together. Mary and
+Georgina acknowledge the condition of imbecility to which we have become
+reduced in reference to your kind reminder. They say, when I stare at
+them in a forlorn way with your note in my hand: "What CAN you do!" To
+which I can only reply, implicating them: "See what you have brought me
+to!"
+
+With our united kind regard to yourself and Dr. Storrar, I entreat your
+pity and compassion for an unfortunate wretch whom a too-confiding
+disposition has brought to this pass. If I had not allowed my "cheeild"
+to pledge me to all manner of fellow-creatures, I and my digestion might
+have been in a state of honourable independence this day.
+
+                                      Faithfully and penitently yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. Percy Fitzgerald.]
+
+                  OFFICE OF "ALL THE YEAR ROUND," ETC. ETC. ETC.
+                                         _Wednesday, July 27th, 1864._
+
+MY DEAR MR. FITZGERALD,
+
+First, let me assure you that it gave us all real pleasure to see your
+sister and you at Gad's Hill, and that we all hope you will both come
+and stay a day or two with us when you are next in England.
+
+Next, let me convey to you the intelligence that I resolve to launch
+"Miss Manuel," fully confiding in your conviction of the power of the
+story. On all business points, Wills will communicate with you. I
+purpose beginning its publication in our first September number,
+therefore there is no time to be lost.
+
+The only suggestion I have to make as to the MS. in hand and type is,
+that Captain Fermor wants relief. It is a disagreeable character, as you
+mean it to be, and I should be afraid to do so much with him, if the
+case were mine, without taking the taste of him, here and there, out of
+the reader's mouth. It is remarkable that if you do not administer a
+disagreeable character carefully, the public have a decided tendency to
+think that the _story_ is disagreeable, and not merely the fictitious
+person.
+
+What do you think of the title,
+
+                              NEVER FORGOTTEN?
+
+It is a good one in itself, would express the eldest sister's pursuit,
+and glanced at now and then in the text, would hold the reader in
+suspense. I would propose to add the line,
+
+                       BY THE AUTHOR OF BELLA DONNA.
+
+Let me know your opinion as to the title. I need not assure you that the
+greatest care will be taken of you here, and that we shall make you as
+thoroughly well and widely known as we possibly can.
+
+                                                Very faithfully yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Sir James Emerson Tennent.]
+
+                    GAD'S HILL PLACE, HIGHAM BY ROCHESTER, KENT,
+                                            _Friday, Aug. 26th, 1864._
+
+MY DEAR TENNENT,
+
+Believe me, I fully intended to come to you--did not doubt that I should
+come--and have greatly disappointed Mary and her aunt, as well as
+myself, by not coming. But I do not feel safe in going out for a visit.
+The mere knowledge that I had such a thing before me would put me out.
+It is not the length of time consumed, or the distance traversed, but it
+is the departure from a settled habit and a continuous sacrifice of
+pleasures that comes in question. This is an old story with me. I have
+never divided a book of my writing with anything else, but have always
+wrought at it to the exclusion of everything else; and it is now too
+late to change.
+
+After receiving your kind note I resolved to make another trial. But the
+hot weather and a few other drawbacks did not mend the matter, for I
+have dropped astern this month instead of going ahead. So I have seen
+Forster, and shown him my chains, and am reduced to taking exercise in
+them, like Baron Trenck.
+
+I am heartily pleased that you set so much store by the dedication. You
+may be sure that it does not make me the less anxious to take pains, and
+to work out well what I have in my mind.
+
+Mary and Georgina unite with me in kindest regards to Lady Tennent and
+Miss Tennent, and wish me to report that while they are seriously
+disappointed, they still feel there is no help for it. I can testify
+that they had great pleasure in the anticipation of the visit, and that
+their faces were very long and blank indeed when I began to hint my
+doubts. They fought against them valiantly as long as there was a
+chance, but they see my difficulty as well as anyone not myself can.
+
+                  Believe me, my dear Tennent, ever faithfully yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. Clarkson Stanfield, R.A.]
+
+                          THE ATHENÆUM, _Wednesday, Sept. 21st, 1864._
+
+MY DEAR STANNY,
+
+I met George in the street a few days ago, and he gave me a wonderful
+account of the effect of your natural element upon you at Ramsgate. I
+expect you to come back looking about twenty-nine, and feeling about
+nineteen.
+
+This morning I have looked in here to put down Fechter as a candidate,
+on the chance of the committee's electing him some day or other. He is a
+most devoted worshipper of yours, and would take it as a great honour if
+you would second him. Supposing you to have not the least objection (of
+course, if you should have any, I can in a moment provide a substitute),
+will you write your name in the candidates' book as his seconder when
+you are next in town and passing this way?
+
+Lastly, if you should be in town on his opening night (a Saturday, and
+in all probability the 22nd of October), will you come and dine at the
+office and see his new piece? You have not yet "pronounced" in the
+matter of that new French stage of his, on which Calcott for the said
+new piece has built up all manner of villages, camps, Versailles
+gardens, etc. etc. etc. etc., with no wings, no flies, no looking off
+in any direction. If you tell me that you are to be in town by that
+time, I will not fail to refresh your memory as to the precise day.
+
+        With kind regard to Mrs. Stanfield,
+                Believe me, my dear old boy, ever your affectionate
+                                                                 DICK.
+
+
+[Sidenote: M. de Cerjat.]
+
+                          GAD'S HILL PLACE, HIGHAM BY ROCHESTER,
+                                           _Tuesday, Oct. 25th, 1864._
+
+MY DEAR CERJAT,
+
+Here is a limping brute of a reply to your always-welcome Christmas
+letter! But, as usual, when I have done my day's work, I jump up from my
+desk and rush into air and exercise, and find letter-writing the most
+difficult thing in my daily life.
+
+I hope that your asthmatic tendencies may not be strong just now; but
+Townshend's account of the premature winter at Lausanne is not
+encouraging, and with us here in England all such disorders have been
+aggravated this autumn. However, a man of your dignity _must_ have
+either asthma or gout, and I hope you have got the better of the two.
+
+In London there is, as you see by the papers, extraordinarily little
+news. At present the apprehension (rather less than it was thought) of a
+commercial crisis, and the trial of Müller next Thursday, are the two
+chief sensations. I hope that gentleman will be hanged, and have hardly
+a doubt of it, though croakers contrariwise are not wanting. It is
+difficult to conceive any other line of defence than that the
+circumstances proved, taken separately, are slight. But a sound judge
+will immediately charge the jury that the strength of the circumstances
+lies in their being put together, and will thread them together on a
+fatal rope.
+
+As to the Church, my friend, I am sick of it. The spectacle presented by
+the indecent squabbles of priests of most denominations, and the
+exemplary unfairness and rancour with which they conduct their
+differences, utterly repel me. And the idea of the Protestant
+establishment, in the face of its own history, seeking to trample out
+discussion and private judgment, is an enormity so cool, that I wonder
+the Right Reverends, Very Reverends, and all other Reverends, who commit
+it, can look in one another's faces without laughing, as the old
+soothsayers did. Perhaps they can't and don't. How our sublime and
+so-different Christian religion is to be administered in the future I
+cannot pretend to say, but that the Church's hand is at its own throat I
+am fully convinced. Here, more Popery, there, more Methodism--as many
+forms of consignment to eternal damnation as there are articles, and all
+in one forever quarrelling body--the Master of the New Testament put out
+of sight, and the rage and fury almost always turning on the letter of
+obscure parts of the Old Testament, which itself has been the subject of
+accommodation, adaptation, varying interpretation without end--these
+things cannot last. The Church that is to have its part in the coming
+time must be a more Christian one, with less arbitrary pretensions and a
+stronger hold upon the mantle of our Saviour, as He walked and talked
+upon this earth.
+
+Of family intelligence I have very little. Charles Collins continuing in
+a very poor way, and showing no signs of amendment. He and my daughter
+Katie went to Wiesbaden and thence to Nice, where they are now. I have
+strong apprehensions that he will never recover, and that she will be
+left a young widow. All the rest are as they were. Mary neither married
+nor going to be; Georgina holding them all together and perpetually
+corresponding with the distant ones; occasional rallyings coming off
+here, in which another generation begins to peep above the table. I once
+used to think what a horrible thing it was to be a grandfather. Finding
+that the calamity falls upon me without my perceiving any other change
+in myself, I bear it like a man.
+
+Mrs. Watson has bought a house in town, to which she repairs in the
+season, for the bringing out of her daughter. She is now at Rockingham.
+Her eldest son is said to be as good an eldest son as ever was, and to
+make her position there a perfectly independent and happy one. I have
+not seen him for some years; her I often see; but he ought to be a good
+fellow, and is very popular in his neighbourhood.
+
+I have altered this place very much since you were here, and have made a
+pretty (I think an unusually pretty) drawing-room. I wish you would come
+back and see it. My being on the Dover line, and my being very fond of
+France, occasion me to cross the Channel perpetually. Whenever I feel
+that I have worked too much, or am on the eve of overdoing it, and want
+a change, away I go by the mail-train, and turn up in Paris or anywhere
+else that suits my humour, next morning. So I come back as fresh as a
+daisy, and preserve as ruddy a face as though I never leant over a sheet
+of paper. When I retire from a literary life I think of setting up as a
+Channel pilot.
+
+Pray give my love to Mrs. Cerjat, and tell her that I should like to go
+up the Great St. Bernard again, and shall be glad to know if she is open
+to another ascent. Old days in Switzerland are ever fresh to me, and
+sometimes I walk with you again, after dark, outside the hotel at
+Martigny, while Lady Mary Taylour (wasn't it?) sang within very
+prettily. Lord, how the time goes! How many years ago!
+
+                                                 Affectionately yours.
+
+
+                                     _Wednesday, Nov. 16th, 1864._[13]
+
+DEAR MADAM,
+
+I have received your letter with great pleasure, and hope to be (as I
+have always been at heart) the best of friends with the Jewish people.
+The error you point out to me had occurred to me, as most errors do to
+most people, when it was too late to correct it. But it will do no harm.
+The peculiarities of dress and manner are fused together for the sake of
+picturesqueness.
+
+                                         Dear Madam, faithfully yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. B. W. Procter.]
+
+                    GAD'S HILL PLACE, HIGHAM BY ROCHESTER, KENT,
+                                          _Saturday, Dec. 31st, 1864._
+
+MY DEAR PROCTER,
+
+I have reserved my acknowledgment of your delightful note (the youngest
+note I have had in all this year) until to-day, in order that I might
+send, most heartily and affectionately, all seasonable good wishes to
+you and to Mrs. Procter, and to those who are nearest and dearest to
+you. Take them from an old friend who loves you.
+
+Mamie returns the tender compliments, and Georgina does what the
+Americans call "endorse them." Mrs. Lirriper is proud to be so
+remembered, and says over and over again "that it's worth twenty times
+the trouble she has taken with the narrative, since Barry Cornwall,
+Esquire, is pleased to like it."
+
+I got rid of a touch of neuralgia in France (as I always do there), but
+I found no old friends in my voyages of discovery on that side, such as
+I have left on this.
+
+                              My dear Procter, ever your affectionate.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[13] In answer to another letter from the "Jewish lady," in which she
+gives her reasons for still being dissatisfied with the character of
+Riah.
+
+
+
+
+1865.
+
+NARRATIVE.
+
+
+For this spring a furnished house in Somer's Place, Hyde Park, had been
+taken, which Charles Dickens occupied, with his sister-in-law and
+daughter, from the beginning of March until June.
+
+During the year he paid two short visits to France.
+
+He was still at work upon "Our Mutual Friend," two numbers of which had
+been issued in January and February, when the first volume was
+published, with dedication to Sir James Emerson Tennent. The remaining
+numbers were issued between March and November, when the complete work
+was published in two volumes.
+
+The Christmas number, to which Charles Dickens contributed three
+stories, was called "Doctor Marigold's Prescriptions."
+
+Being out of health, and much overworked, Charles Dickens, at the end of
+May, took his first short holiday trip into France. And on his way home,
+and on a day afterwards so fatal to him, the 9th of June, he was in that
+most terrible railway accident at Staplehurst. Many of our letters for
+this year have reference to this awful experience--an experience from
+the effects of which his nerves never wholly recovered. His letters to
+Mr. Thomas Mitton and to Mrs. Hulkes (an esteemed friend and neighbour)
+are graphic descriptions of this disaster. But they do NOT tell of the
+wonderful presence of mind and energy shown by Charles Dickens when most
+of the terrified passengers were incapable of thought or action, or of
+his gentleness and goodness to the dead and dying. The Mr. Dickenson[14]
+mentioned in the letter to Mrs. Hulkes soon recovered. He always
+considers that he owes his life to Charles Dickens, the latter having
+discovered and extricated him from beneath a carriage before it was too
+late.
+
+Our first letter to Mr. Kent is one of congratulation upon his having
+become the proprietor of _The Sun_ newspaper.
+
+Professor Owen has been so kind as to give us some notes, which we
+publish for the sake of his great name. Charles Dickens had not much
+correspondence with Professor Owen, but there was a firm friendship and
+great mutual admiration between them.
+
+The letter to Mrs. Procter is in answer to one from her, asking Charles
+Dickens to write a memoir of her daughter Adelaide, as a preface to a
+collected edition of her poems.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. William Charles Kent.]
+
+                    GAD'S HILL PLACE, HIGHAM BY ROCHESTER, KENT,
+                                           _Tuesday, Jan. 17th, 1865._
+
+MY DEAR KENT,
+
+I meant to have written instantly on the appearance of your paper in its
+beautiful freshness, to congratulate you on its handsome appearance, and
+to send you my heartiest good wishes for its thriving and prosperous
+career. Through a mistake of the postman's, that remarkable letter has
+been tesselated into the Infernal Pavement instead of being delivered in
+the Strand.
+
+We have been looking and waiting for your being well enough to propose
+yourself for a mouthful of fresh air. Are you well enough to come on
+Sunday? We shall be coming down from Charing Cross on Sunday morning,
+and I shall be going up again at nine on Monday morning.
+
+It amuses me to find that you don't see your way with a certain "Mutual
+Friend" of ours. I have a horrible suspicion that you may begin to be
+fearfully knowing at somewhere about No. 12 or 13. But you shan't if I
+can help it.
+
+Your note delighted me because it dwelt upon the places in the number
+that _I_ dwell on. Not that that is anything new in your case, but it is
+always new to me in the pleasure I derive from it, which is truly
+inexpressible.
+
+                                                 Ever cordially yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mrs. Procter.]
+
+                    GAD'S HILL PLACE, HIGHAM BY ROCHESTER, KENT,
+                                         _Wednesday, Feb. 15th, 1865._
+
+MY DEAR MRS. PROCTER,
+
+Of course I will do it, and of course I will do it for the love of you
+and Procter. You can give me my brief, and we can speak about its
+details. Once again, of course I will do it, and with all my heart.
+
+I have registered a vow (in which there is not the least merit, for I
+couldn't help it) that when I am, as I am now, very hard at work upon a
+book, I never will dine out more than one day in a week. Why didn't you
+ask me for the Wednesday, before I stood engaged to Lady Molesworth for
+the Tuesday?
+
+It is so delightful to me to sit by your side anywhere and be brightened
+up, that I lay a handsome sacrifice upon the altar of "Our Mutual
+Friend" in writing this note, very much against my will. But for as many
+years as can be made consistent with my present juvenility, I always
+have given my work the first place in my life, and what can I do now at
+35!--or at least at the two figures, never mind their order.
+
+I send my love to Procter, hoping you may appropriate a little of it by
+the way.
+
+                                                 Affectionately yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. W. C. Macready.]
+
+                                  OFFICE OF "ALL THE YEAR ROUND,"
+                                         _Wednesday, March 1st, 1865._
+
+MY DEAREST MACREADY,
+
+I have been laid up here with a frost-bitten foot (from hard walking in
+the snow), or you would have heard from me sooner.
+
+My reply to Professor Agassiz is short, but conclusive. Daily seeing
+improper uses made of confidential letters in the addressing of them to
+a public audience that have no business with them, I made not long ago a
+great fire in my field at Gad's Hill, and burnt every letter I
+possessed. And now I always destroy every letter I receive not on
+absolute business, and my mind is so far at ease. Poor dear Felton's
+letters went up into the air with the rest, or his highly distinguished
+representative should have had them most willingly.
+
+We never fail to drink old P.'s health on his birthday, or to make him
+the subject of a thousand loving remembrances. With best love to Mrs.
+Macready and Katie,
+
+                          Ever, my dearest Macready,
+                                        Your most affectionate Friend.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. W. C. Macready.]
+
+                                   16, SOMER'S PLACE, HYDE PARK,
+                                   _Saturday Night, April 22nd, 1865._
+
+MY DEAREST MACREADY,
+
+A thousand thanks for your kind letter, most heartily welcome.
+
+My frost-bitten foot, after causing me great inconvenience and much
+pain, has begun to conduct itself amiably. I can now again walk my ten
+miles in the morning without inconvenience, but am absurdly obliged to
+sit shoeless all the evening--a very slight penalty, as I detest going
+out to dinner (which killed the original old Parr by-the-bye).
+
+I am working like a dragon at my book, and am a terror to the household,
+likewise to all the organs and brass bands in this quarter. Gad's Hill
+is being gorgeously painted, and we are here until the 1st of June. I
+wish I might hope you would be there any time this summer; I really
+_have_ made the place comfortable and pretty by this time.
+
+It is delightful to us to hear such good news of Butty. She made so
+deep an impression on Fechter that he always asks me what Ceylon has
+done for her, and always beams when I tell him how thoroughly well it
+has made her. As to _you_, you are the youngest man (worth mentioning as
+a thorough man) that I know. Oh, let me be as young when I am as----did
+you think I was going to write "old?" No, sir--withdrawn from the wear
+and tear of busy life is my expression.
+
+Poole still holds out at Kentish Town, and says he is dying of solitude.
+His memory is astoundingly good. I see him about once in two or three
+months, and in the meantime he makes notes of questions to ask me when I
+come. Having fallen in arrear of the time, these generally refer to
+unknown words he has encountered in the newspapers. His three last (he
+always reads them with tremendous difficulty through an enormous
+magnifying-glass) were as follows:
+
+        1. What's croquet?
+        2. What's an Albert chain?
+        3. Let me know the state of mind of the Queen.
+
+When I had delivered a neat exposition on these heads, he turned back to
+his memoranda, and came to something that the utmost power of the
+enormous magnifying-glass couldn't render legible. After a quarter of an
+hour or so, he said: "O yes, I know." And then rose and clasped his
+hands above his head, and said: "Thank God, I am not a dram-drinker."
+
+Do think of coming to Gad's in the summer; and do give my love to Mrs.
+Macready, and tell her I know she can make you come if she will. Mary
+and Georgy send best and dearest loves to her, to you, and to Katie, and
+to baby. Johnny we suppose to be climbing the tree of knowledge
+elsewhere.
+
+                  My dearest Macready, ever yours most affectionately.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. W. C. Macready.]
+
+                                GAD'S HILL, _Monday, June 12th, 1865._
+
+MY DEAREST MACREADY,
+
+                    [_So far in his own writing._]
+
+Many thanks for your kind words of remembrance.[15] This is not all in
+my own hand, because I am too much shaken to write many notes. Not by
+the beating and dragging of the carriage in which I was--it did not go
+over, but was caught on the turn, among the ruins of the bridge--but by
+the work afterwards to get out the dying and dead, which was terrible.
+
+                   [_The rest in his own writing_.]
+
+                                        Ever your affectionate Friend.
+
+P.S.--My love to Mrs. Macready.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. Thomas Mitton.]
+
+                    GAD'S HILL PLACE, HIGHAM BY ROCHESTER, KENT,
+                                           _Tuesday, June 13th, 1865._
+
+MY DEAR MITTON,
+
+I should have written to you yesterday or the day before, if I had been
+quite up to writing.
+
+I was in the only carriage that did not go over into the stream. It was
+caught upon the turn by some of the ruin of the bridge, and hung
+suspended and balanced in an apparently impossible manner. Two ladies
+were my fellow-passengers, an old one and a young one. This is exactly
+what passed. You may judge from it the precise length of the suspense:
+Suddenly we were off the rail, and beating the ground as the car of a
+half-emptied balloon might. The old lady cried out, "My God!" and the
+young one screamed. I caught hold of them both (the old lady sat
+opposite and the young one on my left), and said: "We can't help
+ourselves, but we can be quiet and composed. Pray don't cry out." The
+old lady immediately answered: "Thank you. Rely upon me. Upon my soul I
+will be quiet." We were then all tilted down together in a corner of the
+carriage, and stopped. I said to them thereupon: "You may be sure
+nothing worse can happen. Our danger _must_ be over. Will you remain
+here without stirring, while I get out of the window?" They both
+answered quite collectedly, "Yes," and I got out without the least
+notion what had happened. Fortunately I got out with great caution and
+stood upon the step. Looking down I saw the bridge gone, and nothing
+below me but the line of rail. Some people in the two other compartments
+were madly trying to plunge out at window, and had no idea that there
+was an open swampy field fifteen feet down below them, and nothing else!
+The two guards (one with his face cut) were running up and down on the
+down side of the bridge (which was not torn up) quite wildly. I called
+out to them: "Look at me. Do stop an instant and look at me, and tell me
+whether you don't know me." One of them answered: "We know you very
+well, Mr. Dickens." "Then," I said, "my good fellow, for God's sake give
+me your key, and send one of those labourers here, and I'll empty this
+carriage." We did it quite safely, by means of a plank or two, and when
+it was done I saw all the rest of the train, except the two baggage
+vans, down in the stream. I got into the carriage again for my brandy
+flask, took off my travelling hat for a basin, climbed down the
+brickwork, and filled my hat with water.
+
+Suddenly I came upon a staggering man covered with blood (I think he
+must have been flung clean out of his carriage), with such a frightful
+cut across the skull that I couldn't bear to look at him. I poured some
+water over his face and gave him some to drink, then gave him some
+brandy, and laid him down on the grass, and he said, "I am gone," and
+died afterwards. Then I stumbled over a lady lying on her back against a
+little pollard-tree, with the blood streaming over her face (which was
+lead colour) in a number of distinct little streams from the head. I
+asked her if she could swallow a little brandy and she just nodded, and
+I gave her some and left her for somebody else. The next time I passed
+her she was dead. Then a man, examined at the inquest yesterday (who
+evidently had not the least remembrance of what really passed), came
+running up to me and implored me to help him find his wife, who was
+afterwards found dead. No imagination can conceive the ruin of the
+carriages, or the extraordinary weights under which the people were
+lying, or the complications into which they were twisted up among iron
+and wood, and mud and water.
+
+I don't want to be examined at the inquest, and I don't want to write
+about it. I could do no good either way, and I could only seem to speak
+about myself, which, of course, I would rather not do. I am keeping very
+quiet here. I have a--I don't know what to call it--constitutional (I
+suppose) presence of mind, and was not in the least fluttered at the
+time. I instantly remembered that I had the MS. of a number with me, and
+clambered back into the carriage for it. But in writing these scanty
+words of recollection I feel the shake and am obliged to stop.
+
+                                                      Ever faithfully.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. Walter Jones.]
+
+                    GAD'S HILL PLACE, HIGHAM BY ROCHESTER, KENT,
+                                        _Saturday, June 17th, 1865_.[16]
+
+SIR,
+
+I beg you to assure the Committee of the Newsvendors' Benevolent and
+Provident Institution, that I have been deeply affected by their special
+remembrance of me in my late escape from death or mutilation, and that I
+thank them with my whole heart.
+
+                                          Faithfully yours and theirs.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mrs. Hulkes.]
+
+                                GAD'S HILL, _Sunday, June 18th, 1865._
+
+MY DEAR MRS. HULKES,
+
+I return the _Examiner_ with many thanks. The account is true, except
+that I _had_ brandy. By an extraordinary chance I had a bottle and a
+half with me. I slung the half-bottle round my neck, and carried my hat
+full of water in my hands. But I can understand the describer (whoever
+he is) making the mistake in perfect good faith, and supposing that I
+called for brandy, when I really called to the others who were helping:
+"I have brandy here." The Mr. Dickenson mentioned had changed places
+with a Frenchman, who did not like the window down, a few minutes before
+the accident. The Frenchman was killed, and a labourer and I got Mr.
+Dickenson out of a most extraordinary heap of dark ruins, in which he
+was jammed upside down. He was bleeding at the eyes, ears, nose, and
+mouth; but he didn't seem to know that afterwards, and of course I
+didn't tell him. In the moment of going over the viaduct the whole of
+his pockets were shaken empty! He had no watch, no chain, no money, no
+pocket-book, no handkerchief, when we got him out. He had been choking
+a quarter of an hour when I heard him groaning. If I had not had the
+brandy to give him at the moment, I think he would have been done for.
+As it was, I brought him up to London in the carriage with me, and
+couldn't make him believe he was hurt. He was the first person whom the
+brandy saved. As I ran back to the carriage for the whole full bottle, I
+saw the first two people I had helped lying dead. A bit of shade from
+the hot sun, into which we got the unhurt ladies, soon had as many dead
+in it as living.
+
+                                              Faithfully yours always.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. Arthur Ryland.]
+
+                    GAD'S HILL PLACE, HIGHAM BY ROCHESTER, KENT,
+                                         _Wednesday, June 21st, 1865._
+
+MY DEAR MR. RYLAND,
+
+I need not assure you that I regard the unanimous desire of the Town
+Council Committee as a great honour, and that I feel the strongest
+interest in the occasion, and the strongest wish to associate myself
+with it.
+
+But, after careful consideration, I most unwillingly come to the
+conclusion that I must decline. At the time in question I shall, please
+God, either have just finished, or be just finishing, my present book.
+Country rest and reflection will then be invaluable to me, before
+casting about for Christmas. I am a little shaken in my nervous system
+by the terrible and affecting incidents of the late railway accident,
+from which I bodily escaped. I am withdrawing myself from engagements of
+all kinds, in order that I may pursue my story with the comfortable
+sense of being perfectly free while it is a-doing, and when it is done.
+The consciousness of having made this engagement would, if I were to
+make it, render such sense incomplete, and so open the way to others.
+This is the real state of the case, and the whole reason for my
+declining.
+
+                                              Faithfully yours always.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mrs. Lehmann.]
+
+                    GAD'S HILL PLACE, HIGHAM BY ROCHESTER, KENT,
+                                           _Tuesday, June 29th, 1865._
+
+DEAR MRS. LEHMANN,
+
+Come (with self and partner) on either of the days you name, and you
+will be heartily welcomed by the humble youth who now addresses you, and
+will then cast himself at your feet.
+
+I am quite right again, I thank God, and have even got my voice back; I
+most unaccountably brought somebody else's out of that terrible scene.
+The directors have sent me a Resolution of Thanks for assistance to the
+unhappy passengers.
+
+                             With kind regards to Lehmann, ever yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. Percy Fitzgerald.]
+
+                                  OFFICE OF "ALL THE YEAR ROUND,"
+                                             _Friday, July 7th, 1865._
+
+MY DEAR FITZGERALD,
+
+I shall be delighted to see you at Gad's Hill on Sunday, and I hope you
+will bring a bag with you and will not think of returning to London at
+night.
+
+We are a small party just now, for my daughter Mary has been decoyed to
+Andover for the election week, in the Conservative interest; think of my
+feelings as a Radical parent! The wrong-headed member and his wife are
+the friends with whom she hunts, and she helps to receive (and
+_de_ceive) the voters, which is very awful!
+
+But in the week after next we shall be in great croquet force. I shall
+hope to persuade you to come back to us then for a few days, and we will
+try to make you some amends for a dull Sunday. Turn it over in your mind
+and try to manage it.
+
+                                                 Sincerely yours ever.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Professor Owen, F.R.S.]
+
+                             GAD'S HILL, _Wednesday, July 12th, 1865._
+
+MY DEAR OWEN,
+
+Studying the gorilla last night for the twentieth time, it suddenly came
+into my head that I had never thanked you for that admirable treatise.
+This is to bear witness to my blushes and repentance. If you knew how
+much interest it has awakened in me, and how often it has set me
+a-thinking, you would consider me a more thankless beast than any
+gorilla that ever lived. But happily you do _not_ know, and I am not
+going to tell you.
+
+                                    Believe me, ever faithfully yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: The Earl Russell.]
+
+                    GAD'S HILL PLACE, HIGHAM BY ROCHESTER, KENT,
+                                         _Wednesday, Aug. 16th, 1865._
+
+MY DEAR LORD RUSSELL,
+
+Mr. Dallas, who is a candidate for the Scotch professional chair left
+vacant by Aytoun's death, has asked me if I would object to introduce to
+you the first volume of a book he has in the press with my publishers,
+on "The Gay Science of Art and Criticism." I have replied I would _not_
+object, as I have read as many of the sheets as I could get, with
+extreme pleasure, and as I know you will find it a very winning and
+brilliant piece of writing. Therefore he will send the proofs of the
+volume to you as soon as he can get them from the printer (at about the
+end of this week I take it), and if you read them you will not be hard
+upon me for bearing the responsibility of his doing so, I feel assured.
+
+I suppose Mr. Dallas to have some impression that his pleasing you with
+his book might advance his Scottish suit. But all I know is, that he is
+a gentleman of great attainments and erudition, much distinguished as
+the writer of the best critical literary pieces in _The Times_, and
+thoroughly versed in the subjects which Professor Aytoun represented
+officially.
+
+I beg to send my regard to Lady Russell and all the house, and am ever,
+my dear Lord Russell,
+
+                                            Your faithful and obliged.
+
+P.S.--I am happy to report that my sailor-boy's captain, relinquishing
+his ship on sick leave, departs from the mere form of certificate given
+to all the rest, and adds that his obedience to orders is remarkable,
+and that he is a highly intelligent and promising young officer.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. Marcus Stone.]
+
+                HÔTEL DU HELDER, PARIS, _Wednesday, Sept. 13th, 1865._
+
+MY DEAR MARCUS,
+
+I leave here to-morrow, and propose going to the office by tidal train
+_next Saturday evening_. Through the whole of next week, on and off, I
+shall be at the office; when not there, at Gad's; but much oftener at
+the office. The sooner I can know about the subjects you take for
+illustration the better, as I can then fill the list of illustrations to
+the second volume for the printer, and enable him to make up his last
+sheet. Necessarily that list is now left blank, as I cannot give him the
+titles of the subjects, not knowing them myself.
+
+It has been fearfully hot on this side, but is something cooler.
+
+                                            Ever affectionately yours.
+
+P.S.--On glancing over this note, I find it very like the king's
+love-letter in "Ruy Blas." "Madam, there is a high wind. I have shot six
+wolves."
+
+I think the frontispiece to the second volume should be the dustyard
+with the three mounds, and Mr. Boffin digging up the Dutch bottle, and
+Venus restraining Wegg's ardour to get at him. Or Mr. Boffin might be
+coming down with the bottle, and Venus might be dragging Wegg out of the
+way as described.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. Percy Fitzgerald.]
+
+                                  OFFICE OF "ALL THE YEAR ROUND,"
+                                         _Saturday, Sept. 23rd, 1865._
+
+MY DEAR FITZGERALD,
+
+I cannot thank you too much for Sultan. He is a noble fellow, has fallen
+into the ways of the family with a grace and dignity that denote the
+gentleman, and came down to the railway a day or two since to welcome me
+home (it was our first meeting), with a profound absence of interest in
+my individual opinion of him which captivated me completely. I am going
+home to-day to take him about the country, and improve his acquaintance.
+You will find a perfect understanding between us, I hope, when you next
+come to Gad's Hill. (He has only swallowed Bouncer once, and
+temporarily.)
+
+Your hint that you were getting on with your story and liked it was more
+than golden intelligence to me in foreign parts. The intensity of the
+heat, both in Paris and the provinces, was such that I found nothing
+else so refreshing in the course of my rambles.
+
+With many more thanks for the dog than my sheet of paper would hold,
+
+                               Believe me, ever very faithfully yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mrs. Procter.]
+
+                    GAD'S HILL PLACE, HIGHAM BY ROCHESTER, KENT,
+                                                   _Sept. 26th, 1865._
+
+MY DEAR MRS. PROCTER,
+
+I have written the little introduction, and have sent it to my printer,
+in order that you may read it without trouble. But if you would like to
+keep the few pages of MS., of course they are yours.
+
+It is brief, and I have aimed at perfect simplicity, and an avoidance of
+all that your beloved Adelaide would have wished avoided. Do not expect
+too much from it. If there should be anything wrong in fact, or anything
+that you would like changed for any reason, _of course you will tell me
+so_, and of course you will not deem it possible that you can trouble me
+by making any such request most freely.
+
+You will probably receive the proof either on Friday or Saturday. Don't
+write to me until you have read it. In the meantime I send you back the
+two books, with the two letters in the bound one.
+
+                           With love to Procter,
+                                        Ever your affectionate Friend.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. Edmund Yates.]
+
+                HÔTEL DU HELDER, PARIS, _Wednesday, Sept. 30th, 1865._
+
+MY DEAR EDMUND,
+
+I leave here to-morrow and purpose being at the office on Saturday
+night; all next week I shall be there, off and on--"off" meaning Gad's
+Hill; the office will be my last address. The heat has been excessive on
+this side of the Channel, and I got a slight sunstroke last Thursday,
+and was obliged to be doctored and put to bed for a day; but, thank God,
+I am all right again. The man who sells the _tisane_ on the Boulevards
+can't keep the flies out of his glasses, and as he wears them on his red
+velvet bands, the flies work themselves into the ends of the tumblers,
+trying to get through and tickle the man. If fly life were long enough,
+I think they would at last. Three paving blouses came to work at the
+corner of this street last Monday, pulled up a bit of road, sat down to
+look at it, and fell asleep. On Tuesday one of the blouses spat on his
+hands and seemed to be going to begin, but didn't. The other two have
+shown no sign of life whatever. This morning the industrious one ate a
+loaf. You may rely upon this as the latest news from the French capital.
+
+                                                      Faithfully ever.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. William Charles Kent.]
+
+                      26, WELLINGTON STREET, _Monday, Nov. 6th, 1865._
+
+MY DEAR KENT,
+
+_No_, I _won't_ write in this book, because I have sent another to the
+binder's for you.
+
+I have been unwell with a relaxed throat, or I should have written to
+you sooner to thank you for your dedication, to assure you that it
+heartily, most heartily, gratifies me, as the sincere tribute of a true
+and generous heart, and to tell you that I have been charmed with your
+book itself. I am proud of having given a name to anything so
+picturesque, so sympathetic and spirited.
+
+I hope and believe the "Doctor" is nothing but a good 'un. He has
+perfectly astonished Forster, who writes: "Neither good, gooder, nor
+goodest, but super-excellent; all through there is such a relish of you
+at your best, as I could not have believed in, after a long story."
+
+I shall be charmed to see you to-night.
+
+                                                  Ever affectionately.
+
+
+[Sidenote: M. de Cerjat.]
+
+                    GAD'S HILL PLACE, HIGHAM BY ROCHESTER, KENT,
+                                                _November 13th, 1865._
+
+                                EXTRACT.
+
+MY DEAR CERJAT,
+
+Having achieved my book and my Christmas number, and having shaken
+myself after two years' work, I send you my annual greeting. How are
+you? Asthmatic, I know you will reply; but as my poor father (who was
+asthmatic, too, and the jolliest of men) used philosophically to say,
+"one must have something wrong, I suppose, and I like to know what it
+is."
+
+In England we are groaning under the brigandage of the butcher, which is
+being carried to that height that I think I foresee resistance on the
+part of the middle-class, and some combination in perspective for
+abolishing the middleman, whensoever he turns up (which is everywhere)
+between producer and consumer. The cattle plague is the butcher's
+stalking-horse, and it is unquestionably worse than it was; but seeing
+that the great majority of creatures lost or destroyed have been cows,
+and likewise that the rise in butchers' meat bears no reasonable
+proportion to the market prices of the beasts, one comes to the
+conclusion that the public is done. The commission has ended very weakly
+and ineffectually, as such things in England rather frequently do; and
+everybody writes to _The Times_, and nobody does anything else.
+
+If the Americans don't embroil us in a war before long it will not be
+their fault. What with their swagger and bombast, what with their claims
+for indemnification, what with Ireland and Fenianism, and what with
+Canada, I have strong apprehensions. With a settled animosity towards
+the French usurper, I believe him to have always been sound in his
+desire to divide the States against themselves, and that we were
+unsound and wrong in "letting I dare not wait upon I would." The Jamaica
+insurrection is another hopeful piece of business. That
+platform-sympathy with the black--or the native, or the devil--afar off,
+and that platform indifference to our own countrymen at enormous odds in
+the midst of bloodshed and savagery, makes me stark wild. Only the other
+day, here was a meeting of jawbones of asses at Manchester, to censure
+the Jamaica Governor for his manner of putting down the insurrection! So
+we are badgered about New Zealanders and Hottentots, as if they were
+identical with men in clean shirts at Camberwell, and were to be bound
+by pen and ink accordingly. So Exeter Hall holds us in mortal submission
+to missionaries, who (Livingstone always excepted) are perfect
+nuisances, and leave every place worse than they found it.
+
+Of all the many evidences that are visible of our being ill-governed, no
+one is so remarkable to me as our ignorance of what is going on under
+our Government. What will future generations think of that enormous
+Indian Mutiny being ripened without suspicion, until whole regiments
+arose and killed their officers? A week ago, red tape, half-bouncing and
+half pooh-poohing what it bounced at, would have scouted the idea of a
+Dublin jail not being able to hold a political prisoner. But for the
+blacks in Jamaica being over-impatient and before their time, the whites
+might have been exterminated, without a previous hint or suspicion that
+there was anything amiss. _Laissez aller_, and Britons never, never,
+never!----
+
+Meantime, if your honour were in London, you would see a great
+embankment rising high and dry out of the Thames on the Middlesex shore,
+from Westminster Bridge to Blackfriars. A really fine work, and really
+getting on. Moreover, a great system of drainage. Another really fine
+work, and likewise really getting on. Lastly, a muddle of railways in
+all directions possible and impossible, with no general public scheme,
+no general public supervision, enormous waste of money, no fixable
+responsibility, no accountability but under Lord Campbell's Act. I think
+of that accident in which I was preserved. Before the most furious and
+notable train in the four-and-twenty hours, the head of a gang of
+workmen takes up the rails. That train changes its time every day as the
+tide changes, and that head workman is not provided by the railway
+company with any clock or watch! Lord Shaftesbury wrote to me to ask me
+what I thought of an obligation on railway companies to put strong walls
+to all bridges and viaducts. I told him, of course, that the force of
+such a shock would carry away anything that any company could set up,
+and I added: "Ask the minister what _he_ thinks about the votes of the
+railway interest in the House of Commons, and about his being afraid to
+lay a finger on it with an eye to his majority."
+
+I seem to be grumbling, but I am in the best of humours. All goes well
+with me and mine, thank God.
+
+Last night my gardener came upon a man in the garden and fired. The man
+returned the compliment by kicking him in the groin and causing him
+great pain. I set off, with a great mastiff-bloodhound I have, in
+pursuit. Couldn't find the evil-doer, but had the greatest difficulty in
+preventing the dog from tearing two policemen down. They were coming
+towards us with professional mystery, and he was in the air on his way
+to the throat of an eminently respectable constable when I caught him.
+
+My daughter Mary and her aunt Georgina send kindest regard and
+remembrance. Katey and her husband are going to try London this winter,
+but I rather doubt (for they are both delicate) their being able to
+weather it out. It has been blowing here tremendously for a fortnight,
+but to-day is like a spring day, and plenty of roses are growing over
+the labourers' cottages. The _Great Eastern_ lies at her moorings beyond
+the window where I write these words; looks very dull and unpromising. A
+dark column of smoke from Chatham Dockyard, where the iron shipbuilding
+is in progress, has a greater significance in it, I fancy.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Dickens.]
+
+                    GAD'S HILL PLACE, HIGHAM BY ROCHESTER, KENT,
+                                           _Tuesday, Nov. 14th, 1865._
+
+MY DEAREST MAMIE,
+
+As you want to know my views of the Sphinx, here they are. But I have
+only seen it once; and it is so extraordinarily well done, that it ought
+to be observed closely several times.
+
+Anyone who attentively notices the flower trick will see that the two
+little high tables hung with drapery cover each a trap. Each of those
+tables, during that trick, hides a confederate, who changes the paper
+cone twice. When the cone has been changed as often as is required, the
+trap is closed and the table can be moved.
+
+When the curtain is removed for the performance of the Sphinx trick,
+there is a covered, that is, draped table on the stage, which is never
+seen before or afterwards. In front of the middle of it, and between it
+and the audience, stands one of those little draped tables covering a
+trap; this is a third trap in the centre of the stage. The box for the
+head is then upon IT, and the conjuror takes it off and shows it. The
+man whose head is afterwards shown in that box is, I conceive, in the
+table; that is to say, is lying on his chest in the thickness of the
+table, in an extremely constrained attitude. To get him into the table,
+and to enable him to use the trap in the table through which his head
+comes into the box, the two hands of a confederate are necessary. That
+confederate comes up a trap, and stands in the space afforded by the
+interval below the stage and the height of the little draped table! his
+back is towards the audience. The moment he has assisted the hidden man
+sufficiently, he closes the trap, and the conjuror then immediately
+removes the little draped table, and also the drapery of the larger
+table; when he places the box on the last-named table _with the slide
+on_ for the head to come into it, he stands with his back to the
+audience and his face to the box, and masks the box considerably to
+facilitate the insertion of the head. As soon as he knows the head to be
+in its place, he undraws the slide. When the verses have been spoken and
+the trick is done, he loses no time in replacing the slide. The curtain
+is then immediately dropped, because the man cannot otherwise be got out
+of the table, and has no doubt had quite enough of it. With kindest
+regards to all at Penton,
+
+                                          Ever your most affectionate.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[14] Now Captain E. Newton Dickenson.
+
+[15] This was a circular note which he sent in answer to innumerable
+letters of enquiry, after the accident.
+
+[16] This letter was written in reply to the Committee's congratulations
+upon Mr. Dickens's escape from the accident to the tidal train from
+Folkestone, at Staplehurst, just previous to this date.
+
+
+
+
+1866.
+
+NARRATIVE.
+
+
+The furnished house hired by Charles Dickens in the spring of this year
+was in Southwick Place, Hyde Park.
+
+Having entered into negotiations with the Messrs. Chappell for a series
+of readings to be given in London, in the English provinces, in Scotland
+and Ireland, Charles Dickens had no leisure for more than his usual
+editorial work for "All the Year Round." He contributed four parts to
+the Christmas number, which was entitled, "Mugby Junction."
+
+For the future all his English readings were given in connection with
+the Messrs. Chappell, and never in all his career had he more
+satisfactory or more pleasant business relations than those connected
+with these gentlemen. Moreover, out of this connection sprang a sincere
+friendship on both sides.
+
+Mr. Dolby is so constantly mentioned in future letters, that they
+themselves will tell of the cordial companionship which existed between
+Charles Dickens and this able and most obliging "manager."
+
+The letter to "Lily" was in answer to a child's letter from Miss Lily
+Benzon, inviting him to a birthday party.
+
+The play alluded to in the letter to M. Fechter was called "A Long
+Strike," and was performed at the Lyceum Theatre.
+
+The "Sultan" mentioned in the letter to Mr. Fitzgerald was a noble Irish
+bloodhound, presented by this gentleman to Charles Dickens. The story of
+the dog's death is told in a letter to M. de Cerjat, which we give in
+the following year.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Mary Boyle.]
+
+                                  OFFICE OF "ALL THE YEAR ROUND,"
+                                           _Saturday, Jan. 6th, 1866._
+
+MY DEAR MARY,
+
+Feeling pretty certain that I shall never answer your letter unless I
+answer it at once (I got it this morning), here goes!
+
+I did not dramatise "The Master of Ravenswood," though I did a good deal
+towards and about the piece, having an earnest desire to put Scott, for
+once, upon the stage in his own gallant manner. It is _an enormous
+success_, and increases in attraction nightly. I have never seen the
+people in all parts of the house so leaning forward, in lines sloping
+towards the stage, earnestly and intently attractive, as while the story
+gradually unfolds itself. But the astonishing circumstance of all is,
+that Miss Leclercq (never thought of for Lucy till all other Lucies had
+failed) is marvellously good, highly pathetic, and almost unrecognisable
+in person! What note it touches in her, always dumb until now, I do not
+pretend to say, but there is no one on the stage who could play the
+contract scene better, or more simply and naturally, and I find it
+impossible to see it without crying! Almost everyone plays well, the
+whole is exceedingly picturesque, and there is scarcely a movement
+throughout, or a look, that is not indicated by Scott. So you get a life
+romance with beautiful illustrations, and I do not expect ever again to
+see a book take up its bed and walk in like manner.
+
+I am charmed to learn that you have had a freeze out of my ghost story.
+It rather did give me a shiver up the back in the writing. "Dr.
+Marigold" has just now accomplished his two hundred thousand. My only
+other news about myself is that I am doubtful whether to read or not in
+London this season. If I decide to do it at all, I shall probably do it
+on a large scale.
+
+Many happy years to you, my dear Mary. So prays
+
+                                              Your ever affectionate
+                                                                   Jo.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. William Charles Kent.]
+
+                              GAD'S HILL, _Thursday, Jan. 18th, 1866._
+
+MY DEAR KENT,
+
+I cannot tell you how grieved we all are here to know that you are
+suffering again. Your patient tone, however, and the hopefulness and
+forbearance of Ferguson's course, gives us some reassurance. Apropos of
+which latter reference I dined with Ferguson at the Lord Mayor's, last
+Tuesday, and had a grimly distracted impulse upon me to defy the
+toast-master and rush into a speech about him and his noble art, when I
+sat pining under the imbecility of constitutional and corporational
+idiots. I did seize him for a moment by the hair of his head (in
+proposing the Lady Mayoress), and derived some faint consolation from
+the company's response to the reference. O! no man will ever know under
+what provocation to contradiction and a savage yell of repudiation I
+suffered at the hands of ----, feebly complacent in the uniform of
+Madame Tussaud's own military waxers, and almost the worst speaker I
+ever heard in my life! Mary and Georgina, sitting on either side of me,
+urged me to "look pleasant." I replied in expressions not to be
+repeated. Shea (the judge) was just as good and graceful, as he (the
+member) was bad and gawky.
+
+Bulwer's "Lost Tales of Miletus" is a most noble book! He is an
+extraordinary fellow, and fills me with admiration and wonder.
+
+It is of no use writing to you about yourself, my dear Kent, because you
+are likely to be tired of that constant companion, and so I have gone
+scratching (with an exceedingly bad pen) about and about you. But I come
+back to you to let you know that the reputation of this house as a
+convalescent hospital stands (like the house itself) very high, and that
+testimonials can be produced from credible persons who have recovered
+health and spirits here swiftly. Try us, only try us, and we are content
+to stake the reputation of the establishment on the result.
+
+                                            Ever affectionately yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. Percy Fitzgerald.]
+
+                                 GAD'S HILL, _Friday, Feb. 2nd, 1866._
+
+MY DEAR FITZGERALD,
+
+I ought to have written to you days and days ago, to thank you for your
+charming book on Charles Lamb, to tell you with what interest and
+pleasure I read it as soon as it came here, and to add that I was
+honestly affected (far more so than your modesty will readily believe)
+by your intimate knowledge of those touches of mine concerning
+childhood.
+
+Let me tell you now that I have not in the least cooled, after all,
+either as to the graceful sympathetic book, or as to the part in it with
+which I am honoured. It has become a matter of real feeling with me, and
+I postponed its expression because I couldn't satisfactorily get it out
+of myself, and at last I came to the conclusion that it must be left in.
+
+                          My dear Fitzgerald, faithfully yours always.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Hogarth.]
+
+             OFFICE OF "ALL THE YEAR ROUND," _Friday, Feb. 9th, 1866._
+
+MY DEAREST GEORGY,
+
+I found your letter here when I came back on Wednesday evening, and was
+extremely glad to get it.
+
+Frank Beard wrote me word that with such a pulse as I described, an
+examination of the heart was absolutely necessary, and that I had better
+make an appointment with him alone for the purpose. This I did. I was
+not at all disconcerted, for I knew well beforehand that the effect
+could not possibly be without that one cause at the bottom of it. There
+seems to be degeneration of some functions of the heart. It does not
+contract as it should. So I have got a prescription of iron, quinine,
+and digitalis, to set it a-going, and send the blood more quickly
+through the system. If it should not seem to succeed on a reasonable
+trial, I will then propose a consultation with someone else. Of course I
+am not so foolish as to suppose that all my work can have been achieved
+without _some_ penalty, and I have noticed for some time a decided
+change in my buoyancy and hopefulness--in other words, in my usual
+"tone."
+
+I shall wait to see Beard again on Monday, and shall most probably come
+down that day. If I should not, I will telegraph after seeing him. Best
+love to Mamie.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mrs. Brookfield.]
+
+                                  OFFICE OF "ALL THE YEAR ROUND,"
+                                           _Tuesday, Feb. 20th, 1866._
+
+MY DEAR MRS. BROOKFIELD,
+
+Having gone through your MS. (which I should have done sooner, but that
+I have not been very well), I write these few following words about it.
+Firstly, with a limited reference to its unsuitability to these pages.
+Secondly, with a more enlarged reference to the merits of the story
+itself.
+
+If you will take any part of it and cut it up (in fancy) into the small
+portions into which it would have to be divided here for only a month's
+supply, you will (I think) at once discover the impossibility of
+publishing it in weekly parts. The scheme of the chapters, the manner of
+introducing the people, the progress of the interest, the places in
+which the principal places fall, are all hopelessly against it. It would
+seem as though the story were never coming, and hardly ever moving.
+There must be a special design to overcome that specially trying mode of
+publication, and I cannot better express the difficulty and labour of it
+than by asking you to turn over any two weekly numbers of "A Tale of Two
+Cities," or "Great Expectations," or Bulwer's story, or Wilkie
+Collins's, or Reade's, or "At the Bar," and notice how patiently and
+expressly the thing has to be planned for presentation in these
+fragments, and yet for afterwards fusing together as an uninterrupted
+whole.
+
+Of the story itself I honestly say that I think highly. The style is
+particularly easy and agreeable, infinitely above ordinary writing, and
+sometimes reminds me of Mrs. Inchbald at her best. The characters are
+remarkably well observed, and with a rare mixture of delicacy and
+truthfulness. I observe this particularly in the brother and sister, and
+in Mrs. Neville. But it strikes me that you constantly hurry your
+narrative (and yet without getting on) _by telling it, in a sort of
+impetuous breathless way, in your own person, when the people should
+tell it and act it for themselves_. My notion always is, that when I
+have made the people to play out the play, it is, as it were, their
+business to do it, and not mine. Then, unless you really have led up to
+a great situation like Basil's death, you are bound in art to make more
+of it. Such a scene should form a chapter of itself. Impressed upon the
+reader's memory, it would go far to make the fortune of the book.
+Suppose yourself telling that affecting incident in a letter to a
+friend. Wouldn't you describe how you went through the life and stir of
+the streets and roads to the sick-room? Wouldn't you say what kind of
+room it was, what time of day it was, whether it was sunlight,
+starlight, or moonlight? Wouldn't you have a strong impression on your
+mind of how you were received, when you first met the look of the dying
+man, what strange contrasts were about you and struck you? I don't want
+you, in a novel, to present _yourself_ to tell such things, but I want
+the things to be there. You make no more of the situation than the index
+might, or a descriptive playbill might in giving a summary of the
+tragedy under representation.
+
+As a mere piece of mechanical workmanship, I think all your chapters
+should be shorter; that is to say, that they should be subdivided.
+Also, when you change from narrative to dialogue, or _vice versâ_, you
+should make the transition more carefully. Also, taking the pains to sit
+down and recall the principal landmarks in your story, you should then
+make them far more elaborate and conspicuous than the rest. Even with
+these changes I do not believe that the story would attract the
+attention due to it, if it were published even in such monthly portions
+as the space of "Fraser" would admit of. Even so brightened, it would
+not, to the best of my judgment, express itself piecemeal. It seems to
+me to be so constituted as to require to be read "off the reel." As a
+book in two volumes I think it would have good claims to success, and
+good chances of obtaining success. But I suppose the polishing I have
+hinted at (not a meretricious adornment, but positively necessary to
+good work and good art) to have been first thoroughly administered.
+
+Now don't hate me if you can help it. I can afford to be hated by some
+people, but I am not rich enough to put you in possession of that
+luxury.
+
+                                                Ever faithfully yours.
+
+P.S.--The MS. shall be delivered at your house to-morrow. And your
+petitioner again prays not to be, etc.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Hogarth.]
+
+                       ADELPHI, LIVERPOOL, _Friday, April 13th, 1866._
+
+MY DEAREST GEORGY,
+
+The reception at Manchester last night was quite a magnificent sight;
+the whole of the immense audience standing up and cheering. I thought
+them a little slow with "Marigold," but believe it was only the
+attention necessary in so vast a place. They gave a splendid burst at
+the end. And after "Nickleby" (which went to perfection), they set up
+such a call, that I was obliged to go in again. The unfortunate gasman,
+a very steady fellow, got a fall off a ladder and sprained his leg. He
+was put to bed in a public opposite, and was left there, poor man.
+
+This is the first very fine day we have had. I have taken advantage of
+it by crossing to Birkenhead and getting some air upon the water. It was
+fresh and beautiful.
+
+I send my best love to Mamie, and hope she is better. I am, of course,
+tired (the pull of "Marigold" upon one's energy, in the Free Trade Hall,
+was great); but I stick to my tonic, and feel, all things considered, in
+very good tone. The room here (I mean the hall) being my special
+favourite and extraordinarily easy, is _almost_ a rest!
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Dickens.]
+
+                     ADELPHI, LIVERPOOL, _Saturday, April 14th, 1866._
+
+MY DEAREST MAMIE,
+
+The police reported officially that three thousand people were turned
+away from the hall last night. I doubt if they were so numerous as that,
+but they carried in the outer doors and pitched into Dolby with great
+vigour. I need not add that every corner of the place was crammed. They
+were a very fine audience, and took enthusiastically every point in
+"Copperfield" and the "Trial." They made the reading a quarter of an
+hour longer than usual. One man advertised in the morning paper that he
+would give thirty shillings (double) for three stalls, but nobody would
+sell, and he didn't get in.
+
+Except that I cannot sleep, I really think myself in much better
+training than I had anticipated. A dozen oysters and a little champagne
+between the parts every night, constitute the best restorative I have
+ever yet tried. John appears low, but I don't know why. A letter comes
+for him daily; the hand is female; whether Smudger's, or a nearer one
+still and a dearer one, I don't know. So it may or may not be the cause
+of his gloom.
+
+"Miss Emily" of Preston is married to a rich cotton lord, rides in open
+carriages in gorgeous array, and is altogether splendid. With this
+effective piece of news I close.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Hogarth.]
+
+                                          GLASGOW, _April 17th, 1866._
+
+We arrived here at ten yesterday evening. I don't think the journey
+shook me at all. Dolby provided a superb cold collation and "the best of
+drinks," and we dined in the carriage, and I made him laugh all the way.
+
+The let here is very large. Every precaution taken to prevent my
+platform from being captured as it was last time; but I don't feel at
+all sure that it will not be stormed at one of the two readings. Wills
+is to do the genteel to-night at the stalls, and Dolby is to stem the
+shilling tide _if_ he can. The poor gasman cannot come on, and we have
+got a new one here who is to go to Edinburgh with us. Of Edinburgh we
+know nothing, but as its first night has always been shady, I suppose it
+will stick to its antecedents.
+
+I like to hear about Harness and his freshness. The let for the next
+reading at St. James's is "going," they report, "admirably." Lady
+Russell asked me to dinner to-morrow, and I have written her a note
+to-day. The rest has certainly done me good. I slept thoroughly well
+last night, and feel fresh. What to-night's work, and every night's
+work this week, may do contrariwise, remains to be seen.
+
+I hope Harry's knee may be in the way of mending, from what you relate
+of it.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Dickens.]
+
+              WATERLOO HOTEL, EDINBURGH, _Wednesday, April 18th, 1866._
+
+We had a tremendous house again last night at Glasgow; and turned away
+great numbers. Not only that, but they were a most brilliant and
+delicate audience, and took "Marigold" with a fine sense and quickness
+not to be surpassed. The shillings pitched into Dolby again, and one man
+writes a sensible letter in one of the papers this morning, showing to
+_my_ satisfaction (?) that they really had, through the local agent,
+some cause of complaint. Nevertheless, the shilling tickets are sold for
+to-morrow, and it seems to be out of the question to take any money at
+the doors, the call for all parts is so enormous. The thundering of
+applause last night was quite staggering, and my people checked off my
+reception by the minute hand of a watch, and stared at one another,
+thinking I should never begin. I keep quite well, have happily taken to
+sleeping these last three nights; and feel, all things considered, very
+little conscious of fatigue. I cannot reconcile my town medicine with
+the hours and journeys of reading life, and have therefore given it up
+for the time. But for the moment, I think I am better without it. What
+we are doing here I have not yet heard. I write at half-past one, and we
+have been little more than an hour in the house. But I am quite prepared
+for the inevitable this first Edinburgh night. Endeavours have been
+made (from Glasgow yesterday) to telegraph the exact facts out of our
+local agent; but hydraulic pressure wouldn't have squeezed a straight
+answer out of him. "Friday and Saturday doing very well, Wednesday not
+so good." This was all electricity could discover.
+
+I am going to write a line this post to Katie, from whom I have a note.
+I hope Harry's leg will now step out in the manner of the famous cork
+leg in the song.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Hogarth.]
+
+                              EDINBURGH, _Thursday, April 19th, 1866._
+
+The house was more than twice better than any first night here
+previously. They were, as usual here, remarkably intelligent, and the
+reading went _brilliantly_. I have not sent up any newspapers, as they
+are generally so poorly written, that you may know beforehand all the
+commonplaces that they will write. But _The Scotsman_ has so pretty an
+article this morning, and (so far as I know) so true a one, that I will
+try to post it to you, either from here or Glasgow. John and Dolby went
+over early, and Wills and I follow them at half-past eleven. It is cold
+and wet here. We have laid half-crown bets with Dolby, that he will be
+assaulted to-night at Glasgow. He has a surprising knowledge of what the
+receipts will be always, and wins half-crowns every night. Chang is
+living in this house. John (not knowing it) was rendered perfectly
+drivelling last night, by meeting him on the stairs. The Tartar Dwarf is
+always twining himself upstairs sideways, and drinks a bottle of whisky
+per day, and is reported to be a surprising little villain.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Dickens.]
+
+                WATERLOO HOTEL, EDINBURGH, _Friday, April 20th, 1866._
+
+No row at Glasgow last night. Great placards were posted about the town
+by the anxious Dolby, announcing that no money would be taken at the
+doors. This kept the crowd off. Two files of policemen and a double
+staff everywhere did the rest, and nothing could be better-tempered or
+more orderly. Tremendous enthusiasm with the "Carol" and "Trial." I was
+dead beat afterwards, that reading being twenty minutes longer than
+usual; but plucked up again, had some supper, slept well, and am quite
+right to-day. It is a bright day, and the express ride over from Glasgow
+was very pleasant.
+
+Everything is gone here for to-night. But it is difficult to describe
+what the readings have grown to be. The let at St. James's Hall is not
+only immense for next Tuesday, but so large for the next reading
+afterwards, that Chappell writes: "That will be the greatest house of
+the three." From Manchester this morning they write: "Send us more
+tickets instantly, for we are sold out and don't know what to do with
+the people." Last night the whole of my money under the agreement had
+been taken. I notice that a great bank has broken at Liverpool, which
+may hurt us there, but when last heard of it was going as before. And
+the audience, though so enormous, do somehow express a personal
+affection, which makes them very strange and moving to see.
+
+I have a story to answer you and your aunt with. Before I left Southwick
+Place for Liverpool, I received a letter from Glasgow, saying, "Your
+little Emily has been woo'd and married and a'! since you last saw her;"
+and describing her house within a mile or two of the city, and asking
+me to stay there. I wrote the usual refusal, and supposed Mrs. ---- to
+be some romantic girl whom I had joked with, perhaps at Allison's or
+where not. On the first night at Glasgow I received a bouquet from ----,
+and wore one of the flowers. This morning at the Glasgow station, ----
+appeared, and proved to be the identical Miss Emily, of whose marriage
+Dolby had told me on our coming through Preston. She was attired in
+magnificent raiment, and presented the happy ----.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Hogarth.]
+
+                              LIVERPOOL, _Thursday, April 26th, 1866._
+
+We noticed between London and Rugby (the first stoppage) something very
+odd in our carriage yesterday, not so much in its motion as in its
+sound. We examined it as well as we could out of both windows, but could
+make nothing of it. On our arrival at Rugby, it was found to be on fire.
+And as it was in the middle of the train, the train had to be broken to
+get it off into a siding by itself and get another carriage on. With
+this slight exception we came down all right.
+
+My voice is much better, I am glad to report, and I mean to try Beard's
+remedy after dinner to-day. This is all my present news.
+
+
+[Sidenote: The same.]
+
+                        DOWN HOTEL, CLIFTON, _Friday, May 11th, 1866._
+
+I received your note before I left Birmingham this morning. It has been
+very heavy work getting up at half-past six each morning after a heavy
+night, and I am not at all well to-day. We had a tremendous hall at
+Birmingham last night--two thousand one hundred people. I made a most
+ridiculous mistake. Had "Nickleby" on my list to finish with, instead of
+"Trial." Read "Nickleby" with great go, and the people remained. Went
+back again at ten and explained the accident, and said if they liked, I
+would give them the "Trial." They _did_ like, and I had another
+half-hour of it in that enormous place.
+
+This stoppage of Overend and Gurney in the City will play the ---- with
+all public gaieties, and with all the arts.
+
+My cold is no better. John fell off a platform about ten feet high
+yesterday, and fainted. He looks all the colours of the rainbow to-day,
+but does not seem much hurt beyond being puffed up one hand, arm, and
+side.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Lily Benzon.]
+
+                    GAD'S HILL PLACE, HIGHAM BY ROCHESTER, KENT,
+                                            _Monday, June 18th, 1866._
+
+MY DEAR LILY,
+
+I am sorry that I cannot come to read to you "The Boots at the Holly
+Tree Inn," as you ask me to do; but the truth is, that I am tired of
+reading at this present time, and have come into the country to rest and
+hear the birds sing. There are a good many birds, I daresay, in
+Kensington Palace Gardens, and upon my word and honour they are much
+better worth listening to than I am. So let them sing to you as hard as
+ever they can, while their sweet voices last (they will be silent when
+the winter comes); and very likely after you and I have eaten our next
+Christmas pudding and mince-pies, you and I and Uncle Harry may all meet
+together at St. James's Hall; Uncle Harry to bring you there, to hear
+the "Boots;" I to receive you there, and read the "Boots;" and you (I
+hope) to applaud very much, and tell me that you like the "Boots." So,
+God bless you and me, and Uncle Harry, and the "Boots," and long life
+and happiness to us all!
+
+                                             Your affectionate Friend.
+
+P.S.--There's a flourish!
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. B. W. Procter.]
+
+                    GAD'S HILL PLACE, HIGHAM BY ROCHESTER, KENT,
+                                            _Monday, Aug. 13th, 1866._
+
+MY DEAR PROCTER,
+
+I have read your biography of Charles Lamb with inexpressible pleasure
+and interest. I do not think it possible to tell a pathetic story with a
+more unaffected and manly tenderness. And as to the force and vigour of
+the style, if I did not know you I should have made sure that there was
+a printer's error in the opening of your introduction, and that the word
+"seventy" occupied the place of "forty."
+
+Let me, my dear friend, most heartily congratulate you on your
+achievement. It is not an ordinary triumph to do such justice to the
+memory of such a man. And I venture to add, that the fresh spirit with
+which you have done it impresses me as being perfectly wonderful.
+
+                                            Ever affectionately yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Sir James Emerson Tennent.]
+
+                                GAD'S HILL, _Monday, Aug. 20th, 1866._
+
+MY DEAR TENNENT,
+
+I have been very much interested by your extract, and am strongly
+inclined to believe that the founder of the Refuge for Poor Travellers
+meant the kind of man to which it refers. Chaucer certainly meant the
+Pardonere to be a humbug, living on the credulity of the people. After
+describing the sham reliques he carried, he says:
+
+        But with these relikes whawne that he found
+        A poure personne dwelling up on lond
+        Upon a day he gat him more monnie
+        Than that the personne got in monthes time,
+        And thus, with fained flattering and japes
+        He made the personne, and the people, his apes.
+
+And the worthy Watts (founder of the charity) may have had these very
+lines in his mind when he excluded such a man.
+
+When I last heard from my boy he was coming to you, and was full of
+delight and dignity. My midshipman has just been appointed to the
+_Bristol_, on the West Coast of Africa, and is on his voyage out to join
+her. I wish it was another ship and another station. She has been
+unlucky in losing men.
+
+Kindest regard from all my house to yours.
+
+                                                Faithfully yours ever.
+
+
+[Sidenote: M. Charles Fechter.]
+
+                               GAD'S HILL, _Tuesday, Sept. 4th, 1866._
+
+MY DEAR FECHTER,
+
+This morning I received the play to the end of the telegraph scene, and
+I have since read it twice.
+
+I clearly see the _ground_ of Mr. Boucicault's two objections; but I do
+not see their _force_.
+
+First, as to the writing. If the characters did not speak in a terse and
+homely way, their idea and language would be inconsistent with their
+dress and station, and they would lose, as characters, before the
+audience. The dialogue seems to be exactly what is wanted. Its
+simplicity (particularly in Mr. Boucicault's part) is often very
+effective; and throughout there is an honest, straight-to-the-purpose
+ruggedness in it, like the real life and the real people.
+
+Secondly, as to the absence of the comic element. I really do not see
+how more of it could be got into the story, and I think Mr. Boucicault
+underrates the pleasant effect of his own part. The very notion of a
+sailor, whose life is not among those little courts and streets, and
+whose business does not lie with the monotonous machinery, but with the
+four wild winds, is a relief to me in reading the play. I am quite
+confident of its being an immense relief to the audience when they see
+the sailor before them, with an entirely different bearing, action,
+dress, complexion even, from the rest of the men. I would make him the
+freshest and airiest sailor that ever was seen; and through him I can
+distinctly see my way out of "the Black Country" into clearer air. (I
+speak as one of the audience, mind.) I should like something of this
+contrast to be expressed in the dialogue between the sailor and Jew, in
+the second scene of the second act. Again, I feel Widdicomb's part
+(which is charming, and ought to make the whole house cry) most
+agreeable and welcome, much better than any amount in such a story, of
+mere comicality.
+
+It is unnecessary to say that the play is done with a master's hand. Its
+closeness and movement are quite surprising. Its construction is
+admirable. I have the strongest belief in its making a great success.
+But I must add this proviso: I never saw a play so dangerously depending
+in critical places on strict natural propriety in the manner and
+perfection in the shaping of the small parts. Those small parts cannot
+take the play up, but they can let it down. I would not leave a hair on
+the head of one of them to the chance of the first night, but I would
+see, to the minutest particular, the make-up of every one of them at a
+night rehearsal.
+
+Of course you are free to show this note to Mr. Boucicault, and I
+suppose you will do so; let me throw out this suggestion to him and you.
+Might it not ease the way with the Lord Chamberlain's office, and still
+more with the audience, when there are Manchester champions in it, if
+instead of "Manchester" you used a fictitious name? When I did "Hard
+Times" I called the scene Coketown. Everybody knew what was meant, but
+every cotton-spinning town said it was the other cotton-spinning town.
+
+I shall be up on Saturday, and will come over about mid-day, unless you
+name any other time.
+
+                                                        Ever heartily.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. Walter Thornbury]
+
+            "ALL THE YEAR ROUND" OFFICE, _Saturday, Sept. 15th, 1866._
+
+MY DEAR THORNBURY,
+
+Many thanks for your letter.
+
+In reference to your Shakespeare queries, I am not so much enamoured of
+the first and third subjects as I am of the Ariosto enquiry, which
+should be highly interesting. But if you have so got the matter in your
+mind, as that its execution would be incomplete and unsatisfactory to
+you unless you write all the three papers, then by all means write the
+three, and I will most gladly take them. For some years I have had so
+much pleasure in reading you, that I can honestly warrant myself as what
+actors call "a good audience."
+
+The idea of old stories retold is decidedly a good one. I greatly like
+the notion of that series. Of course you know De Quincey's paper on the
+Ratcliffe Highway murderer? Do you know also the illustration (I have it
+at Gad's Hill), representing the horrible creature as his dead body lay
+on a cart, with a piece of wood for a pillow, and a stake lying by,
+ready to be driven through him?
+
+I don't _quite_ like the title, "The Social History of London." I should
+better like some title to the effect, "The History of London's Social
+Changes in so many Years." Such a title would promise more, and better
+express your intention. What do you think of taking for a first title,
+"London's Changes"? You could then add the second title, "Being a
+History," etc.
+
+I don't at all desire to fix a limit to the series of old stories
+retold. I would state the general intention at the beginning of the
+first paper, and go on like Banquo's line.
+
+Don't let your London title remind people, by so much as the place of
+the word "civilisation," of Buckle. It seems a ridiculous caution, but
+the indolent part of the public (a large part!) on such points tumble
+into extraordinary mistakes.
+
+                                              Faithfully yours always.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. Percy Fitzgerald.]
+
+                                GAD'S HILL, _Tuesday, Nov. 6th, 1866._
+
+MY DEAR FITZGERALD,
+
+It is always pleasant to me to hear from you, and I hope you will
+believe that this is not a mere fashion of speech.
+
+Concerning the green covers, I find the leaves to be budding--on
+unquestionable newspaper authority; but, upon my soul, I have no other
+knowledge of their being in embryo! Really, I do not see a chance of my
+settling myself to such work until after I have accomplished forty-two
+readings, to which I stand pledged.
+
+I hope to begin this series somewhere about the middle of January, in
+Dublin. Touching the details of the realisation of this hope, will you
+tell me in a line as soon as you can--_Is the exhibition room a good
+room for speaking in?_
+
+Your mention of the late Sultan touches me nearly. He was the finest dog
+I ever saw, and between him and me there was a perfect understanding.
+But, to adopt the popular phrase, it was so very confidential that it
+"went no further." He would fly at anybody else with the greatest
+enthusiasm for destruction. I saw him, muzzled, pound into the heart of
+a regiment of the line; and I have frequently seen him, muzzled, hold a
+great dog down with his chest and feet. He has broken loose (muzzled)
+and come home covered with blood, again and again. And yet he never
+disobeyed me, unless he had first laid hold of a dog.
+
+You heard of his going to execution, evidently supposing the procession
+to be a party detached in pursuit of something to kill or eat? It was
+very affecting. And also of his bolting a blue-eyed kitten, and making
+me acquainted with the circumstance by his agonies of remorse (or
+indigestion)?
+
+I cannot find out that there is anyone in Rochester (a sleepy old city)
+who has anything to tell about Garrick, except what is not true. His
+brother, the wine merchant, would be more in Rochester way, I think. How
+on earth do you find time to do all these books?
+
+You make my hair stand on end; an agreeable sensation, for I am charmed
+to find that I have any. Why don't you come yourself and look after
+Garrick? I should be truly delighted to receive you.
+
+                           My dear Fitzgerald, always faithfully yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. W. C. Macready.]
+
+                    GAD'S HILL PLACE, HIGHAM BY ROCHESTER, KENT,
+                                            _Friday, Dec. 28th, 1866._
+
+MY DEAREST MACREADY,
+
+I have received your letter with the utmost pleasure and we all send our
+most affectionate love to you, Mrs. Macready, Katie, Johnny, and the boy
+of boys. All good Christmas and New Year greetings are to be understood
+as included.
+
+You will be interested in knowing that, encouraged by the success of
+summer cricket-matches, I got up a quantity of foot-races and rustic
+sports in my field here on the 26th last past: as I have never yet had a
+case of drunkenness, the landlord of The Falstaff had a drinking-booth
+on the ground. All the prizes I gave were in money, too. We had two
+thousand people here. Among the crowd were soldiers, navvies, and
+labourers of all kinds. Not a stake was pulled up, or a rope slackened,
+or one farthing's-worth of damage done. To every competitor (only) a
+printed bill of general rules was given, with the concluding words: "Mr.
+Dickens puts every man upon his honour to assist in preserving order."
+There was not a dispute all day, and they went away at sunset rending
+the air with cheers, and leaving every flag on a six hundred yards'
+course as neat as they found it when the gates were opened at ten in the
+morning. Surely this is a bright sign in the neighbourhood of such a
+place as Chatham!
+
+"Mugby Junction" turned, yesterday afternoon, the extraordinary number
+of two hundred and fifty thousand!
+
+In the middle of next month I begin a new course of forty-two readings.
+If any of them bring me within reach of Cheltenham, with an hour to
+spare, I shall come on to you, even for that hour. More of this when I
+am afield and have my list, which Dolby (for Chappell) is now
+preparing.
+
+Forster and Mrs. Forster were to have come to us next Monday, to stay
+until Saturday. I write "were," because I hear that Forster (who had a
+touch of bronchitis when he wrote to me on Christmas Eve) is in bed.
+Katie, who has been ill of low nervous fever, was brought here yesterday
+from London. She bore the journey much better than I expected, and so I
+hope will soon recover. This is my little stock of news.
+
+I begin to discover in your riper years, that you have been secretly
+vain of your handwriting all your life. For I swear I see no change in
+it! What it always was since I first knew it (a year or two!) it _is_.
+This I will maintain against all comers.
+
+                             Ever affectionately, my dearest Macready.
+
+
+
+
+1867.
+
+NARRATIVE.
+
+
+As the London and provincial readings were to be resumed early in the
+year and continued until the end of March, Charles Dickens took no house
+in London this spring. He came to his office quarters at intervals, for
+the series in town; usually starting off again, on his country tour, the
+day after a London reading. From some passages in his letters to his
+daughter and sister-in-law during this country course, it will be seen
+that (though he made very light of the fact) the great exertion of the
+readings, combined with incessant railway travelling, was beginning to
+tell upon his health, and he was frequently "heavily beaten" after
+reading at his best to an enthusiastic audience in a large hall.
+
+During the short intervals between his journeys, he was as constantly
+and carefully at work upon the business of "All the Year Round" as if he
+had no other work on hand. A proof of this is given in a letter dated
+"5th February." It is written to a young man (the son of a friend), who
+wrote a long novel when far too juvenile for such a task, and had
+submitted it to Charles Dickens for his opinion, with a view to
+publication. In the midst of his own hard and engrossing occupation he
+read the book, and the letter which he wrote on the subject needs no
+remark beyond this, that the young writer received the adverse criticism
+with the best possible sense, and has since, in his literary profession,
+profited by the advice so kindly given.
+
+At this time the proposals to Charles Dickens for reading in America,
+which had been perpetually renewed from the time of his first abandoning
+the idea, became so urgent and so tempting, that he found at last he
+must, at all events, give the subject his most serious consideration. He
+took counsel with his two most confidential friends and advisers, Mr.
+John Forster and Mr. W. H. Wills. They were both, at first, strongly
+opposed to the undertaking, chiefly on the ground of the trial to his
+health and strength which it would involve. But they could not deny the
+counterbalancing advantages. And, after much deliberation, it was
+resolved that Mr. George Dolby should be sent out by the Messrs.
+Chappell, to take an impression, on the spot, as to the feeling of the
+United States about the Readings. His report as to the undoubted
+enthusiasm and urgency on the other side of the Atlantic it was
+impossible to resist. Even his friends withdrew their opposition (though
+still with misgivings as to the effect upon his health, which were but
+too well founded!), and on the 30th September he telegraphed "Yes" to
+America.
+
+The "Alfred" alluded to in a letter from Glasgow was Charles Dickens's
+fourth son, Alfred Tennyson, who had gone to Australia two years
+previously.
+
+We give, in April, the last letter to one of the friends for whom
+Charles Dickens had always a most tender love--Mr. Stanfield. He was
+then in failing health, and in May he died.
+
+Another death which affected him very deeply happened this summer. Miss
+Marguerite Power died in July. She had long been very ill, but, until it
+became impossible for her to travel, she was a frequent and beloved
+guest at Gad's Hill. The Mrs. Henderson to whom he writes was Miss
+Power's youngest sister.
+
+Before he started for America it was proposed to wish him God-speed by
+giving him a public dinner at the Freemasons' Hall. The proposal was
+most warmly and fully responded to. His zealous friend, Mr. Charles
+Kent, willingly undertook the whole work of arrangement of this banquet.
+It took place on the 2nd November, and Lord Lytton presided.
+
+On the 8th he left London for Liverpool, accompanied by his daughters,
+his sister-in-law, his eldest son, Mr. Arthur Chappell, Mr. Charles
+Collins, Mr. Wilkie Collins, Mr. Kent, and Mr. Wills. The next morning
+the whole party took a final leave of Charles Dickens on board the
+_Cuba_, which sailed that day.
+
+We give a letter which he wrote to Mr. J. L. Toole on the morning of the
+dinner, thanking him for a parting gift and an earnest letter. That
+excellent comedian was one of his most appreciative admirers, and, in
+return, he had for Mr. Toole the greatest admiration and respect.
+
+The Christmas number for this year, "No Thoroughfare," was written by
+Charles Dickens and Mr. Wilkie Collins. It was dramatised by Mr. Collins
+chiefly. But, in the midst of all the work of preparation for departure,
+Charles Dickens gave minute attention to as much of the play as could be
+completed before he left England. It was produced, after Christmas, at
+the Adelphi Theatre, where M. Fechter was then acting, under the
+management of Mr. Benjamin Webster.
+
+
+[Sidenote: M. de Cerjat.]
+
+                    GAD'S HILL PLACE, HIGHAM BY ROCHESTER, KENT,
+                                               _New Year's Day, 1867._
+
+MY DEAR CERJAT,
+
+Thoroughly determined to be beforehand with "the middle of next summer,"
+your penitent friend and remorseful correspondent thus addresses you.
+
+The big dog, on a day last autumn, having seized a little girl (sister
+to one of the servants) whom he knew, and was bound to respect, was
+flogged by his master, and then sentenced to be shot at seven next
+morning. He went out very cheerfully with the half-dozen men told off
+for the purpose, evidently thinking that they were going to be the death
+of somebody unknown. But observing in the procession an empty
+wheelbarrow and a double-barrelled gun, he became meditative, and fixed
+the bearer of the gun with his eyes. A stone deftly thrown across him by
+the village blackguard (chief mourner) caused him to look round for an
+instant, and he then fell dead, shot through the heart. Two posthumous
+children are at this moment rolling on the lawn; one will evidently
+inherit his ferocity, and will probably inherit the gun. The pheasant
+was a little ailing towards Christmas Day, and was found dead under some
+ivy in his cage, with his head under his wing, on the morning of the
+twenty-seventh of December, one thousand eight hundred and sixty-six. I,
+proprietor of the remains of the two deceased, am working hard, getting
+up "Barbox" and "The Boy at Mugby," with which I begin a new series of
+readings in London on the fifteenth. Next morning I believe I start into
+the country. When I read, I _don't_ write. I only edit, and have the
+proof-sheets sent me for the purpose. Here are your questions answered.
+
+As to the Reform question, it should have been, and could have been,
+perfectly known to any honest man in England that the more intelligent
+part of the great masses were deeply dissatisfied with the state of
+representation, but were in a very moderate and patient condition,
+awaiting the better intellectual cultivation of numbers of their
+fellows. The old insolent resource of assailing them and making the most
+audaciously wicked statements that they are politically indifferent,
+has borne the inevitable fruit. The perpetual taunt, "Where are they?"
+has called them out with the answer: "Well then, if you _must_ know,
+here we are." The intolerable injustice of vituperating the bribed to an
+assembly of bribers, has goaded their sense of justice beyond endurance.
+And now, what they would have taken they won't take, and whatever they
+are steadily bent upon having they will get. Rely upon it, this is the
+real state of the case. As to your friend "Punch," you will find him
+begin to turn at the very selfsame instant when the new game shall
+manifestly become the losing one. You may notice his shoes pinching him
+a little already.
+
+My dear fellow, I have no more power to stop that mutilation of my books
+than you have. It is as certain as that every inventor of anything
+designed for the public good, and offered to the English Government,
+becomes _ipso facto_ a criminal, to have his heart broken on the
+circumlocutional wheel. It is as certain as that the whole Crimean story
+will be retold, whenever this country again goes to war. And to tell the
+truth, I have such a very small opinion of what the great genteel have
+done for us, that I am very philosophical indeed concerning what the
+great vulgar may do, having a decided opinion that they can't do worse.
+
+This is the time of year when the theatres do best, there being still
+numbers of people who make it a sort of religion to see Christmas
+pantomimes. Having my annual houseful, I have, as yet, seen nothing.
+Fechter has neither pantomime nor burlesque, but is doing a new version
+of the old "Trente Ans de la Vie d'un Joueur." I am afraid he will not
+find his account in it. On the whole, the theatres, except in the
+articles of scenery and pictorial effect, are poor enough. But in some
+of the smaller houses there are actors who, if there were any dramatic
+head-quarters as a school, might become very good. The most hopeless
+feature is, that they have the smallest possible idea of an effective
+and harmonious whole, each "going in" for himself or herself. The
+music-halls attract an immense public, and don't refine the general
+taste. But such things as they do are well done of their kind, and
+always briskly and punctually.
+
+The American yacht race is the last sensation. I hope the general
+interest felt in it on this side will have a wholesome interest on that.
+It will be a woeful day when John and Jonathan throw their caps into the
+ring. The French Emperor is indubitably in a dangerous state. His
+Parisian popularity wanes, and his army are discontented with him. I
+hear on high authority that his secret police are always making
+discoveries that render him desperately uneasy.
+
+You know how we have been swindling in these parts. But perhaps you
+don't know that Mr. ----, the "eminent" contractor, before he fell into
+difficulties settled _one million of money_ on his wife. Such a good and
+devoted husband!
+
+My daughter Katie has been very ill of nervous fever. On the 27th of
+December she was in a condition to be brought down here (old high road
+and post-horses), and has been steadily getting better ever since. Her
+husband is here too, and is on the whole as well as he ever is or ever
+will be, I fear.
+
+We played forfeit-games here, last night, and then pool. For a
+billiard-room has been added to the house since you were here. Come and
+play a match with me.
+
+                                                Always affectionately.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Hogarth.]
+
+                  ADELPHI HOTEL, LIVERPOOL, _Monday, Jan. 21st, 1867._
+
+MY DEAREST GEORGY,
+
+First I send you my most affectionate wishes for many, many happy
+returns of your birthday. That done, from my heart of hearts, I go on to
+my small report of myself.
+
+The readings have produced such an immense effect here that we are
+coming back for two more in the middle of February. "Marigold" and the
+"Trial," on Friday night, and the "Carol," on Saturday afternoon, were a
+perfect furore; and the surprise about "Barbox" has been amusingly
+great. It is a most extraordinary thing, after the enormous sale of that
+Christmas number, that the provincial public seems to have combined to
+believe that it _won't_ make a reading. From Wolverhampton and Leeds we
+have exactly the same expression of feelings _beforehand_. Exactly as I
+made "Copperfield"--always to the poorest houses I had with Headland,
+and against that luminary's entreaty--so I should have to make this, if
+I hadn't "Marigold" always in demand.
+
+It being next to impossible for people to come out at night with horses,
+we have felt the weather in the stalls, and expect to do so through this
+week. The half-crown and shilling publics have crushed to their places
+most splendidly. The enthusiasm has been unbounded. On Friday night I
+quite astonished myself; but I was taken so faint afterwards that they
+laid me on a sofa at the hall for half an hour. I attribute it to my
+distressing inability to sleep at night, and to nothing worse.
+
+Scott does very well indeed. As a dresser he is perfect. In a quarter of
+an hour after I go into the retiring-room, where all my clothes are
+airing and everything is set out neatly in its own allotted space, I am
+ready; and he then goes softly out, and sits outside the door. In the
+morning he is equally punctual, quiet, and quick. He has his needles and
+thread, buttons, and so forth, always at hand; and in travelling he is
+very systematic with the luggage. What with Dolby and what with this
+skilful valet, everything is made as easy to me as it possibly _can_ be,
+and Dolby would do anything to lighten the work, and does everything.
+
+There is great distress here among the poor (four thousand people
+relieved last Saturday at one workhouse), and there is great anxiety
+concerning _seven mail-steamers some days overdue_. Such a circumstance
+as this last has never been known. It is supposed that some great
+revolving storm has whirled them all out of their course. One of these
+missing ships is an American mail, another an Australian mail.
+
+
+                                                     _Same Afternoon._
+
+We have been out for four hours in the bitter east wind, and walking on
+the sea-shore, where there is a broad strip of great blocks of ice. My
+hands are so rigid that I write with great difficulty.
+
+We have been constantly talking of the terrible Regent's Park accident.
+I hope and believe that nearly the worst of it is now known.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Dickens.]
+
+                                  CHESTER, _Tuesday, Jan. 22nd, 1867._
+
+MY DEAREST MAMIE,
+
+We came over here from Liverpool at eleven this forenoon. There was a
+heavy swell in the Mersey breaking over the boat; the cold was nipping,
+and all the roads we saw as we came along were wretched. We find a very
+moderate let here; but I am myself rather surprised to know that a
+hundred and twenty stalls have made up their minds to the undertaking of
+getting to the hall. This seems to be a very nice hotel, but it is an
+extraordinarily cold one. Our reading for to-night is "Marigold" and
+"Trial." With amazing perversity the local agent said to Dolby: "They
+hoped that Mr. Dickens _might_ have given them 'The Boy at Mugby.'"
+
+Barton, the gasman who succeeded the man who sprained his leg, sprained
+_his_ leg yesterday!! And that, not at his work, but in running
+downstairs at the hotel. However, he has hobbled through it so far, and
+I hope will hobble on, for he knows his work.
+
+I have seldom seen a place look more hopelessly frozen up than this
+place does. The hall is like a Methodist chapel in low spirits, and with
+a cold in its head. A few blue people shiver at the corners of the
+streets. And this house, which is outside the town, looks like an
+ornament on an immense twelfth cake baked for 1847.
+
+I am now going to the fire to try to warm myself, but have not the least
+expectation of succeeding. The sitting-room has two large windows in it,
+down to the ground and facing due east. The adjoining bedroom (mine) has
+also two large windows in it, down to the ground and facing due east.
+The very large doors are opposite the large windows, and I feel as if I
+were something to eat in a pantry.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Hogarth.]
+
+            HEN AND CHICKENS, BIRMINGHAM, _Thursday, Jan. 24th, 1867._
+
+At Chester we read in a snowstorm and a fall of ice. I think it was the
+worst weather I ever saw. Nevertheless, the people were enthusiastic. At
+Wolverhampton last night the thaw had thoroughly set in, and it rained
+heavily. We had not intended to go back there, but have arranged to do
+so on the day after Ash Wednesday. Last night I was again heavily
+beaten. We came on here after the reading (it is only a ride of forty
+minutes), and it was as much as I could do to hold out the journey. But
+I was not faint, as at Liverpool; I was only exhausted. I am all right
+this morning; and to-night, as you know, I have a rest. I trust that
+Charley Collins is better, and that Mamie is strong and well again.
+Yesterday I had a note from Katie, which seemed hopeful and encouraging.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Dickens.]
+
+            HEN AND CHICKENS, BIRMINGHAM, _Thursday, Jan. 24th, 1867._
+
+Since I wrote to your aunt just now, I have received your note addressed
+to Wolverhampton. We left the men there last night, and they brought it
+on with them at noon to-day.
+
+The maimed gasman's foot is much swollen, but he limps about and does
+his work. I have doctored him up with arnica. During the "Boy" last
+night there was an escape of gas from the side of my top batten, which
+caught the copper-wire and was within a thread of bringing down the
+heavy reflector into the stalls. It was a very ticklish matter, though
+the audience knew nothing about it. I saw it, and the gasman and Dolby
+saw it, and stood at that side of the platform in agonies. We all three
+calculated that there would be just time to finish and save it; when the
+gas was turned out the instant I had done, the whole thing was at its
+very last and utmost extremity. Whom it would have tumbled on, or what
+might have been set on fire, it is impossible to say.
+
+I hope you rewarded your police escort on Tuesday night. It was the most
+tremendous night I ever saw at Chester.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Dickens.]
+
+                                      LEEDS, _Friday, Feb. 1st, 1867._
+
+We got here prosperously, and had a good (but not great) house for
+"Barbox" and "Boy" last night. For "Marigold" and "Trial," to-night,
+everything is gone. And I even have my doubts of the possibility of
+Dolby's cramming the people in. For "Marigold" and "Trial" at
+Manchester, to-morrow, we also expect a fine hall.
+
+I shall be at the office for next Wednesday. If Charley Collins should
+have been got to Gad's, I will come there for that day. If not, I
+suppose we had best open the official bower again.
+
+This is a beastly place, with a very good hotel. Except Preston, it is
+one of the nastiest places I know. The room is like a capacious coal
+cellar, and is incredibly filthy; but for sound it is perfect.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Anonymous.]
+
+            OFFICE OF "ALL THE YEAR ROUND," _Tuesday, Feb. 5th, 1867._
+
+DEAR SIR,
+
+I have looked at the larger half of the first volume of your novel, and
+have pursued the more difficult points of the story through the other
+two volumes.
+
+You will, of course, receive my opinion as that of an individual writer
+and student of art, who by no means claims to be infallible.
+
+I think you are too ambitious, and that you have not sufficient
+knowledge of life or character to venture on so comprehensive an
+attempt. Evidences of inexperience in every way, and of your power being
+far below the situations that you imagine, present themselves to me in
+almost every page I have read. It would greatly surprise me if you found
+a publisher for this story, on trying your fortune in that line, or
+derived anything from it but weariness and bitterness of spirit.
+
+On the evidence thus put before me, I cannot even entirely satisfy
+myself that you have the faculty of authorship latent within you. If you
+have not, and yet pursue a vocation towards which you have no call, you
+cannot choose but be a wretched man. Let me counsel you to have the
+patience to form yourself carefully, and the courage to renounce the
+endeavour if you cannot establish your case on a very much smaller
+scale. You see around you every day, how many outlets there are for
+short pieces of fiction in all kinds. Try if you can achieve any success
+within these modest limits (I have practised in my time what I preach to
+you), and in the meantime put your three volumes away.
+
+                                                     Faithfully yours.
+
+P.S.--Your MS. will be returned separately from this office.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Hogarth.]
+
+                                 LIVERPOOL, _Friday, Feb. 15th, 1867._
+
+My short report of myself is that we had an enormous turn-away last
+night, and do not doubt about having a cram to-night. The day has been
+very fine, and I have turned it to the wholesomest account by walking on
+the sands at New Brighton all the morning. I am not quite right, but
+believe it to be an effect of the railway shaking. There is no doubt of
+the fact that, after the Staplehurst experience, it tells more and
+more, instead of (as one might have expected) less and less.
+
+The charming room here greatly lessens the fatigue of this fatiguing
+week. I read last night with no more exertion than if I had been at
+Gad's, and yet to eleven hundred people, and with astonishing effect. It
+is "Copperfield" to-night, and Liverpool is the "Copperfield"
+stronghold.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Dickens.]
+
+                                   GLASGOW, _Sunday, Feb. 17th, 1867._
+
+We arrived here this morning at our time to the moment, five minutes
+past ten. We turned away great numbers on both nights at Liverpool; and
+Manchester last night was a splendid spectacle. They cheered to that
+extent after it was over, that I was obliged to huddle on my clothes
+(for I was undressing to prepare for the journey), and go back again.
+
+After so heavy a week, it _was_ rather stiff to start on this long
+journey at a quarter to two in the morning; but I got more sleep than I
+ever got in a railway-carriage before, and it really was not tedious.
+The travelling was admirable, and a wonderful contrast to my friend the
+Midland.
+
+I am not by any means knocked up, though I have, as I had in the last
+series of readings, a curious feeling of soreness all round the body,
+which I suppose to arise from the great exertion of voice. It is a mercy
+that we were not both made really ill at Liverpool. On Friday morning I
+was taken so faint and sick, that I was obliged to leave the table. On
+the same afternoon the same thing happened to Dolby. We then found that
+a part of the hotel close to us was dismantled for painting, and that
+they were at that moment painting a green passage leading to our rooms,
+with a most horrible mixture of white lead and arsenic. On pursuing the
+enquiry, I found that the four lady book-keepers in the bar were all
+suffering from the poison.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Hogarth.]
+
+                          BRIDGE OF ALLAN, _Tuesday, Feb. 19th, 1867._
+
+I was very glad to get your letter before leaving Glasgow this morning.
+This is a poor return for it, but the post goes out early, and we come
+in late.
+
+Yesterday morning I was so unwell that I wrote to Frank Beard, from whom
+I shall doubtless hear to-morrow. I mention it, only in case you should
+come in his way, for I know how perversely such things fall out. I felt
+it a little more exertion to read afterwards, and I passed a sleepless
+night after that again; but otherwise I am in good force and spirits
+to-day. I may say, in the best force.
+
+The quiet of this little place is sure to do me good. The little inn in
+which we are established seems a capital house of the best country sort.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Dickens.]
+
+                                 GLASGOW, _Thursday, Feb. 21st, 1867._
+
+After two days' rest at the Bridge of Allan I am in renewed force, and
+have nothing to complain of but inability to sleep. I have been in
+excellent air all day since Tuesday at noon, and made an interesting
+walk to Stirling yesterday, and saw its lions, and (strange to relate)
+was not bored by them. Indeed, they left me so fresh that I knocked at
+the gate of the prison, presented myself to the governor, and took Dolby
+over the jail, to his unspeakable interest. We then walked back again
+to our excellent country inn.
+
+Enclosed is a letter from Alfred, which you and your aunt will be
+interested in reading, and which I meant to send you sooner but forgot
+it. Wonderful as it is to mention, the sun shines here to-day! But to
+counterbalance that phenomenon I am in close hiding from ----, who has
+christened his infant son in my name, and, consequently, haunts the
+building. He and Dolby have already nearly come into collision, in
+consequence of the latter being always under the dominion of the one
+idea that he is bound to knock everybody down who asks for me.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+        The "Jewish lady," wishing to mark her
+        "appreciation of Mr. Dickens's nobility of
+        character," presented him with a copy of
+        Benisch's Hebrew and English Bible, with this
+        inscription: "Presented to Charles Dickens, in
+        grateful and admiring recognition of his having
+        exercised the noblest quality man can
+        possess--that of atoning for an injury as soon
+        as conscious of having inflicted it."
+
+        The acknowledgment of the gift is the following
+        letter:
+
+[Sidenote: Jewish Lady.]
+
+                       BRADFORD, YORKSHIRE, _Friday, March 1st, 1867._
+
+MY DEAR MRS. ----,
+
+I am working through a series of readings, widely dispersed through
+England, Scotland, and Ireland, and am so constantly occupied that it is
+very difficult for me to write letters. I have received your highly
+esteemed note (forwarded from my home in Kent), and should have replied
+to it sooner but that I had a hope of being able to get home and see
+your present first. As I have not been able to do so, however, and am
+hardly likely to do so for two months to come, I delay no longer. It is
+safely awaiting me on my own desk in my own quiet room. I cannot thank
+you for it too cordially, and cannot too earnestly assure you that I
+shall always prize it highly. The terms in which you send me that mark
+of your remembrance are more gratifying to me than I can possibly
+express to you; for they assure me that there is nothing but goodwill
+left between you and me and a people for whom I have a real regard, and
+to whom I would not wilfully have given an offence or done an injustice
+for any worldly consideration.
+
+                                    Believe me, very faithfully yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Hogarth.]
+
+                      NEWCASTLE-ON-TYNE, _Wednesday, March 6th, 1867._
+
+The readings have made an immense effect in this place, and it is
+remarkable that although the people are individually rough, collectively
+they are an unusually tender and sympathetic audience; while their comic
+perception is quite up to the high London standard. The atmosphere is so
+very heavy that yesterday we escaped to Tynemouth for a two hours' sea
+walk. There was a high north wind blowing and a magnificent sea running.
+Large vessels were being towed in and out over the stormy bar, with
+prodigious waves breaking on it; and spanning the restless uproar of the
+waters was a quiet rainbow of transcendent beauty. The scene was quite
+wonderful. We were in the full enjoyment of it when a heavy sea caught
+us, knocked us over, and in a moment drenched us, and filled even our
+pockets. We had nothing for it but to shake ourselves together (like
+Doctor Marigold) and dry ourselves as well as we could by hard walking
+in the wind and sunshine! But we were wet through for all that when we
+came back here to dinner after half an hour's railway ride.
+
+I am wonderfully well, and quite fresh and strong. Have had to doctor
+Dolby for a bad cold; have not caught it (yet), and have set him on his
+legs again.
+
+Scott is striking the tents and loading the baggages, so I must deliver
+up my writing-desk. We meet, please God, on Tuesday.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Hogarth.]
+
+                 SHELBOURNE HOTEL, DUBLIN, _Friday, March 15th, 1867._
+
+We made our journey through an incessant snowstorm on Wednesday night;
+at last got snowed up among the Welsh mountains in a tremendous storm of
+wind, came to a stop, and had to dig the engine out. We went to bed at
+Holyhead at six in the morning of Thursday, and got aboard the packet at
+two yesterday afternoon. It blew hard, but as the wind was right astern,
+we only rolled and did not pitch much. As I walked about on the bridge
+all the four hours, and had cold salt beef and biscuit there and
+brandy-and-water, you will infer that my Channel training has not worn
+out.
+
+Our "business" here is _very bad_, though at Belfast it is enormous.
+There is no doubt that great alarm prevails here. This hotel is
+constantly filling and emptying as families leave the country, and set
+in a current to the steamers. There is apprehension of some disturbance
+between to-morrow night and Monday night (both inclusive), and I learn
+this morning that all the drinking-shops are to be closed from to-night
+until Tuesday. It is rumoured here that the Liverpool people are very
+uneasy about some apprehended disturbance there at the same time. Very
+likely you will know more about this than I do, and very likely it may
+be nothing. There is no doubt whatever that alarm prevails, and the
+manager of this hotel, an intelligent German, is very gloomy on the
+subject. On the other hand, there is feasting going on, and I have been
+asked to dinner-parties by divers civil and military authorities.
+
+Don't _you_ be uneasy, I say once again. You may be absolutely certain
+that there is no cause for it. We are splendidly housed here, and in
+great comfort.
+
+Love to Charley and Katey.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Dickens.]
+
+               SHELBOURNE HOTEL, DUBLIN, _Saturday, March 16th, 1867._
+
+I daresay you know already that I held many councils in London about
+coming to Ireland at all, and was much against it. Everything looked as
+bad here as need be, but we did very well last night after all.
+
+There is considerable alarm here beyond all question, and great
+depression in all kinds of trade and commerce. To-morrow being St.
+Patrick's Day, there are apprehensions of some disturbance, and croakers
+predict that it will come off between to-night and Monday night. Of
+course there are preparations on all sides, and large musters of
+soldiers and police, though they are kept carefully out of sight. One
+would not suppose, walking about the streets, that any disturbance was
+impending; and yet there is no doubt that the materials of one lie
+smouldering up and down the city and all over the country. [I have a
+letter from Mrs. Bernal Osborne this morning, describing the fortified
+way in which she is living in her own house in the County Tipperary.]
+
+You may be quite sure that your venerable parent will take good care of
+himself. If any riot were to break out, I should immediately stop the
+readings here. Should all remain quiet, I begin to think they will be
+satisfactorily remunerative after all. At Belfast, we shall have an
+enormous house. I read "Copperfield" and "Bob" here on Monday;
+"Marigold" and "Trial" at Belfast, on Wednesday; and "Carol" and "Trial"
+here, on Friday. This is all my news, except that I am in perfect force.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Hogarth.]
+
+                 SHELBOURNE HOTEL, DUBLIN, _Sunday, March 17th, 1867._
+
+Everything remains in appearance perfectly quiet here. The streets are
+gay all day, now that the weather is improved, and singularly quiet and
+deserted at night. But the whole place is secretly girt in with a
+military force. To-morrow night is supposed to be a critical time; but
+in view of the enormous preparations, I should say that the chances are
+at least one hundred to one against any disturbance.
+
+I cannot make sure whether I wrote to you yesterday, and told you that
+we had done very well at the first reading after all, even in money. The
+reception was prodigious, and the readings are the town talk. But I
+rather think I did actually write this to you. My doubt on the subject
+arises from my having deliberated about writing on a Saturday.
+
+The most curious, and for facilities of mere destruction, such as firing
+houses in different quarters, the most dangerous piece of intelligence
+imparted to me on authority is, that the Dublin domestic men-servants as
+a class are all Fenians.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Hogarth.]
+
+                               BELFAST, _Wednesday, March 20th, 1867._
+
+The post goes out at twelve, and I have only time to report myself. The
+snow not lying between this and Dublin, we got here yesterday to our
+time, after a cold but pleasant journey. Fitzgerald came on with us. I
+had a really charming letter from Mrs. Fitzgerald, asking me to stay
+there. She must be a perfectly unaffected and genuine lady. There are
+kind messages to you and Mary in it. I have sent it on to Mary, who will
+probably in her turn show it to you. We had a wonderful crowd at Dublin
+on Monday, and the greatest appreciation possible. We have a good let,
+in a large hall, here to-night. But I am perfectly convinced that the
+worst part of the Fenian business is to come yet.
+
+All about the Fitzgeralds and everything else when we meet.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Dickens.]
+
+                                BELFAST, _Thursday, March 21st, 1867._
+
+In spite of public affairs and dismal weather, we are doing wonders in
+Ireland.
+
+That the conspiracy is a far larger and more important one than would
+seem from what it has done yet, there is no doubt. I have had a good
+deal of talk with a certain colonel, whose duty it has been to
+investigate it, day and night, since last September. That it will give a
+world of trouble, and cost a world of money, I take to be (after what I
+have thus learned) beyond all question. One regiment has been found to
+contain five hundred Fenian soldiers every man of whom was sworn in the
+barrack-yard. How information is swiftly and secretly conveyed all over
+the country, the Government with all its means and money cannot
+discover; but every hour it is found that instructions, warnings, and
+other messages are circulated from end to end of Ireland. It is a very
+serious business indeed.
+
+I have just time to send this off, and to report myself quite well
+except for a slight cold.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Hogarth.]
+
+                                  NORWICH, _Friday, March 29th, 1867._
+
+The reception at Cambridge last night was something to be proud of in
+such a place. The colleges mustered in full force from the biggest guns
+to the smallest, and went far beyond even Manchester in the roars of
+welcome and the rounds of cheers. All through the readings, the whole of
+the assembly, old men as well as young, and women as well as men, took
+everything with a heartiness of enjoyment not to be described. The place
+was crammed, and the success the most brilliant I have ever seen.
+
+What we are doing in this sleepy old place I don't know, but I have no
+doubt it is mild enough.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. Walter Thornbury]
+
+                                  OFFICE OF "ALL THE YEAR ROUND,"
+                                            _Monday, April 1st, 1867._
+
+MY DEAR THORNBURY,
+
+I am very doubtful indeed about "Vaux," and have kept it out of the
+number in consequence. The mere details of such a rascal's proceedings,
+whether recorded by himself or set down by the Reverend Ordinary, are
+not wholesome for a large audience, and are scarcely justifiable (I
+think) as claiming to be a piece of literature. I can understand
+Barrington to be a good subject, as involving the representation of a
+period, a style of manners, an order of dress, certain habits of street
+life, assembly-room life, and coffee-room life, etc.; but there is a
+very broad distinction between this and mere Newgate Calendar. The
+latter would assuredly damage your book, and be protested against to me.
+I have a conviction of it, founded on constant observation and
+experience here.
+
+Your kind invitation is extremely welcome and acceptable to me, but I am
+sorry to add that I must not go a-visiting. For this reason: So
+incessantly have I been "reading," that I have not once been at home at
+Gad's Hill since last January, and am little likely to get there before
+the middle of May. Judge how the master's eye must be kept on the place
+when it does at length get a look at it after so long an absence! I hope
+you will descry in this a reason for coming to me again, instead of my
+coming to you.
+
+The extinct prize-fighters, as a body, I take to be a good subject, for
+much the same reason as George Barrington. Their patrons were a class of
+men now extinct too, and the whole ring of those days (not to mention
+Jackson's rooms in Bond Street) is a piece of social history. Now Vaux
+is not, nor is he even a phenomenon among thieves.
+
+                                              Faithfully yours always.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. Clarkson Stanfield, R.A.]
+
+                          GAD'S HILL PLACE, HIGHAM BY ROCHESTER,
+                                         _Thursday, April 18th, 1867._
+
+MY DEAR STANNY,
+
+The time of year reminds me how the months have gone, since I last heard
+from you through Mrs. Stanfield.
+
+I hope you have not thought me unmindful of you in the meanwhile. I have
+been almost constantly travelling and reading. England, Ireland, and
+Scotland have laid hold of me by turns, and I have had no rest. As soon
+as I had finished this kind of work last year, I had to fall to work
+upon "All the Year Round" and the Christmas number. I was no sooner quit
+of that task, and the Christmas season was but run out to its last day,
+when I was tempted into another course of fifty readings that are not
+yet over. I am here now for two days, and have not seen the place since
+Twelfth Night. When a reading in London has been done, I have been
+brought up for it from some great distance, and have next morning been
+carried back again. But the fifty will be "paid out" (as we say at sea)
+by the middle of May, and then I hope to see you.
+
+Reading at Cheltenham the other day, I saw Macready, who sent his love
+to you. His face was much more massive and as it used to be, than when I
+saw him previous to his illness. His wife takes admirable care of him,
+and is on the happiest terms with his daughter Katie. His boy by the
+second marriage is a jolly little fellow, and leads a far easier life
+than the children you and I remember, who used to come in at dessert and
+have each a biscuit and a glass of water, in which last refreshment I
+was always convinced that they drank, with the gloomiest malignity,
+"Destruction to the gormandising grown-up company!"
+
+I hope to look up your latest triumphs on the day of the Academy dinner.
+Of course as yet I have had no opportunity of even hearing of what
+anyone has done. I have been (in a general way) snowed up for four
+months. The locomotive with which I was going to Ireland was dug out of
+the snow at midnight, in Wales. Both passages across were made in a
+furious snowstorm. The snow lay ankle-deep in Dublin, and froze hard at
+Belfast. In Scotland it slanted before a perpetual east wind. In
+Yorkshire, it derived novelty from thunder and lightning. Whirlwinds
+everywhere I don't mention.
+
+God bless you and yours. If I look like some weather-beaten pilot when
+we meet, don't be surprised. Any mahogany-faced stranger who holds out
+his hand to you will probably turn out, on inspection, to be the old
+original Dick.
+
+                 Ever, my dear Stanny, your faithful and affectionate.
+
+P.S.--I wish you could have been with me (of course in a snowstorm) one
+day on the pier at Tynemouth. There was a very heavy sea running, and a
+perfect fleet of screw merchantmen were plunging in and out on the turn
+of the tide at high-water. Suddenly there came a golden horizon, and a
+most glorious rainbow burst out, arching one large ship, as if she were
+sailing direct for heaven. I was so enchanted by the scene, that I
+became oblivious of a few thousand tons of water coming on in an
+enormous roller, and was knocked down and beaten by its spray when it
+broke, and so completely wetted through and through, that the very
+pockets in my pocket-book were full of sea.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. George Stanfield.]
+
+                                  OFFICE OF "ALL THE YEAR ROUND,"
+                                             _Sunday, May 19th, 1867._
+
+                    ON THE DEATH OF HIS FATHER.
+
+MY DEAR GEORGE,
+
+When I came up to the house this afternoon and saw what had happened, I
+had not the courage to ring, though I had thought I was fully prepared
+by what I heard when I called yesterday. No one of your father's friends
+can ever have loved him more dearly than I always did, or can have
+better known the worth of his noble character.
+
+It is idle to suppose that I can do anything for you; and yet I cannot
+help saying that I am staying here for some days, and that if I could,
+it would be a much greater relief to me than it could be a service to
+you.
+
+Your poor mother has been constantly in my thoughts since I saw the
+quiet bravery with which she preserved her composure. The beauty of her
+ministration sank into my heart when I saw him for the last time on
+earth. May God be with her, and with you all, in your great loss.
+
+                                          Affectionately yours always.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. W. H. Wills.]
+
+                                           _Thursday, June 6th, 1867._
+
+MY DEAR WILLS,
+
+I cannot tell you how warmly I feel your letter, or how deeply I
+appreciate the affection and regard in which it originates. I thank you
+for it with all my heart.
+
+You will not suppose that I make light of any of your misgivings if I
+present the other side of the question. Every objection that you make
+strongly impresses me, and will be revolved in my mind again and again.
+
+When I went to America in '42, I was so much younger, but (I think) very
+much weaker too. I had had a painful surgical operation performed
+shortly before going out, and had had the labour from week to week of
+"Master Humphrey's Clock." My life in the States was a life of continual
+speech-making (quite as laborious as reading), and I was less patient
+and more irritable then than I am now. My idea of a course of readings
+in America is, that it would involve far less travelling than you
+suppose, that the large first-class rooms would absorb the whole course,
+and that the receipts would be very much larger than your estimate,
+unless the demand for the readings is ENORMOUSLY EXAGGERATED ON ALL
+HANDS. There is considerable reason for this view of the case. And I can
+hardly think that all the speculators who beset, and all the private
+correspondents who urge me, are in a conspiracy or under a common
+delusion.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+I shall never rest much while my faculties last, and (if I know myself)
+have a certain something in me that would still be active in rusting and
+corroding me, if I flattered myself that I was in repose. On the other
+hand, I think that my habit of easy self-abstraction and withdrawal into
+fancies has always refreshed and strengthened me in short intervals
+wonderfully. I always seem to myself to have rested far more than I have
+worked; and I do really believe that I have some exceptional faculty of
+accumulating young feelings in short pauses, which obliterates a
+quantity of wear and tear.
+
+My worldly circumstances (such a large family considered) are very good.
+I don't want money. All my possessions are free and in the best order.
+Still, at fifty-five or fifty-six, the likelihood of making a very great
+addition to one's capital in half a year is an immense consideration....
+I repeat the phrase, because there should be something large to set
+against the objections.
+
+I dine with Forster to-day, to talk it over. I have no doubt he will
+urge most of your objections and particularly the last, though American
+friends and correspondents he has, have undoubtedly staggered him more
+than I ever knew him to be staggered on the money question. Be assured
+that no one can present any argument to me which will weigh more
+heartily with me than your kind words, and that whatever comes of my
+present state of abeyance, I shall never forget your letter or cease to
+be grateful for it.
+
+                                Ever, my dear Wills, faithfully yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. W. H. Wills.]
+
+                    GAD'S HILL PLACE, HIGHAM BY ROCHESTER, KENT,
+                                            _Sunday, June 13th, 1867._
+
+MY DEAR WILLS,
+
+I have read the first three numbers of Wilkie's story this morning, and
+have gone minutely through the plot of the rest to the last line. It
+gives a series of "narratives," but it is a very curious story, wild,
+and yet domestic, with excellent character in it, and great mystery. It
+is prepared with extraordinary care, and has every chance of being a
+hit. It is in many respects much better than anything he has done. The
+question is, how shall we fill up the blank between Mabel's progress and
+Wilkie? What do you think of proposing to Fitzgerald to do a story three
+months long? I daresay he has some unfinished or projected something by
+him.
+
+I have an impression that it was not Silvester who tried Eliza Fenning,
+but Knowles. One can hardly suppose Thornbury to make such a mistake,
+but I wish you would look into the Annual Register. I have added a final
+paragraph about the unfairness of the judge, whoever he was. I
+distinctly recollect to have read of his "putting down" of Eliza
+Fenning's father when the old man made some miserable suggestion in his
+daughter's behalf (this is not noticed by Thornbury), and he also
+stopped some suggestion that a knife thrust into a loaf adulterated with
+alum would present the appearance that these knives presented. But I may
+have got both these points from looking up some pamphlets in Upcott's
+collection which I once had.
+
+Your account of your journey reminds me of one of the latest American
+stories, how a traveller by stage-coach said to the driver: "Did you
+ever see a snail, sir?" "Yes, sir." "Where did you meet him, sir?" "I
+_didn't_ meet him, sir!" "Wa'al, sir, I think you did, if you'll excuse
+me, for I'm damned if you ever overtook him."
+
+Ever faithfully.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mrs. Henderson.]
+
+                               GAD'S HILL, _Thursday, July 4th, 1867._
+
+MY DEAR MRS. HENDERSON,
+
+I was more shocked than surprised by the receipt of your mother's
+announcement of our poor dear Marguerite's death. When I heard of the
+consultation, and recalled what had preceded it and what I have seen
+here, my hopes were very slight.
+
+Your letter did not reach me until last night, and thus I could not
+avoid remaining here to-day, to keep an American appointment of unusual
+importance. You and your mother both know, I think, that I had a great
+affection for Marguerite, that we had many dear remembrances together,
+and that her self-reliance and composed perseverance had awakened my
+highest admiration in later times. No one could have stood by her grave
+to-day with a better knowledge of all that was great and good in her
+than I have, or with a more loving remembrance of her through all her
+phases since she first came to London a pretty timid girl.
+
+I do not trouble your mother by writing to her separately. It is a sad,
+sad task to write at all. God help us!
+
+                                                     Faithfully yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. Percy Fitzgerald.]
+
+                                        GAD'S HILL, _July 21st, 1867._
+
+MY DEAR FITZGERALD,
+
+I am heartily glad to get your letter, and shall be thoroughly well
+pleased to study you again in the pages of A. Y. R.
+
+I have settled nothing yet about America, but am going to send Dolby out
+on the 3rd of next month to survey the land, and come back with a report
+on some heads whereon I require accurate information. Proposals (both
+from American and English speculators) of a very tempting nature have
+been repeatedly made to me; but I cannot endure the thought of binding
+myself to give so many readings there whether I like it or no; and if I
+go at all, am bent on going with Dolby single-handed.
+
+I have been doing two things for America; one, the little story to which
+you refer; the other, four little papers for a child's magazine. I like
+them both, and think the latter a queer combination of a child's mind
+with a grown-up joke. I have had them printed to assure correct printing
+in the United States. You shall have the proof to read, with the
+greatest pleasure. On second thoughts, why shouldn't I send you the
+children's proof by this same post? I will, as I have it here, send it
+under another cover. When you return it, you shall have the short story.
+
+                                    Believe me, always heartily yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. Percy Fitzgerald.]
+
+                                  EXTRACT.
+
+                                                    _July 28th, 1867._
+
+I am glad you like the children, and particularly glad you like the
+pirate. I remember very well when I had a general idea of occupying that
+place in history at the same age. But I loved more desperately than
+Boldheart.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Hogarth.]
+
+             ADELPHI HOTEL, LIVERPOOL, _Friday Night, Aug. 2nd, 1867._
+
+MY DEAREST GEORGY,
+
+I cannot get a boot on--wear a slipper on my left foot, and consequently
+am here under difficulties. My foot is occasionally painful, but not
+very. I don't think it worth while consulting anybody about it as yet. I
+make out so many reasons against supposing it to be gouty, that I really
+do not think it is.
+
+Dolby begs me to send all manner of apologetic messages for his going to
+America. He is very cheerful and hopeful, but evidently feels the
+separation from his wife and child very much. His sister[17] was at
+Euston Square this morning, looking very well. Sainton too, very light
+and jovial.
+
+With the view of keeping myself and my foot quiet, I think I will not
+come to Gad's Hill until Monday. If I don't appear before, send basket
+to Gravesend to meet me, leaving town by the 12.10 on Monday. This is
+important, as I couldn't walk a quarter of a mile to-night for five
+hundred pounds.
+
+Love to all at Gad's.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. W. H. Wills.]
+
+                                GAD'S HILL, _Monday, Sept. 2nd, 1867._
+
+MY DEAR WILLS,
+
+Like you, I was shocked when this new discovery burst upon me on Friday,
+though, unlike you, I never could believe in ----, solely (I think)
+because, often as I have tried him, I never found him standing by my
+desk when I was writing a letter without trying to read it.
+
+I fear there is no doubt that since ----'s discharge, he (----) has
+stolen money at the readings. A case of an abstracted shilling seems to
+have been clearly brought home to him by Chappell's people, and they
+know very well what _that_ means. I supposed a very clear keeping off
+from Anne's husband (whom I recommended for employment to Chappell) to
+have been referable only to ----; but now I see how hopeless and unjust
+it would be to expect belief from him with two such cases within his
+knowledge.
+
+But don't let the thing spoil your holiday. If we try to do our duty by
+people we employ, by exacting their proper service from them on the one
+hand, and treating them with all possible consistency, gentleness, and
+consideration on the other, we know that we do right. Their doing wrong
+cannot change our doing right, and that should be enough for us.
+
+So I have given _my_ feathers a shake, and am all right again. Give
+_your_ feathers a shake, and take a cheery flutter into the air of
+Hertfordshire.
+
+Great reports from Dolby and also from Fields! But I keep myself quite
+calm, and hold my decision in abeyance until I shall have book, chapter,
+and verse before me. Dolby hoped he could leave Uncle Sam on the 11th of
+this month.
+
+Sydney has passed as a lieutenant, and appeared at home yesterday, all
+of a sudden, with the consequent golden garniture on his sleeve, which
+I, God forgive me, stared at without the least idea that it meant
+promotion.
+
+I am glad you see a certain unlikeness to anything in the American
+story. Upon myself it has made the strangest impression of reality and
+originality!! And I feel as if I had read something (by somebody else),
+which I should never get out of my mind!!! The main idea of the
+narrator's position towards the other people was the idea that I _had_
+for my next novel in A. Y. R. But it is very curious that I did not in
+the least see how to begin his state of mind until I walked into Hoghton
+Towers one bright April day with Dolby.
+
+                                                      Faithfully ever.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. F. D. Finlay.]
+
+           CONTRADICTING A NEWSPAPER REPORT OF HIS BEING IN A
+                       CRITICAL STATE OF HEALTH.
+
+                    GAD'S HILL PLACE, HIGHAM BY ROCHESTER, KENT,
+                                           _Tuesday, Sept. 3rd, 1867._
+
+This is to certify that the undersigned victim of a periodical
+paragraph-disease, which usually breaks out once in every seven years
+(proceeding to England by the overland route to India and per Cunard
+line to America, where it strikes the base of the Rocky Mountains, and,
+rebounding to Europe, perishes on the steppes of Russia), is _not_ in a
+"critical state of health," and has _not_ consulted "eminent surgeons,"
+and never was better in his life, and is _not_ recommended to proceed to
+the United States for "cessation from literary labour," and has not had
+so much as a headache for twenty years.
+
+                                                      CHARLES DICKENS.
+
+
+[Sidenote: M. Charles Fechter.]
+
+                                    "ALL THE YEAR ROUND" OFFICE,
+                                           _Monday, Sept. 16th, 1867._
+
+MY DEAR FECHTER,
+
+Going over the prompt-book carefully, I see one change in your part to
+which (on Lytton's behalf) I positively object, as I am quite certain he
+would not consent to it. It is highly injudicious besides, as striking
+out the best known line in the play.
+
+Turn to your part in Act III., the speech beginning
+
+                                Pauline, _by pride
+        Angels have fallen ere thy time_: by pride----
+
+You have made a passage farther on stand:
+
+                            _Then did I seek to rise
+        Out of my mean estate. Thy bright image, etc._
+
+I must stipulate for your restoring it thus:
+
+                            Then did I seek to rise
+        Out of the prison of my mean estate;
+        And, with such jewels as the exploring mind
+        Brings from the caves of knowledge, buy my ransom
+        From those twin jailers of the daring heart--
+        Low birth and iron fortune. Thy bright image, etc. etc.
+
+The last figure has been again and again quoted; is identified with the
+play; is fine in itself; and above all, I KNOW that Lytton would not let
+it go. In writing to him to-day, fully explaining the changes in detail,
+and saying that I disapprove of nothing else, I have told him that I
+notice this change and that I immediately let you know that it must not
+be made.
+
+(There will not be a man in the house from any newspaper who would not
+detect mutilations in that speech, moreover.)
+
+                                                                 Ever.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Hogarth.]
+
+                                           _Monday, Sept. 30th, 1867._
+
+MY DEAREST GEORGY,
+
+The telegram is despatched to Boston: "Yes. Go ahead." After a very
+anxious consultation with Forster, and careful heed of what is to be
+said for and against, I have made up my mind to see it out. I do not
+expect as much money as the calculators estimate, but I cannot set the
+hope of a large sum of money aside.
+
+I am so nervous with travelling and anxiety to decide something, that I
+can hardly write. But I send you these few words as my dearest and best
+friend.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Dickens.]
+
+  OFFICE OF "ALL THE YEAR ROUND," NO. 26, WELLINGTON STREET, STRAND,
+                                      LONDON, W.C.,
+                                           _Monday, Sept. 30th, 1867._
+
+MY DEAREST MAMIE,
+
+You will have had my telegram that I go to America. After a long
+discussion with Forster, and consideration of what is to be said on both
+sides, I have decided to go through with it. I doubt the profit being as
+great as the calculation makes it, but the prospect is sufficiently
+alluring to turn the scale on the American side.
+
+Unless I telegraph to the contrary, I will come to Gravesend (send
+basket there) by 12 train on Wednesday. Love to all.
+
+We have telegraphed "Yes" to Boston.
+
+I begin to feel myself drawn towards America, as Darnay, in the "Tale of
+Two Cities," was attracted to the Loadstone Rock, Paris.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. William Charles Kent.]
+
+                   26, WELLINGTON STREET, _Saturday, Oct. 19th, 1867._
+
+MY DEAR KENT,
+
+In the midst of the great trouble you are taking in the cause of your
+undersigned affectionate friend, I hope the reading of the enclosed may
+be a sort of small godsend. Of course it is very strictly private. The
+printers are not yet trusted with the name, but the name will be, "No
+Thoroughfare." I have done the greater part of it; may you find it
+interesting!
+
+My solicitor, a man of some mark and well known, is anxious to be on the
+Committee:
+
+        Frederic Ouvry, Esquire,
+                 66, Lincoln's Inn Fields.
+
+                                            Ever affectionately yours.
+
+P.S.--My sailor son!
+
+I forgot him!!
+
+Coming up from Portsmouth for the dinner!!!
+
+Der--er--oo not cur--ur--urse me, I implore.
+
+                                                           Penitently.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mrs. Power.]
+
+                             GAD'S HILL, _Wednesday, Oct. 23rd, 1867._
+
+MY DEAR MRS. POWER,
+
+I have a sad pleasure in the knowledge that our dear Marguerite so
+remembered her old friend, and I shall preserve the token of her
+remembrance with loving care. The sight of it has brought back many old
+days.
+
+With kind remembrance to Mrs. Henderson,
+
+                             Believe me always, very faithfully yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. J. L. Toole.]
+
+                    GAD'S HILL PLACE, HIGHAM BY ROCHESTER, KENT,
+                                           _Saturday, Nov. 2nd, 1867._
+
+MY DEAR MR. TOOLE,
+
+I heartily thank you for your elegant token of remembrance, and for your
+earnest letter. Both have afforded me real pleasure, and the first-named
+shall go with me on my journey.
+
+Let me take this opportunity of saying that on receipt of your letter
+concerning to-day's dinner, I immediately forwarded your request to the
+honorary secretary. I hope you will understand that I could not, in
+delicacy, otherwise take part in the matter.
+
+Again thanking you most cordially,
+
+                                  Believe me, always faithfully yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. W. H. Wills.]
+
+                      26, WELLINGTON STREET, _Sunday, Nov. 3rd, 1867._
+
+MY DEAR WILLS,
+
+If you were to write me many such warm-hearted letters as you send this
+morning, my heart would fail me! There is nothing that so breaks down my
+determination, or shows me what an iron force I put upon myself, and how
+weak it is, as a touch of true affection from a tried friend.
+
+All that you so earnestly say about the goodwill and devotion of all
+engaged, I perceived and deeply felt last night. It moved me even more
+than the demonstration itself, though I do suppose it was the most
+brilliant ever seen. When I got up to speak, but for taking a desperate
+hold of myself, I should have lost my sight and voice and sat down
+again.
+
+God bless you, my dear fellow. I am, ever and ever,
+
+                                                    Your affectionate.
+
+
+[Sidenote: The Hon. Mrs. Watson.]
+
+                                  OFFICE OF "ALL THE YEAR ROUND,"
+                                            _Tuesday, Nov. 5th, 1867._
+
+MY DEAR MRS. WATSON,
+
+A thousand thanks for your kind letter, and many congratulations on your
+having successfully attained a dignity which I never allow to be
+mentioned in my presence. Charley's children are instructed from their
+tenderest months only to know me as "Wenerables," which they sincerely
+believe to be my name, and a kind of title that I have received from a
+grateful country.
+
+Alas! I cannot have the pleasure of seeing you before I presently go to
+Liverpool. Every moment of my time is preoccupied. But I send you my
+sincere love, and am always truthful to the dear old days, and the
+memory of one of the dearest friends I ever loved.
+
+                                                 Affectionately yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Dickens.]
+
+                          ABOARD THE "CUBA," QUEENSTOWN HARBOUR,
+                                            _Sunday, Nov. 10th, 1867._
+
+MY DEAREST MAMIE,
+
+We arrived here at seven this morning, and shall probably remain
+awaiting our mail, until four or five this afternoon. The weather in the
+passage here was delightful, and we had scarcely any motion beyond that
+of the screw.
+
+We are nearly but not quite full of passengers. At table I sit next the
+captain, on his right, on the outside of the table and close to the
+door. My little cabin is big enough for everything but getting up in and
+going to bed in. As it has a good window which I can leave open all
+night, and a door which I can set open too, it suits my chief
+requirements of it--plenty of air--admirably. On a writing-slab in it,
+which pulls out when wanted, I now write in a majestic manner.
+
+Many of the passengers are American, and I am already on the best terms
+with nearly all the ship.
+
+We began our voyage yesterday a very little while after you left us,
+which was a great relief. The wind is S.E. this morning, and if it would
+keep so we should go along nobly. My dearest love to your aunt, and
+also to Katie and all the rest. I am in very good health, thank God, and
+as well as possible.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Hogarth.]
+
+                               ABOARD THE "CUBA," FIVE DAYS OUT,
+                                         _Wednesday, Nov. 13th, 1867._
+
+MY DEAREST GEORGY,
+
+As I wrote to Mamie last, I now write to you, or mean to do it, if the
+motion of the ship will let me.
+
+We are very nearly halfway to-day. The weather was favourable for us
+until yesterday morning, when we got a head-wind which still stands by
+us. We have rolled and pitched, of course; but on the whole have been
+wonderfully well off. I have had headache and have felt faint once or
+twice, _but have not been sick at all_. My spacious cabin is very noisy
+at night, as the most important working of the ship goes on outside my
+window and over my head; but it is very airy, and if the weather be bad
+and I can't open the window, I can open the door all night. If the
+weather be fine (as it is now), I can open both door and window, and
+write between them. Last night, I got a foot-bath under the dignified
+circumstances of sitting on a camp-stool in my cabin, and having the
+bath (and my feet) in the passage outside. The officers' quarters are
+close to me, and, as I know them all, I get reports of the weather and
+the way we are making when the watch is changed, and I am (as I usually
+am) lying awake. The motion of the screw is at its slightest vibration
+in my particular part of the ship. The silent captain, reported gruff,
+is a very good fellow and an honest fellow. Kelly has been ill all the
+time, and not of the slightest use, and is ill now. Scott always
+cheerful, and useful, and ready; a better servant for the kind of work
+there never can have been. Young Lowndes has been fearfully sick until
+mid-day yesterday. His cabin is pitch dark, and full of blackbeetles. He
+shares mine until nine o'clock at night, when Scott carries him off to
+bed. He also dines with me in my magnificent chamber. This passage in
+winter time cannot be said to be an enjoyable excursion, but I certainly
+am making it under the best circumstances. (I find Dolby to have been
+enormously popular on board, and to have known everybody and gone
+everywhere.)
+
+So much for my news, except that I have been constantly reading, and
+find that "Pierra" that Mrs. Hogge sent me by Katie to be a very
+remarkable book, not only for its grim and horrible story, but for its
+suggestion of wheels within wheels, and sad human mysteries. Baker's
+second book not nearly so good as his first, but his first anticipated
+it.
+
+We hope to get to Halifax either on Sunday or Monday, and to Boston
+either on Tuesday or Wednesday. The glass is rising high to-day, and
+everybody on board is hopeful of an easterly wind.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Hogarth.]
+
+                                                     _Saturday, 16th._
+
+Last Thursday afternoon a heavy gale of wind sprang up and blew hard
+until dark, when it seemed to lull. But it then came on again with great
+violence, and blew tremendously all night. The noise, and the rolling
+and plunging of the ship, were awful. Nobody on board could get any
+sleep, and numbers of passengers were rolled out of their berths. Having
+a side-board to mine to keep me in, like a baby, I lay still. But it was
+a dismal night indeed, and it was curious to see the change it had made
+in the faces of all the passengers yesterday. It cannot be denied that
+these winter crossings are very trying and startling; while the
+personal discomfort of not being able to wash, and the miseries of
+getting up and going to bed, with what small means there are all
+sliding, and sloping, and slopping about, are really in their way
+distressing.
+
+This forenoon we made Cape Race, and are now running along at full speed
+with the land beside us. Kelly still useless, and positively declining
+to show on deck. Scott, with an eight-day-old moustache, more super like
+than ever. My foot (I hope from walking on the boarded deck) in a very
+shy condition to-day, and rather painful. I shaved this morning for the
+first time since Liverpool; dodging at the glass, very much like
+Fechter's imitation of ----. The white cat that came off with us in the
+tender a general favourite. She belongs to the daughter of a Southerner,
+returning with his wife and family from a two-years' tour in Europe.
+
+
+                                                       _Sunday, 17th._
+
+At four o'clock this morning we got into bad weather again, and the
+state of things at breakfast-time was unutterably miserable. Nearly all
+the passengers in their berths--no possibility of standing on
+deck--sickness and groans--impracticable to pass a cup of tea from one
+pair of hands to another. It has slightly moderated since (between two
+and three in the afternoon I write), and the sun is shining, but the
+rolling of the ship surpasses all imagination or description.
+
+We expect to be at Halifax about an hour after midnight, and this letter
+shall be posted there, to make certain of catching the return mail on
+Wednesday. Boston is only thirty hours from Halifax.
+
+Best love to Mamie, and to Katie and Charley. I know you will report me
+and my love to Forster and Mrs. Forster. I write with great difficulty,
+wedged up in a corner, and having my heels on the paper as often as the
+pen. Kelly worse than ever, and Scott better than ever.
+
+My desk and I have just arisen from the floor.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Dickens.]
+
+                    PARKER HOUSE, BOSTON, _Thursday, Nov. 21st, 1867._
+
+I arrived here on Tuesday night, after a very slow passage from Halifax
+against head-winds. All the tickets for the first four readings here
+(all yet announced) were sold immediately on their being issued.
+
+You know that I begin on the 2nd of December with "Carol" and "Trial"?
+Shall be heartily glad to begin to count the readings off.
+
+This is an immense hotel, with all manner of white marble public
+passages and public rooms. I live in a corner high up, and have a hot
+and cold bath in my bedroom (communicating with the sitting-room), and
+comforts not in existence when I was here before. The cost of living is
+enormous, but happily we can afford it. I dine to-day with Longfellow,
+Emerson, Holmes, and Agassiz. Longfellow was here yesterday. Perfectly
+white in hair and beard, but a remarkably handsome and notable-looking
+man. The city has increased enormously in five-and-twenty years. It has
+grown more mercantile--is like Leeds mixed with Preston, and flavoured
+with New Brighton; but for smoke and fog you substitute an exquisitely
+bright light air. I found my rooms beautifully decorated (by Mrs.
+Fields) with choice flowers, and set off by a number of good books. I am
+not much persecuted by people in general, as Dolby has happily made up
+his mind that the less I am exhibited for nothing the better. So our men
+sit outside the room door and wrestle with mankind.
+
+We had speech-making and singing in the saloon of the _Cuba_ after the
+last dinner of the voyage. I think I have acquired a higher reputation
+from drawing out the captain, and getting him to take the second in
+"All's Well," and likewise in "There's not in the wide world" (your
+parent taking first), than from anything previously known of me on these
+shores. I hope the effect of these achievements may not dim the lustre
+of the readings. We also sang (with a Chicago lady, and a strong-minded
+woman from I don't know where) "Auld Lang Syne," with a tender
+melancholy, expressive of having all four been united from our cradles.
+The more dismal we were, the more delighted the company were. Once (when
+we paddled i' the burn) the captain took a little cruise round the
+compass on his own account, touching at the "Canadian Boat Song," and
+taking in supplies at "Jubilate," "Seas between us braid ha' roared,"
+and roared like the seas themselves. Finally, I proposed the ladies in a
+speech that convulsed the stewards, and we closed with a brilliant
+success. But when you dine with Mr. Forster, ask him to read to you how
+we got on at church in a heavy sea. Hillard has just been in and sent
+his love "to those dear girls." He has grown much older. He is now
+District Attorney of the State of Massachusetts, which is a very good
+office. Best love to your aunt and Katie, and Charley and all his house,
+and all friends.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Hogarth.]
+
+                      PARKER HOUSE, BOSTON, _Monday, Nov. 25th, 1867._
+
+I cannot remember to whom I wrote last, but it will not much matter if I
+make a mistake; this being generally to report myself so well, that I am
+constantly chafing at not having begun to-night instead of this night
+week.
+
+The tickets being all sold for next week, and no other announcement
+being yet made, there is nothing new in that way to tell of. Dolby is
+over at New York, where we are at our wits' end how to keep tickets out
+of the hands of speculators. Morgan is staying with me; came yesterday
+to breakfast, and goes home to-morrow. Fields and Mrs. Fields also dined
+yesterday. She is a very nice woman, with a rare relish for humour and a
+most contagious laugh. The Bostonians having been duly informed that I
+wish to be quiet, really leave me as much so as I should be in
+Manchester or Liverpool. This I cannot expect to last elsewhere; but it
+is a most welcome relief here, as I have all the readings to get up. The
+people are perfectly kind and perfectly agreeable. If I stop to look in
+at a shop-window, a score of passers-by stop; and after I begin to read,
+I cannot expect in the natural course of things to get off so easily.
+But I every day take from seven to ten miles in peace.
+
+Communications about readings incessantly come in from all parts of the
+country. We take no offer whatever, lying by with our plans until after
+the first series in New York, and designing, if we make a furore there,
+to travel as little as possible. I fear I shall have to take Canada at
+the end of the whole tour. They make such strong representations from
+Montreal and Toronto, and from Nova Scotia--represented by St. John's
+and Halifax--of the slight it would be to them, if I wound up with the
+States, that I am shaken.
+
+It is sad to see Longfellow's house (the house in which his wife was
+burnt) with his young daughters in it, and the shadow of that terrible
+story. The young undergraduates of Cambridge (he is a professor there)
+have made a representation to him that they are five hundred strong,
+and cannot get one ticket. I don't know what is to be done for them; I
+suppose I must read there somehow. We are all in the clouds until I
+shall have broken ground in New York, as to where readings will be
+possible and where impossible.
+
+Agassiz is one of the most natural and jovial of men. I go out
+a-visiting as little as I can, but still have to dine, and what is
+worse, sup pretty often. Socially, I am (as I was here before)
+wonderfully reminded of Edinburgh when I had many friends in it.
+
+Your account and Mamie's of the return journey to London gave me great
+pleasure. I was delighted with your report of Wilkie, and not surprised
+by Chappell's coming out gallantly.
+
+My anxiety to get to work is greater than I can express, because time
+seems to be making no movement towards home until I shall be reading
+hard. Then I shall begin to count and count and count the upward steps
+to May.
+
+If ever you should be in a position to advise a traveller going on a sea
+voyage, remember that there is some mysterious service done to the
+bilious system when it is shaken, by baked apples. Noticing that they
+were produced on board the _Cuba_, every day at lunch and dinner, I
+thought I would make the experiment of always eating them freely. I am
+confident that they did wonders, not only at the time, but in stopping
+the imaginary pitching and rolling after the voyage is over, from which
+many good amateur sailors suffer. I have hardly had the sensation at
+all, except in washing of a morning. At that time I still hold on with
+one knee to the washing-stand, and could swear that it rolls from left
+to right. The _Cuba_ does not return until Wednesday, the 4th December.
+You may suppose that every officer on board is coming on Monday, and
+that Dolby has provided extra stools for them. His work is very hard
+indeed. Cards are brought to him every minute in the day; his
+correspondence is immense; and he is jerked off to New York, and I don't
+know where else, on the shortest notice and the most unreasonable times.
+Moreover, he has to be at "the bar" every night, and to "liquor up with
+all creation" in the small hours. He does it all with the greatest good
+humour, and flies at everybody who waylays the Chief, furiously. We have
+divided our men into watches, so that one always sits outside the
+drawing-room door. Dolby knows the whole Cunard line, and as we could
+not get good English gin, went out in a steamer yesterday and got two
+cases (twenty-four bottles) out of Cunard officers. Osgood and he were
+detached together last evening for New York, whence they telegraph every
+other hour about some new point in this precious sale of tickets. So
+distracted a telegram arrived at three that I have telegraphed back,
+"Explain yourselves," and am now waiting for the explanation. I think
+you know that Osgood is a partner in Ticknor and Fields'.
+
+Tuesday morning.--Dolby has come back from New York, where the prospects
+seem immense. We sell tickets there next Friday and Saturday, and a
+tremendous rush is expected.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. Charles Dickens.]
+
+              PARKER HOUSE, BOSTON, U.S., _Saturday, Nov. 30th, 1867._
+
+MY DEAR CHARLEY,
+
+You will have heard before now how fortunate I was on my voyage, and how
+I was not sick for a moment. These screws are tremendous ships for
+carrying on, and for rolling, and their vibration is rather distressing.
+But my little cabin, being for'ard of the machinery, was in the best
+part of the vessel, and I had as much air in it, night and day, as I
+chose. The saloon being kept absolutely without air, I mostly dined in
+my own den, in spite of my being allotted the post of honour on the
+right hand of the captain.
+
+The tickets for the first four readings here (the only readings
+announced) were all sold immediately, and many are now re-selling at a
+large premium. The tickets for the first four readings in New York (the
+only readings announced there also) were on sale yesterday, and were all
+sold in a few hours. The receipts are very large indeed; but engagements
+of any kind and every kind I steadily refuse, being resolved to take
+what is to be taken myself. Dolby is nearly worked off his legs, is now
+at New York, and goes backwards and forwards between this place and that
+(about the distance from London to Liverpool, though they take nine
+hours to do it) incessantly. Nothing can exceed his energy and good
+humour, and he is extremely popular everywhere. My great desire is to
+avoid much travelling, and to try to get the people to come to me,
+instead of my going to them. If I can effect this to any moderate
+extent, I shall be saved a great deal of knocking about. My original
+purpose was not to go to Canada at all; but Canada is so up in arms on
+the subject that I think I shall be obliged to take it at last. In that
+case I should work round to Halifax, Nova Scotia, and then take the
+packet for home.
+
+As they don't seem (Americans who have heard me on their travels
+excepted) to have the least idea here of what the readings are like, and
+as they are accustomed to mere readings out of a book, I am inclined to
+think the excitement will increase when I shall have begun. Everybody
+is very kind and considerate, and I have a number of old friends here,
+at the Bar and connected with the University. I am now negotiating to
+bring out the dramatic version of "No Thoroughfare" at New York. It is
+quite upon the cards that it may turn up trumps.
+
+I was interrupted in that place by a call from my old secretary in the
+States, Mr. Putnam. It was quite affecting to see his delight in meeting
+his old master again. And when I told him that Anne was married, and
+that I had (unacknowledged) grandchildren, he laughed and cried
+together. I suppose you don't remember Longfellow, though he remembers
+you in a black velvet frock very well. He is now white-haired and
+white-bearded, but remarkably handsome. He still lives in his old house,
+where his beautiful wife was burnt to death. I dined with him the other
+day, and could not get the terrific scene out of my imagination. She was
+in a blaze in an instant, rushed into his arms with a wild cry, and
+never spoke afterwards.
+
+My love to Bessie, and to Mekitty, and all the babbies. I will lay this
+by until Tuesday morning, and then add a final line to it.
+
+                      Ever, my dear Charley, your affectionate Father.
+
+
+                                            _Tuesday, Dec. 3rd, 1867._
+
+Success last night beyond description or exaggeration. The whole city is
+quite frantic about it to-day, and it is impossible that prospects could
+be more brilliant.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Dickens.]
+
+                       PARKER HOUSE, BOSTON, _Sunday, Dec. 1st, 1867._
+
+I received yours of the 18th November, yesterday. As I left Halifax in
+the _Cuba_ that very day, you probably saw us telegraphed in _The Times_
+on the 19th.
+
+Dolby came back from another run to New York, this morning. The receipts
+are very large indeed, far exceeding our careful estimate made at Gad's.
+I think you had best in future (unless I give you intimation to the
+contrary) address your letters to me, at the Westminster Hotel, Irving
+Place, New York City. It is a more central position than this, and we
+are likely to be much more there than here. I am going to set up a
+brougham in New York, and keep my rooms at that hotel. The account of
+Matilda is a very melancholy one, and really distresses me. What she
+must sink into, it is sad to consider. However, there was nothing for it
+but to send her away, that is quite clear.
+
+They are said to be a very quiet audience here, appreciative but not
+demonstrative. I shall try to change their character a little.
+
+I have been going on very well. A horrible custom obtains in these parts
+of asking you to dinner somewhere at half-past two, and to supper
+somewhere else about eight. I have run this gauntlet more than once, and
+its effect is, that there is no day for any useful purpose, and that the
+length of the evening is multiplied by a hundred. Yesterday I dined with
+a club at half-past two, and came back here at half-past eight, with a
+general impression that it was at least two o'clock in the morning. Two
+days before I dined with Longfellow at half-past two, and came back at
+eight, supposing it to be midnight. To-day we have a state dinner-party
+in our rooms at six, Mr. and Mrs. Fields, and Mr. and Mrs. Bigelow. (He
+is a friend of Forster's, and was American Minister in Paris). There are
+no negro waiters here, all the servants are Irish--willing, but not
+able. The dinners and wines are very good. I keep our own rooms well
+ventilated by opening the windows, but no window is ever opened in the
+halls or passages, and they are so overheated by a great furnace, that
+they make me faint and sick. The air is like that of a pre-Adamite
+ironing-day in full blast. Your respected parent is immensely popular in
+Boston society, and its cordiality and unaffected heartiness are
+charming. I wish I could carry it with me.
+
+The leading New York papers have sent men over for to-morrow night with
+instructions to telegraph columns of descriptions. Great excitement and
+expectation everywhere. Fields says he has looked forward to it so long
+that he knows he will die at five minutes to eight.
+
+At the New York barriers, where the tickets are on sale and the people
+ranged as at the Paris theatres, speculators went up and down offering
+"twenty dollars for anybody's place." The money was in no case accepted.
+One man sold two tickets for the second, third, and fourth night for
+"one ticket for the first, fifty dollars" (about seven pounds ten
+shillings), "and a brandy cocktail," which is an iced bitter drink. The
+weather has been rather muggy and languid until yesterday, when there
+was the coldest wind blowing that I ever felt. In the night it froze
+very hard, and to-day the sky is beautiful.
+
+
+                                                  _Tuesday, Dec. 3rd._
+
+Most magnificent reception last night, and most signal and complete
+success. Nothing could be more triumphant. The people will hear of
+nothing else and talk of nothing else. Nothing that was ever done here,
+they all agree, evoked any approach to such enthusiasm. I was quite as
+cool and quick as if I were reading at Greenwich, and went at it
+accordingly. Tell your aunt, with my best love, that I have this morning
+received hers of the 21st, and that I will write to her next. That will
+be from New York. My love to Mr. and Mrs. Hulkes and the boy, and to Mr.
+and Mrs. Malleson.[18]
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Hogarth.]
+
+                                  BOSTON, _Wednesday, Dec. 4th, 1867._
+
+I find that by going off to the _Cuba_ myself this morning I can send
+you the enclosed for Mary Boyle (I don't know how to address her), whose
+usual flower for my button-hole was produced in the most extraordinary
+manner here last Monday night! All well and prosperous. "Copperfield"
+and "Bob" last night; great success.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Mary Boyle.]
+
+                                         BOSTON, _December 4th, 1867._
+
+MY DEAR MEERY,
+
+You can have no idea of the glow of pleasure and amazement with which I
+saw your remembrance of me lying on my dressing-table here last Monday
+night. Whosoever undertook that commission accomplished it to a miracle.
+But you must go away four thousand miles, and have such a token conveyed
+to _you_, before you can quite appreciate the feeling of receiving it.
+Ten thousand loving thanks.
+
+Immense success here, and unbounded enthusiasm. My largest expectations
+far surpassed.
+
+                                              Ever your affectionate
+                                                                   Jo.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Dickens.]
+
+                 WESTMINSTER HOTEL, IRVING PLACE, NEW YORK CITY,
+                                          _Wednesday, Dec 11th, 1867._
+
+Amazing success here. A very fine audience; _far better than that at
+Boston_. Great reception. Great, "Carol" and "Trial," on the first
+night; still greater, "Copperfield" and "Bob," on the second. Dolby
+sends you a few papers by this post. You will see from their tone what a
+success it is.
+
+I cannot pay this letter, because I give it at the latest moment to the
+mail-officer, who is going on board the Cunard packet in charge of the
+mails, and who is staying in this house. We are now selling (at the
+hall) the tickets for the four readings of next week. At nine o'clock
+this morning there were two thousand people in waiting, and they had
+begun to assemble in the bitter cold as early as two o'clock. All night
+long Dolby and our man have been stamping tickets. (Immediately over my
+head, by-the-bye, and keeping me awake.) This hotel is quite as quiet as
+Mivart's, in Brook Street. It is not very much larger. There are
+American hotels close by, with five hundred bedrooms, and I don't know
+how many boarders; but this is conducted on what is called "the European
+principle," and is an admirable mixture of a first-class French and
+English house. I keep a very smart carriage and pair; and if you were to
+behold me driving out, furred up to the moustache, with furs on the
+coach-boy and on the driver, and with an immense white, red, and yellow
+striped rug for a covering, you would suppose me to be of Hungarian or
+Polish nationality.
+
+Will you report the success here to Mr. Forster with my love, and tell
+him he shall hear from me by next mail?
+
+Dolby sends his kindest regards. He is just come in from our ticket
+sales, and has put such an immense untidy heap of paper money on the
+table that it looks like a family wash. He hardly ever dines, and is
+always tearing about at unreasonable hours. He works very hard.
+
+My best love to your aunt (to whom I will write next), and to Katie, and
+to both the Charleys, and all the Christmas circle, not forgetting
+Chorley, to whom give my special remembrance. You may get this by
+Christmas Day. _We_ shall have to keep it travelling from Boston here;
+for I read at Boston on the 23rd and 24th, and here again on the 26th.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Hogarth.]
+
+                 WESTMINSTER HOTEL, IRVING PLACE, NEW YORK CITY,
+                                            _Monday, Dec. 16th, 1867._
+
+We have been snowed up here, and the communication with Boston is still
+very much retarded. Thus we have received no letters by the Cunard
+steamer that came in last Wednesday, and are in a grim state of mind on
+that subject.
+
+Last night I was getting into bed just at twelve o'clock, when Dolby
+came to my door to inform me that the house was on fire (I had
+previously smelt fire for two hours). I got Scott up directly, told him
+to pack the books and clothes for the readings first, dressed, and
+pocketed my jewels and papers, while Dolby stuffed himself out with
+money. Meanwhile the police and firemen were in the house, endeavouring
+to find where the fire was. For some time it baffled their endeavours,
+but at last, bursting out through some stairs, they cut the stairs away,
+and traced it to its source in a certain fire-grate. By this time the
+hose was laid all through the house from a great tank on the roof, and
+everybody turned out to help. It was the oddest sight, and people had
+put the strangest things on! After a little chopping and cutting with
+axes and handing about of water, the fire was confined to a dining-room
+in which it had originated, and then everybody talked to everybody else,
+the ladies being particularly loquacious and cheerful. And so we got to
+bed again at about two.
+
+The excitement of the readings continues unabated, the tickets for
+readings are sold as soon as they are ready, and the public pay treble
+prices to the speculators who buy them up. They are a wonderfully fine
+audience, even better than Edinburgh, and almost, if not quite, as good
+as Paris.
+
+Dolby continues to be the most unpopular man in America (mainly because
+he can't get four thousand people into a room that holds two thousand),
+and is reviled in print daily. Yesterday morning a newspaper proclaims
+of him: "Surely it is time that the pudding-headed Dolby retired into
+the native gloom from which he has emerged." He takes it very coolly,
+and does his best. Mrs. Morgan sent me, the other night, I suppose the
+finest and costliest basket of flowers ever seen, made of white
+camellias, yellow roses, pink roses, and I don't know what else. It is a
+yard and a half round at its smallest part.
+
+I must bring this to a close, as I have to go to the hall to try an
+enlarged background.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Hogarth.]
+
+                                    BOSTON, _Sunday, Dec. 22nd, 1867._
+
+Coming here from New York last night (after a detestable journey), I was
+delighted to find your letter of the 6th. I read it at my ten o'clock
+dinner with the greatest interest and pleasure, and then we talked of
+home till we went to bed.
+
+Our tour is now being made out, and I hope to be able to send it in my
+next letter home, which will be to Mamie, from whom I have _not_ heard
+(as you thought I had) by the mail that brought out yours. After very
+careful consideration I have reversed Dolby's original plan, and have
+decided on taking Baltimore, Washington, Cincinnati, _Chicago_ (!), St.
+Louis, and a few other places nearer here, instead of staying in New
+York. My reason is that we are doing immensely, both at New York and
+here, and that I am sure it is in the peculiar character of the people
+to prize a thing the more the less easily attainable it is made.
+Therefore, I want, by absence, to get the greatest rush and pressure
+upon the five farewell readings in New York in April. All our announced
+readings are already crammed.
+
+When we got here last Saturday night, we found that Mrs. Fields had not
+only garnished the rooms with flowers, but also with holly (with real
+red berries) and festoons of moss dependent from the looking-glasses and
+picture frames. She is one of the dearest little women in the world. The
+homely Christmas look of the place quite affected us. Yesterday we dined
+at her house, and there was a plum-pudding, brought on blazing, and not
+to be surpassed in any house in England. There is a certain Captain
+Dolliver, belonging to the Boston Custom House, who came off in the
+little steamer that brought me ashore from the _Cuba_. He took it into
+his head that he would have a piece of English mistletoe brought out in
+this week's Cunard, which should be laid upon my breakfast-table. And
+there it was this morning. In such affectionate touches as this, these
+New England people are especially amiable.
+
+As a general rule, you may lay it down that whatever you see about me in
+the papers is not true. But although my voyage out was of that highly
+hilarious description that you first made known to me, you may
+_generally_ lend a more believing ear to the Philadelphia correspondent
+of _The Times_. I don't know him, but I know the source from which he
+derives his information, and it is a very respectable one.
+
+Did I tell you in a former letter from here, to tell Anne, with her old
+master's love, that I had seen Putnam, my old secretary? Grey, and with
+several front teeth out, but I would have known him anywhere. He is
+coming to "Copperfield" to-night, accompanied by his wife and daughter,
+and is in the seventh heaven at having his tickets given him.
+
+Our hotel in New York was on fire _again_ the other night. But fires in
+this country are quite matters of course. There was a large one there at
+four this morning, and I don't think a single night has passed since I
+have been under the protection of the Eagle, but I have heard the fire
+bells dolefully clanging all over the city.
+
+Dolby sends his kindest regard. His hair has become quite white, the
+effect, I suppose, of the climate. He is so universally hauled over the
+coals (for no reason on earth), that I fully expect to hear him, one of
+these nights, assailed with a howl when he precedes me to the platform
+steps. You may conceive what the low newspapers are here, when one of
+them yesterday morning had, as an item of news, the intelligence:
+"Dickens's Readings. The chap calling himself Dolby got drunk last
+night, and was locked up in a police-station for fighting an Irishman."
+I don't find that anybody is shocked by this liveliness.
+
+My love to all, and to Mrs. Hulkes and the boy. By-the-bye, when we left
+New York for this place, Dolby called my amazed attention to the
+circumstance that Scott was leaning his head against the side of the
+carriage and weeping bitterly. I asked him what was the matter, and he
+replied: "The owdacious treatment of the luggage, which was more
+outrageous than a man could bear." I told him not to make a fool of
+himself; but they do knock it about cruelly. I think every trunk we have
+is already broken.
+
+I must leave off, as I am going out for a walk in a bright sunlight and
+a complete break-up of the frost and snow. I am much better than I have
+been during the last week, but have a cold.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Dickens.]
+
+                 WESTMINSTER HOTEL, IRVING PLACE, NEW YORK CITY,
+                                          _Thursday, Dec. 26th, 1867._
+
+I got your aunt's last letter at Boston yesterday, Christmas Day
+morning, when I was starting at eleven o'clock to come back to this
+place. I wanted it very much, for I had a frightful cold (English colds
+are nothing to those of this country), and was exceedingly depressed and
+miserable. Not that I had any reason but illness for being so, since the
+Bostonians had been quite astounding in their demonstrations. I never
+saw anything like them on Christmas Eve. But it is a bad country to be
+unwell and travelling in; you are one of say a hundred people in a
+heated car, with a great stove in it, and all the little windows closed,
+and the hurrying and banging about are indescribable. The atmosphere is
+detestable, and the motion often all but intolerable. However, we got
+our dinner here at eight o'clock, and plucked up a little, and I made
+some hot gin punch to drink a merry Christmas to all at home in. But it
+must be confessed that we were both very dull. I have been in bed all
+day until two o'clock, and here I am now (at three o'clock) a little
+better. But I am not fit to read, and I must read to-night. After
+watching the general character pretty closely, I became quite sure that
+Dolby was wrong on the length of the stay and the number of readings we
+had proposed in this place. I am quite certain that it is one of the
+national peculiarities that what they want must be difficult of
+attainment. I therefore a few days ago made a _coup d'état_, and altered
+the whole scheme. We shall go to Philadelphia, Baltimore, Washington,
+also some New England towns between Boston and this place, away to the
+falls of Niagara, and off far west to Chicago and St. Louis, before
+coming back for ten farewell readings here, preceded by farewells at
+Boston, leaving Canada altogether. This will not prolong the list beyond
+eighty-four readings, the exact original number, and will, please God,
+work it all out in April. In my next, I daresay, I shall be able to send
+the exact list, so that you may know every day where we are. There has
+been a great storm here for a few days, and the streets, though wet, are
+becoming passable again. Dolby and Osgood are out in it to-day on a
+variety of business, and left in grave and solemn state. Scott and the
+gasman are stricken with dumb concern, not having received one single
+letter from home since they left. What their wives can have done with
+the letters they take it for granted they have written, is their stormy
+speculation at the door of my hall dressing-room every night.
+
+If I do not send a letter to Katie by this mail, it will be because I
+shall probably be obliged to go across the water to Brooklyn to-morrow
+to see a church, in which it is proposed that I shall read!!! Horrible
+visions of being put in the pulpit already beset me. And whether the
+audience will be in pews is another consideration which greatly disturbs
+my mind. No paper ever comes out without a leader on Dolby, who of
+course reads them all, and never can understand why I don't, in which he
+is called all the bad names in (and not in) the language.
+
+We always call him P. H. Dolby now, in consequence of one of these
+graceful specimens of literature describing him as the "pudding-headed."
+
+I fear that when we travel he will have to be always before me, so that
+I may not see him six times in as many weeks. However, I shall have done
+a fourth of the whole this very next week!
+
+Best love to your aunt, and the boys, and Katie, and Charley, and all
+true friends.
+
+
+                                                             _Friday._
+
+I managed to read last night, but it was as much as I could do. To-day I
+am so very unwell, that I have sent for a doctor; he has just been, and
+is in doubt whether I shall not have to stop reading for a while.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Dickens.]
+
+                      WESTMINSTER HOTEL, IRVING PLACE, NEW YORK,
+                                            _Monday, Dec. 30th, 1867._
+
+I am getting all right again. I have not been well, been very low, and
+have been obliged to have a doctor; a very agreeable fellow indeed, who
+soon turned out to be an old friend of Olliffe's.[19] He has set me on
+my legs and taken his leave "professionally," though he means to give me
+a call now and then.
+
+In the library at Gad's is a bound book, "Remarkable Criminal Trials,"
+translated by Lady Duff Gordon, from the original by Fauerbach. I want
+that book, and a copy of Praed's poems, to be sent out to Boston, care
+of Ticknor and Fields. If you will give the "Criminal Trials" to Wills,
+and explain my wish, and ask him to buy a copy of Praed's poems and add
+it to the parcel, he will know how to send the packet out. I think the
+"Criminal Trials" book is in the corner book-case, by the window,
+opposite the door.
+
+No news here. All going on in the regular way. I read in that church I
+told you of, about the middle of January. It is wonderfully seated for
+two thousand people, and is as easy to speak in as if they were two
+hundred. The people are seated in pews, and we let the pews. I stood on
+a small platform from which the pulpit will be removed for the
+occasion!! I emerge from the vestry!!! Philadelphia, Baltimore, and
+another two nights in Boston will follow this coming month of January.
+On Friday next I shall have read a fourth of my whole list, besides
+having had twelve days' holiday when I first came out. So please God I
+shall soon get to the half, and so begin to work hopefully round.
+
+I suppose you were at the Adelphi on Thursday night last. They are
+pirating the bill as well as the play here, everywhere. I have
+registered the play as the property of an American citizen, but the law
+is by no means clear that I established a right in it by so doing; and
+of course the pirates knew very well that I could not, under existing
+circumstances, try the question with them in an American court of law.
+Nothing is being played here scarcely that is not founded on my
+books--"Cricket," "Oliver Twist," "Our Mutual Friend," and I don't know
+what else, every night. I can't get down Broadway for my own portrait;
+and yet I live almost as quietly in this hotel, as if I were at the
+office, and go in and out by a side door just as I might there.
+
+I go back to Boston on Saturday to read there on Monday and Tuesday.
+Then I am back here, and keep within six or seven hours' journey of
+hereabouts till February. My further movements shall be duly reported as
+the details are arranged.
+
+I shall be curious to know who were at Gad's Hill on Christmas Day, and
+how you (as they say in this country) "got along." It is exceedingly
+cold here again, after two or three quite spring days.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[17] Madame Sainton Dolby.
+
+[18] The nearest neighbour at Higham, and intimate friends.
+
+[19] Dr. Fordyce Barker.
+
+
+
+
+1868.
+
+NARRATIVE.
+
+
+Charles Dickens remained in America through the winter, returning home
+from New York in the _Russia_, on the 19th of April. His letters show
+how entirely he gave himself up to the business of the readings, how
+severely his health suffered from the climate, and from the perpetual
+travelling and hard work, and yet how he was able to battle through to
+the end. These letters are also full of allusions to the many kind and
+dear friends who contributed so largely to the pleasure of this American
+visit, and whose love and attention gave a touch of _home_ to his
+private life, and left such affection and gratitude in his heart as he
+could never forget. Many of these friends paid visits to Gad's Hill; the
+first to come during this summer being Mr. Longfellow, his daughters,
+and Mr. Appleton, brother-in-law of Mr. Longfellow, and Mr. and Mrs.
+Charles Eliot Norton, of Cambridge.
+
+For the future, there were to be no more Christmas numbers of "All the
+Year Round." Observing the extent to which they were now copied in all
+directions, Charles Dickens supposed them likely to become tiresome to
+the public, and so determined that in his journal they should be
+discontinued.
+
+While still in America, he made an agreement with the Messrs. Chappell
+to give a series of farewell readings in England, to commence in the
+autumn of this year. So, in October, Charles Dickens started off again
+for a tour in the provinces. He had for some time been planning, by way
+of a novelty for this series, a reading from the murder in "Oliver
+Twist," but finding it so very horrible, he was fearful of trying its
+effect for the first time on a public audience. It was therefore
+resolved, that a trial of it should be made to a limited private
+audience in St. James's Hall, on the evening of the 18th of November.
+This trial proved eminently successful, and "The Murder from Oliver
+Twist" became one of the most popular of his selections. But the
+physical exertion it involved was far greater than that of any of his
+previous readings, and added immensely to the excitement and exhaustion
+which they caused him.
+
+One of the first letters of the year from America is addressed to Mr.
+Samuel Cartwright, of surgical and artistic reputation, and greatly
+esteemed by Charles Dickens, both in his professional capacity and as a
+private friend.
+
+The letter written to Mrs. Cattermole, in May, tells of the illness of
+Mr. George Cattermole. This dear old friend, so associated with Charles
+Dickens and his works, died soon afterwards, and the letter to his widow
+shows that Charles Dickens was exerting himself in her behalf.
+
+The play of "No Thoroughfare" having been translated into French under
+the title of "L'Abîme," Charles Dickens went over to Paris to be present
+at the first night of its production.
+
+On the 26th of September, his youngest son, Edward Bulwer Lytton (the
+"Plorn" so often mentioned), started for Australia, to join his brother
+Alfred Tennyson, who was already established there. It will be seen by
+his own words how deeply and how sadly Charles Dickens felt this
+parting. In October of this year, his son Henry Fielding entered Trinity
+Hall, Cambridge, as an undergraduate.
+
+The Miss Forster mentioned in the letter to his sister-in-law, and for
+whom the kind and considerate arrangements were suggested, was a sister
+of Mr. John Forster, and a lady highly esteemed by Charles Dickens. The
+illness from which she was then suffering was a fatal one. She died in
+this same year, a few days before Christmas.
+
+Mr. J. C. Parkinson, to whom a letter is addressed, was a gentleman
+holding a Government appointment, and contributing largely to journalism
+and periodical literature.
+
+As our last letter for this year, we give one which Charles Dickens
+wrote to his youngest son on his departure for Australia.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Hogarth.]
+
+                      WESTMINSTER HOTEL, IRVING PLACE, NEW YORK,
+                                             _Friday, Jan. 3rd, 1868._
+
+MY DEAREST GEORGY,
+
+I received yours of the 19th from Gad's and the office this morning. I
+read here to-night, and go back to Boston to-morrow, to read there
+Monday and Tuesday.
+
+To-night, I read out the first quarter of my list. Our houses have been
+very fine here, but have never quite recovered the Dolby uproar. It
+seems impossible to devise any scheme for getting the tickets into the
+people's hands without the intervention of speculators. The people _will
+not_ help themselves; and, of course, the speculators and all other such
+prowlers throw as great obstacles in Dolby's way (an Englishman's) as
+they possibly can. He may be a little injudicious into the bargain. Last
+night, for instance, he met one of the "ushers" (who show people to
+their seats) coming in with Kelly. It is against orders that anyone
+employed in front should go out during the readings, and he took this
+man to task in the British manner. Instantly the free and independent
+usher put on his hat and walked off. Seeing which, all the other free
+and independent ushers (some twenty in number) put on _their_ hats and
+walked off, leaving us absolutely devoid and destitute of a staff for
+to-night. One has since been improvised; but it was a small matter to
+raise a stir and ill will about, especially as one of our men was
+equally in fault.
+
+We have a regular clerk, a Bostonian whose name is Wild. He, Osgood,
+Dolby, Kelly, Scott, George the gasman, and perhaps a boy or two,
+constitute my body-guard. It seems a large number of people, but the
+business cannot be done with fewer. The speculators buying the front
+seats to sell at a premium (and we have found instances of this being
+done by merchants in good position!), and the public perpetually
+pitching into Dolby for selling them back seats, the result is that they
+won't have the back seats, send back their tickets, write and print
+volumes on the subject, and deter others from coming.
+
+You may get an idea of the staff's work, by what is in hand now. They
+are preparing, numbering, and stamping six thousand tickets for
+Philadelphia, and eight thousand tickets for Brooklyn. The moment those
+are done, another eight thousand tickets will be wanted for Baltimore,
+and probably another six thousand for Washington. This in addition to
+the correspondence, advertisements, accounts, travellings, and the
+mighty business of the reading four times a week.
+
+The Cunard steamers being now removed from Halifax, I have decided _not_
+to go there, or to St. John's, New Brunswick. And as there would be a
+perfect uproar if I picked out such a place in Canada as Quebec or
+Montreal, and excluded those two places (which would guarantee three
+hundred pounds a night), and further, as I don't want places, having
+more than enough for my list of eighty-four, I have finally resolved not
+to go to Canada either. This will enable me to embark for home in April
+instead of May.
+
+Tell Plorn, with my love, that I think he will find himself much
+interested at that college,[20] and that it is very likely he may make
+some acquaintances there that will thereafter be pleasant and useful to
+him. Sir Sydney Dacres is the best of friends. I have a letter from Mrs.
+Hulkes by this post, wherein the boy encloses a violet, now lying on the
+table before me. Let her know that it arrived safely, and retaining its
+colour. I took it for granted that Mary would have asked Chorley for
+Christmas Day, and am very glad she ultimately did so. I am sorry that
+Harry lost his prize, but believe it was not his fault. Let _him_ know
+_that_, with my love. I would have written to him by this mail in answer
+to his, but for other occupation. Did I tell you that my landlord made
+me a drink (brandy, rum, and snow the principal ingredients) called a
+"Rocky Mountain sneezer"? Or that the favourite drink before you get up
+is an "eye-opener"? Or that Roberts (second landlord), no sooner saw me
+on the night of the first fire, than, with his property blazing, he
+insisted on taking me down into a roomful of hot smoke to drink brandy
+and water with him? We have not been on fire again, by-the-bye, more
+than once.
+
+There has been another fall of snow, succeeded by a heavy thaw. I have
+laid down my sledge, and taken up my carriage again, in consequence. I
+am nearly all right, but cannot get rid of an intolerable cold in the
+head. No more news.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Hogarth.]
+
+                         PARKER HOUSE, BOSTON, U.S., _Jan. 4th, 1868._
+
+I write to you by this opportunity, though I really have nothing to tell
+you. The work is hard and the climate is hard. We made a tremendous hit
+last night with "Nickleby" and "Boots," which the Bostonians certainly
+on the whole appreciate more than "Copperfield"! Dolby is always going
+about with an immense bundle that looks like a sofa cushion, but it is
+in reality paper money; and always works like a Trojan. His business at
+night is a mere nothing, for these people are so accustomed to take care
+of themselves, that one of these immense audiences will fall into their
+places with an ease amazing to a frequenter of St. James's Hall. And the
+certainty with which they are all in, before I go on, is a very
+acceptable mark of respect. I must add, too, that although there is a
+conventional familiarity in the use of one's name in the newspapers as
+"Dickens," "Charlie," and what not, I do not in the least see that
+familiarity in the writers themselves. An inscrutable tone obtains in
+journalism, which a stranger cannot understand. If I say in common
+courtesy to one of them, when Dolby introduces, "I am much obliged to
+you for your interest in me," or so forth, he seems quite shocked, and
+has a bearing of perfect modesty and propriety. I am rather inclined to
+think that they suppose their printed tone to be the public's love of
+smartness, but it is immensely difficult to make out. All I can as yet
+make out is, that my perfect freedom from bondage, and at any moment to
+go on or leave off, or otherwise do as I like, is the only safe position
+to occupy.
+
+Again; there are two apparently irreconcilable contrasts here. Down
+below in this hotel every night are the bar loungers, dram drinkers,
+drunkards, swaggerers, loafers, that one might find in a Boucicault
+play. Within half an hour is Cambridge, where a delightful domestic
+life--simple, self-respectful, cordial, and affectionate--is seen in an
+admirable aspect. All New England is primitive and puritanical. All
+about and around it is a puddle of mixed human mud, with no such quality
+in it. Perhaps I may in time sift out some tolerably intelligible whole,
+but I certainly have not done so yet. It is a good sign, may be, that it
+all seems immensely more difficult to understand than it was when I was
+here before.
+
+Felton left two daughters. I have only seen the eldest, a very sensible,
+frank, pleasant girl of eight-and-twenty, perhaps, rather like him in
+the face. A striking-looking daughter of Hawthorn's (who is also dead)
+came into my room last night. The day has slipped on to three o'clock,
+and I must get up "Dombey" for to-night. Hence this sudden break off.
+Best love to Mamie, and to Katie and Charley Collins.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. W. Wilkie Collins.]
+
+               WESTMINSTER HOTEL, NEW YORK, _Sunday, Jan. 12th, 1868._
+
+MY DEAR WILKIE,
+
+First, of the play.[21] I am truly delighted to learn that it made so
+great a success, and I hope I may yet see it on the Adelphi boards. You
+have had a world of trouble and work with it, but I hope will be repaid
+in some degree by the pleasure of a triumph. Even for the alteration at
+the end of the fourth act (of which you tell me in your letter received
+yesterday), I was fully prepared, for I COULD NOT see the original
+effect in the reading of the play, and COULD NOT make it go. I agree
+with Webster in thinking it best that Obenreizer should die on the
+stage; but no doubt that point is disposed of. In reading the play
+before the representation, I felt that it was too long, and that there
+was a good deal of unnecessary explanation. Those points are, no doubt,
+disposed of too by this time.
+
+We shall do nothing with it on this side. Pirates are producing their
+own wretched versions in all directions, thus (as Wills would say)
+anticipating and glutting "the market." I registered one play as the
+property of Ticknor and Fields, American citizens. But, besides that the
+law on the point is extremely doubtful, the manager of the Museum
+Theatre, Boston, instantly announced his version. (You may suppose what
+it is and how it is done, when I tell you that it was playing within ten
+days of the arrival out of the Christmas number.) Thereupon, Ticknor and
+Fields gave him notice that he mustn't play it. Unto which he replied,
+that he meant to play it and would play it. Of course he knew very well
+that if an injunction were applied for against him, there would be an
+immediate howl against my persecution of an innocent, and he played it.
+Then the noble host of pirates rushed in, and it is being done, in some
+mangled form or other, everywhere.
+
+It touches me to read what you write of your poor mother. But, of
+course, at her age, each winter counts heavily. Do give her my love, and
+tell her that I asked you about her.
+
+I am going on here at the same great rate, but am always counting the
+days that lie between me and home. I got through the first fourth of my
+readings on Friday, January 3rd. I leave for two readings at
+Philadelphia this evening.
+
+Being at Boston last Sunday, I took it into my head to go over the
+medical school, and survey the holes and corners in which that
+extraordinary murder was done by Webster. There was the
+furnace--stinking horribly, as if the dismembered pieces were still
+inside it--and there are all the grim spouts, and sinks, and chemical
+appliances, and what not. At dinner, afterwards, Longfellow told me a
+terrific story. He dined with Webster within a year of the murder, one
+of a party of ten or twelve. As they sat at their wine, Webster suddenly
+ordered the lights to be turned out, and a bowl of some burning mineral
+to be placed on the table, that the guests might see how ghostly it made
+them look. As each man stared at all the rest in the weird light, all
+were horrified to see Webster _with a rope round his neck_, holding it
+up, over the bowl, with his head jerked on one side, and his tongue
+lolled out, representing a man being hanged!
+
+Poking into his life and character, I find (what I would have staked my
+head upon) that he was always a cruel man.
+
+So no more at present from,
+
+        My dear Wilkie, yours ever affectionately.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Hogarth.]
+
+               WESTMINSTER HOTEL, NEW YORK, _Sunday, Jan. 12th, 1868._
+
+As I am off to Philadelphia this evening, I may as well post my letter
+here. I have scarcely a word of news. My cold steadily refuses to leave
+me; but otherwise I am as right as one can hope to be under this heavy
+work. My New York readings are over (except four farewell nights in
+April), and I look forward to the relief of being out of my hardest
+hall. Last Friday night, though it was only "Nickleby" and "Boots," I
+was again dead beat at the end, and was once more laid upon a sofa. But
+the faintness went off after a little while. We have now cold, bright,
+frosty weather, without snow--the best weather for me.
+
+Having been in great trepidation about the play, I am correspondingly
+elated by the belief that it really _is_ a success. No doubt the
+unnecessary explanations will have been taken out, and the flatness of
+the last act fetched up. At some points I could have done wonders to it,
+in the way of screwing it up sharply and picturesquely, if I could have
+rehearsed it. Your account of the first night interested me immensely,
+but I was afraid to open the letter until Dolby rushed in with the
+opened _Times_.
+
+On Wednesday I come back here for my four church readings at Brooklyn.
+Each evening an enormous ferryboat will convey me and my state carriage
+(not to mention half-a-dozen waggons, and any number of people, and a
+few score of horses) across the river, and will bring me back again. The
+sale of tickets there was an amazing scene. The noble army of
+speculators are now furnished (this is literally true, and I am quite
+serious), each man with a straw mattress, a little bag of bread and
+meat, two blankets, and a bottle of whisky. With this outfit _they lie
+down in line on the pavement_ the whole night before the tickets are
+sold, generally taking up their position at about ten. It being severely
+cold at Brooklyn, they made an immense bonfire in the street--a narrow
+street of wooden houses!--which the police turned out to extinguish. A
+general fight then took place, out of which the people farthest off in
+the line rushed bleeding when they saw a chance of displacing others
+near the door, and put their mattresses in those places, and then held
+on by the iron rails. At eight in the morning Dolby appeared with the
+tickets in a portmanteau. He was immediately saluted with a roar of
+"Halloa, Dolby! So Charley has let you have the carriage, has he, Dolby!
+How is he, Dolby! Don't drop the tickets, Dolby! Look alive, Dolby!"
+etc. etc. etc., in the midst of which he proceeded to business, and
+concluded (as usual) by giving universal dissatisfaction.
+
+He is now going off upon a little journey "to look over the ground and
+cut back again." This little journey (to Chicago) is fifteen hundred
+miles on end, by railway, and back again!
+
+We have an excellent gasman, who is well up to that department. We have
+enlarged the large staff by another clerk, yet even now the preparation
+of such an immense number of new tickets constantly, and the keeping and
+checking of the accounts, keep them hard at it. And they get so oddly
+divided! Kelly is at Philadelphia, another man at Baltimore, two others
+are stamping tickets at the top of this house, another is cruising over
+New England, and Osgood will come on duty to-morrow (when Dolby starts
+off) to pick me up after the reading, and take me to the hotel, and
+mount guard over me, and bring me back here. You see that even such
+wretched domesticity as Dolby and self by a fireside is broken up under
+these conditions.
+
+Dolby has been twice poisoned, and Osgood once. Morgan's sharpness has
+discovered the cause. When the snow is deep upon the ground, and the
+partridges cannot get their usual food, they eat something (I don't know
+what, if anybody does) which does not poison _them_, but which poisons
+the people who eat them. The symptoms, which last some twelve hours, are
+violent sickness, cold perspiration, and the formation of some
+detestable mucus in the stomach. You may infer that partridges have been
+banished from our bill of fare. The appearance of our sufferers was
+lamentable in the extreme.
+
+Did I tell you that the severity of the weather, and the heat of the
+intolerable furnaces, dry the hair and break the nails of strangers?
+There is not a complete nail in the whole British suite, and my hair
+cracks again when I brush it. (I am losing my hair with great rapidity,
+and what I don't lose is getting very grey.)
+
+The _Cuba_ will bring this. She has a jolly new captain--Moody, of the
+_Java_--and her people rushed into the reading, the other night,
+captain-headed, as if I were their peculiar property. Please God I shall
+come home in her, in my old cabin; leaving here on the 22nd of April,
+and finishing my eighty-fourth reading on the previous night! It is
+likely enough that I shall read and go straight on board.
+
+I think this is all my poor stock of intelligence. By-the-bye, on the
+last Sunday in the old year, I lost my old year's pocket-book, "which,"
+as Mr. Pepys would add, "do trouble me mightily." Give me Katie's new
+address; I haven't got it.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Dickens.]
+
+                              PHILADELPHIA, _Monday, Jan. 13th, 1868._
+
+I write you this note, a day later than your aunt's, not because I have
+anything to add to the little I have told her, but because you may like
+to have it.
+
+We arrived here last night towards twelve o'clock, more than an hour
+after our time. This is one of the immense American hotels (it is called
+the Continental); but I find myself just as quiet here as elsewhere.
+Everything is very good indeed, the waiter is German, and the greater
+part of the house servants seem to be coloured people. The town is very
+clean, and the day as blue and bright as a fine Italian day. But it
+freezes very hard. All the tickets being sold here for six nights (three
+visits of two nights each), the suite complain of want of excitement
+already, having been here ten hours! Mr. and Mrs. Barney Williams, with
+a couple of servants, and a pretty little child-daughter, were in the
+train each night, and I talked with them a good deal. They are reported
+to have made an enormous fortune by acting among the Californian
+gold-diggers. My cold is no better, for the cars are so intolerably hot,
+that I was often obliged to go and stand upon the break outside, and
+then the frosty air was biting indeed. The great man of this place is
+one Mr. Childs, a newspaper proprietor, and he is so exactly like Mr.
+Esse in all conceivable respects except being an inch or so taller, that
+I was quite confounded when I saw him waiting for me at the station
+(always called depôt here) with his carriage. During the last two or
+three days, Dolby and I have been making up accounts, which are
+excellently kept by Mr. Osgood, and I find them amazing, quite, in their
+results.
+
+I was very much interested in the home accounts of Christmas Day. I
+think I have already mentioned that we were in very low spirits on that
+day. I began to be unwell with my cold that morning, and a long day's
+travel did not mend the matter. We scarcely spoke (except when we ate
+our lunch), and sat dolefully staring out of window. I had a few
+affectionate words from Chorley, dated from my room, on Christmas
+morning, and will write him, probably by this mail, a brief
+acknowledgment. I find it necessary (so oppressed am I with this
+American catarrh, as they call it) to dine at three o'clock instead of
+four, that I may have more time to get voice, so that the days are cut
+short, and letter-writing is not easy.
+
+My best love to Katie, and to Charley, and to our Charley, and to all
+friends. If I could only get to the point of being able to hold my head
+up and dispense with my pocket-handkerchief for five minutes, I should
+be all right.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. Charles Dickens.]
+
+                      WESTMINSTER HOTEL, IRVING PLACE, NEW YORK,
+                                         _Wednesday, Jan. 15th, 1868._
+
+MY DEAR CHARLEY,
+
+Finding your letter here this afternoon on my return from Philadelphia
+(where I have been reading two nights), I take advantage of a spare
+half-hour in which to answer it at once, though it will not leave here
+until Saturday. I had previously heard of the play, and had _The Times_.
+It was a great relief and delight to me, for I had no confidence in its
+success; being reduced to the confines of despair by its length. If I
+could have rehearsed it, I should have taken the best part of an hour
+out of it. Fechter must be very fine, and I should greatly like to see
+him play the part.
+
+I have not been very well generally, and am oppressed (and I begin to
+think that I probably shall be until I leave) by a true American cold,
+which I hope, for the comfort of human nature, may be peculiar to only
+one of the four quarters of the world. The work, too, is very severe.
+But I am going on at the same tremendous rate everywhere. The staff,
+too, has had to be enlarged. Dolby was at Baltimore yesterday, is at
+Washington to-day, and will come back in the night, and start away again
+on Friday. We find it absolutely necessary for him to go on ahead. We
+have not printed or posted a single bill here, and have just sold ninety
+pounds' worth of paper we had got ready for bills. In such a rush a
+short newspaper advertisement is all we want. "Doctor Marigold" made a
+great hit here, and is looked forward to at Boston with especial
+interest. I go to Boston for another fortnight, on end, the 24th of
+February. The railway journeys distress me greatly. I get out into the
+open air (upon the break), and it snows and blows, and the train bumps,
+and the steam flies at me, until I am driven in again.
+
+I have finished here (except four farewell nights in April), and begin
+four nights at Brooklyn, on the opposite side of the river, to-night;
+and thus oscillate between Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Washington, and
+then cut into New England, and so work my way back to Boston for a
+fortnight, after which come Chicago, Cincinnati, Detroit and Cleveland,
+and Buffalo, and then Philadelphia, Boston, and New York farewells. I
+will not pass my original bound of eighty-four readings in all. My mind
+was made up as to that long ago. It will be quite enough. Chicago is
+some fifteen hundred miles from here. What with travelling, and getting
+ready for reading, and reading, the days are pretty fully occupied. Not
+the less so because I rest very indifferently at night.
+
+The people are exceedingly kind and considerate, and desire to be most
+hospitable besides. But I cannot accept hospitality, and never go out,
+except at Boston, or I should not be fit for the labour. If Dolby holds
+out well to the last it will be a triumph, for he has to see everybody,
+drink with everybody, sell all the tickets, take all the blame, and go
+beforehand to all the places on the list. I shall not see him after
+to-night for ten days or a fortnight, and he will be perpetually on the
+road during the interval. When he leaves me, Osgood, a partner in
+Ticknor and Fields' publishing firm, mounts guard over me, and has to go
+into the hall from the platform door every night, and see how the public
+are seating themselves. It is very odd to see how hard he finds it to
+look a couple of thousand people in the face, on which head, by-the-bye,
+I notice the papers to take "Mr. Dickens's extraordinary composure"
+(their great phrase) rather ill, and on the whole to imply that it would
+be taken as a suitable compliment if I would stagger on to the platform
+and instantly drop, overpowered by the spectacle before me.
+
+Dinner is announced (by Scott, with a stiff neck and a sore throat), and
+I must break off with love to Bessie and the incipient Wenerableses. You
+will be glad to hear of your distinguished parent that Philadelphia has
+discovered that "he is not like the descriptions we have read of him at
+the little red desk. He is not at all foppish in appearance. He wears a
+heavy moustache and a Vandyke beard, and looks like a well-to-do
+Philadelphian gentleman."
+
+                      Ever, my dear Charley, your affectionate Father.
+
+P.S.--Your paper is remarkably good. There is not the least doubt that
+you can write constantly for A. Y. R. I am very pleased with it.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Dickens.]
+
+               WESTMINSTER HOTEL, NEW YORK, _Friday, Jan, 18th, 1868._
+
+This will be but a very short report, as I must get out for a little
+exercise before dinner.
+
+My "true American catarrh" (the people seem to have a national pride in
+it) sticks to me, but I am otherwise well. I began my church readings
+last night, and it was very odd to see the pews crammed full of people,
+all in a broad roar at the "Carol" and "Trial."
+
+Best love to all. I have written Charley a few lines by this mail, and
+also Chorley.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Hogarth.]
+
+              WESTMINSTER HOTEL, NEW YORK, _Tuesday, Jan. 21st, 1868._
+
+I finished my church to-night. It is Mrs. Stowe's brother's, and a most
+wonderful place to speak in. We had it enormously full last night
+("Marigold" and "Trial"), but it scarcely required an effort. Mr. Ward
+Beecher (Mrs. Stowe's brother's name) being present in his pew. I sent
+to invite him to come round before he left; and I found him to be an
+unostentatious, straightforward, and agreeable fellow.
+
+My cold sticks to me, and I can scarcely exaggerate what I sometimes
+undergo from sleeplessness. The day before yesterday I could get no rest
+until morning, and could not get up before twelve. This morning the
+same. I rarely take any breakfast but an egg and a cup of tea, not even
+toast or bread-and-butter. My dinner at three, and a little quail or
+some such light thing when I come home at night, is my daily fare. At
+the Hall I have established the custom of taking an egg beaten up in
+sherry before going in, and another between the parts. I think that
+pulls me up; at all events, I have since had no return of faintness.
+
+As the men work very hard, and always with their hearts cheerfully in
+the business, I cram them into and outside of the carriage, to bring
+them back from Brooklyn with me. The other night, Scott (with a
+portmanteau across his knees and a wideawake hat low down upon his nose)
+told me that he had presented himself for admission in the circus (as
+good as Franconi's, by-the-bye), and had been refused. "The only
+theayter," he said in a melancholy way, "as I was ever in my life turned
+from the door of." Says Kelly: "There must have been some mistake,
+Scott, because George and me went, and we said, 'Mr. Dickens's staff,'
+and they passed us to the best seats in the house. Go again, Scott."
+"No, I thank you, Kelly," says Scott, more melancholy than before, "I'm
+not a-going to put myself in the position of being refused again. It's
+the only theayter as I was ever turned from the door of, and it shan't
+be done twice. But it's a beastly country!" "Scott," interposed Majesty,
+"don't you express your opinions about the country." "No, sir," says
+Scott, "I never do, please, sir, but when you are turned from the door
+of the only theayter you was ever turned from, sir, and when the beasts
+in railway cars spits tobacco over your boots, you (privately) find
+yourself in a beastly country."
+
+I expect shortly to get myself snowed up on some railway or other, for
+it is snowing hard now, and I begin to move to-morrow. There is so much
+floating ice in the river that we are obliged to leave a pretty wide
+margin of time for getting over the ferry to read. The dinner is coming
+in, and I must leave off.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Dickens.]
+
+                            PHILADELPHIA, _Thursday, Jan. 23rd, 1868._
+
+When I wrote to your aunt by the last mail, I accidentally omitted to
+touch upon the question of helping Anne. So I will begin in this present
+writing with reference to her sad position. I think it will be best for
+you to be guided by an exact knowledge of her _wants_. Try to ascertain
+from herself what means she has, whether her sick husband gets what he
+ought to have, whether she is pinched in the articles of necessary
+clothing, bedding, or the like of that; add to this intelligence your
+own observation of the state of things about her, and supply what she
+most wants, and help her where you find the greatest need. The question,
+in the case of so old and faithful a servant, is not one of so much or
+so little money on my side, but how _most efficiently_ to ease her mind
+and help _her_. To do this at once kindly and sensibly is the only
+consideration by which you have to be guided. Take _carte blanche_ from
+me for all the rest.
+
+My Washington week is the first week in February, beginning on Monday,
+3rd. The tickets are sold, and the President is coming, and the chief
+members of the Cabinet, and the leaders of parties, and so forth, are
+coming; and, as the Holly Tree Boots says: "That's where it is, don't
+you see!"
+
+In my Washington doubts I recalled Dolby for conference, and he joined
+me yesterday afternoon, and we have been in great discussion ever since
+on the possibility of giving up the Far West, and avoiding such immense
+distances and fatigues as would be involved in travelling to Chicago and
+Cincinnati. We have sketched another tour for the last half of March,
+which would be infinitely easier for me, though on the other hand less
+profitable, the places and the halls being smaller. The worst of it is,
+that everybody one advises with has a monomania respecting Chicago.
+"Good heaven, sir," the great Philadelphian authority said to me this
+morning, "if you don't read in Chicago, the people will go into fits."
+In reference to fatigue, I answered: "Well, I would rather they went
+into fits than I did." But he didn't seem to see it at all. ---- alone
+constantly writes me: "Don't go to the West; you can get what you want
+so much more easily." How we shall finally decide, I don't yet know. My
+Brooklyn church has been an immense success, and I found its minister
+was a bachelor, a clever, unparsonic, and straightforward man, and a man
+with a good knowledge of art into the bargain.
+
+We are not a bit too soon here, for the whole country is beginning to be
+stirred and shaken by the presidential election, and trade is
+exceedingly depressed, and will be more so. Fanny Kemble lives near this
+place, but had gone away a day before my first visit here. _She_ is
+going to read in February or March. Du Chaillu has been lecturing out
+West about the gorilla, and has been to see me; I saw the Cunard steamer
+_Persia_ out in the stream, yesterday, beautifully smart, her flags
+flying, all her steam up, and she only waiting for her mails to slip
+away. She gave me a horrible touch of home-sickness.
+
+When the 1st of March arrives, and I can say "next month," I shall begin
+to grow brighter. A fortnight's reading in Boston, too (last week of
+February and first week of March), will help me on gaily, I hope (the
+work so far off tells). It is impossible for the people to be more
+affectionately attached to a third, I really believe, than Fields and
+his wife are to me; and they are a landmark in the prospect.
+
+Dolby sends kindest regards, and wishes it to be known that he has not
+been bullied lately. We do _not_ go West at all, but take the easier
+plan.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Hogarth.]
+
+                              BALTIMORE, _Wednesday, Jan. 29th, 1868._
+
+As I have an hour to spare, before starting to Philadelphia, I begin my
+letter this morning. It has been snowing hard for four-and-twenty hours,
+though this place is as far south as Valentia in Spain; and Dolby, being
+on his way to New York, has a good chance of being snowed up somewhere.
+
+They are a bright responsive people here, and very pleasant to read to.
+I have rarely seen so many fine faces in an audience. I read here in a
+charming little opera-house built by a society of Germans, quite a
+delightful place for the purpose. I stand on the stage, with a drop
+curtain down, and my screen before it. The whole scene is very pretty
+and complete, and the audience have a "ring" in them that sounds in the
+ear. I go from here to Philadelphia to read to-morrow night and Friday,
+come through here again on Saturday on my way to Washington, come back
+here on Saturday week for two finishing nights, then go to Philadelphia
+for two farewells, and so turn my back on the southern part of the
+country. Distances and travelling have obliged us to reduce the list of
+readings by two, leaving eighty-two in all. Of course we afterwards
+discovered that we had finally settled the list on a Friday! I shall be
+halfway through it at Washington, of course, on a Friday also, and my
+birthday!
+
+Dolby and Osgood, who do the most ridiculous things to keep me in
+spirits (I am often very heavy, and rarely sleep much), have decided to
+have a walking-match at Boston, on Saturday, February 29th. Beginning
+this design in joke, they have become tremendously in earnest, and Dolby
+has actually sent home (much to his opponent's terror) for a pair of
+seamless socks to walk in. Our men are hugely excited on the subject,
+and continually make bets on "the men." Fields and I are to walk out six
+miles, and "the men" are to turn and walk round us. Neither of them has
+the least idea what twelve miles at a pace is. Being requested by both
+to give them "a breather" yesterday, I gave them a stiff one of five
+miles over a bad road in the snow, half the distance uphill. I took them
+at a pace of four miles and a half an hour, and you never beheld such
+objects as they were when we got back; both smoking like factories, and
+both obliged to change everything before they could come to dinner. They
+have the absurdest ideas of what are tests of walking power, and
+continually get up in the maddest manner and see _how high they can
+kick_ the wall! The wainscot here, in one place, is scored all over with
+their pencil-marks. To see them doing this--Dolby, a big man, and
+Osgood, a very little one, is ridiculous beyond description.
+
+
+                                           PHILADELPHIA, _Same Night._
+
+We came on here through a snowstorm all the way, but up to time. Fanny
+Kemble (who begins to read shortly) is coming to "Marigold" and "Trial"
+to-morrow night. I have written her a note, telling her that if it will
+at all assist _her_ movements to know _mine_, my list is at her
+service. Probably I shall see her to-morrow. Tell Mamie (to whom I will
+write next), with my love, that I found her letter of the 10th of this
+month awaiting me here. The _Siberia_ that brought it is a new Cunarder,
+and made an unusually slow passage out. Probably because it would be
+dangerous to work new machinery too fast on the Atlantic.
+
+
+                                                     _Thursday, 30th._
+
+My cold still sticks to me. The heat of the railway cars and their
+unventilated condition invariably brings it back when I think it going.
+This morning my head is as stuffed and heavy as ever! A superb sledge
+and four horses have been offered me for a ride, but I am afraid to take
+it, lest I should make the "true American catarrh" worse, and should get
+hoarse. So I am going to give Osgood another "breather" on foot instead.
+
+The communication with New York is not interrupted, so we consider the
+zealous Dolby all right. You may imagine what his work is, when you hear
+that he goes three times to every place we visit. Firstly, to look at
+the hall, arrange the numberings, and make five hundred acquaintances,
+whom he immediately calls by their christian-names; secondly, to sell
+the tickets--a very nice business, requiring great tact and temper;
+thirdly, with me. He will probably turn up at Washington next Sunday,
+but only for a little while; for as soon as I am on the platform on
+Monday night, he will start away again, probably to be seen no more
+until we pass through New York in the middle of February.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. Samuel Cartwright]
+
+                              BALTIMORE, _Wednesday, Jan. 29th, 1868._
+
+MY DEAR CARTWRIGHT,
+
+As I promised to report myself to you from this side of the Atlantic,
+and as I have some leisure this morning, I am going to lighten my
+conscience by keeping my word.
+
+I am going on at a great pace and with immense success. Next week, at
+Washington, I shall, please God, have got through half my readings. The
+remaining half are all arranged, and they will carry me into the third
+week of April. It is very hard work, but it is brilliantly paid. The
+changes that I find in the country generally (this place is the least
+changed of any I have yet seen) exceed my utmost expectations. I had
+been in New York a couple of days before I began to recognise it at all;
+and the handsomest part of Boston was a black swamp when I saw it
+five-and-twenty years ago. Considerable advances, too, have been made
+socially. Strange to say, the railways and railway arrangements (both
+exceedingly defective) seem to have stood still while all other things
+have been moving.
+
+One of the most comical spectacles I have ever seen in my life was
+"church," with a heavy sea on, in the saloon of the Cunard steamer
+coming out. The officiating minister, an extremely modest young man, was
+brought in between two big stewards, exactly as if he were coming up to
+the scratch in a prize-fight. The ship was rolling and pitching so, that
+the two big stewards had to stop and watch their opportunity of making a
+dart at the reading-desk with their reverend charge, during which pause
+he held on, now by one steward and now by the other, with the feeblest
+expression of countenance and no legs whatever. At length they made a
+dart at the wrong moment, and one steward was immediately beheld alone
+in the extreme perspective, while the other and the reverend gentleman
+_held on by the mast_ in the middle of the saloon--which the latter
+embraced with both arms, as if it were his wife. All this time the
+congregation was breaking up into sects and sliding away; every sect (as
+in nature) pounding the other sect. And when at last the reverend
+gentleman had been tumbled into his place, the desk (a loose one, put
+upon the dining-table) deserted from the church bodily, and went over to
+the purser. The scene was so extraordinarily ridiculous, and was made so
+much more so by the exemplary gravity of all concerned in it, that I was
+obliged to leave before the service began.
+
+This is one of the places where Butler carried it with so high a hand in
+the war, and where the ladies used to spit when they passed a Northern
+soldier. It still wears, I fancy, a look of sullen remembrance. (The
+ladies are remarkably handsome, with an Eastern look upon them, dress
+with a strong sense of colour, and make a brilliant audience.) The ghost
+of slavery haunts the houses; and the old, untidy, incapable, lounging,
+shambling black serves you as a free man. Free of course he ought to be;
+but the stupendous absurdity of making him a voter glares out of every
+roll of his eye, stretch of his mouth, and bump of his head. I have a
+strong impression that the race must fade out of the States very fast.
+It never can hold its own against a striving, restless, shifty people.
+In the penitentiary here, the other day, in a room full of all blacks
+(too dull to be taught any of the work in hand), was one young brooding
+fellow, very like a black rhinoceros. He sat glowering at life, as if it
+were just endurable at dinner time, until four of his fellows began to
+sing, most unmelodiously, a part song. He then set up a dismal howl, and
+pounded his face on a form. I took him to have been rendered quite
+desperate by having learnt anything. I send my kind regard to Mrs.
+Cartwright, and sincerely hope that she and you have no new family
+distresses or anxieties. My standing address is the Westminster Hotel,
+Irving Place, New York City. And I am always, my dear Cartwright,
+
+                                                      Cordially yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Dickens.]
+
+                              PHILADELPHIA, _Friday, Jan. 31st, 1868._
+
+Since writing to your aunt I have received yours of the 7th, and am
+truly glad to have the last news of you confirmed by yourself.
+
+From a letter Wilkie has written to me, it seems there can be no doubt
+that the "No Thoroughfare" drama is a real, genuine, and great success.
+It is drawing immensely, and seems to "go" with great effect and
+applause.
+
+"Doctor Marigold" here last night (for the first time) was an immense
+success, and all Philadelphia is going to rush at once for tickets for
+the two Philadelphian farewells the week after next. The tickets are to
+be sold to-morrow, and great excitement is anticipated in the streets.
+Dolby not being here, a clerk will sell, and will probably wish himself
+dead before he has done with it.
+
+It appears to me that Chorley[22] writes to you on the legacy question
+because he wishes you to understand that there is no danger of his
+changing his mind, and at the bottom I descry an honest desire to pledge
+himself as strongly as possible. You may receive it in that better
+spirit, or I am much mistaken. Tell your aunt, with my best love, that I
+wrote to Chauncey weeks ago, in answer to a letter from him. I am now
+going out in a sleigh (and four) with unconceivable dignity and
+grandeur; mentioning which reminds me that I am informed by trusty
+scouts that ---- intends to waylay me at Washington, and may even
+descend upon me in the train to-morrow.
+
+Best love to Katie, the two Charleys, and all.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Dickens.]
+
+                                WASHINGTON, _Tuesday, Feb. 4th, 1868._
+
+I began here last night with great success. The hall being small, the
+prices were raised to three dollars each ticket. The audience was a
+superior one, composed of the foremost public men and their families. At
+the end of the "Carol" they gave a great break out, and applauded, I
+really believe, for five minutes. You would suppose them to be
+Manchester shillings instead of Washington half-sovereigns. Immense
+enthusiasm.
+
+A devoted adherent in this place (an Englishman) had represented to
+Dolby that if I were taken to an hotel here it would be impossible to
+secure me a minute's rest, and he undertook to get one Wheleker, a
+German, who keeps a little Vérey's, to furnish his private dining-rooms
+for the illustrious traveller's reception. Accordingly here we are, on
+the first and second floor of a small house, with no one else in it but
+our people, a French waiter, and a very good French cuisine. Perfectly
+private, in the city of all the world (I should say) where the hotels
+are intolerable, and privacy the least possible, and quite comfortable.
+"Wheleker's Restaurant" is our rather undignified address for the
+present week.
+
+I dined (against my rules) with Charles Sumner on Sunday, he having been
+an old friend of mine. Mr. Secretary Staunton (War Minister) was there.
+He is a man of a very remarkable memory, and famous for his
+acquaintance with the minutest details of my books. Give him any passage
+anywhere, and he will instantly cap it and go on with the context. He
+was commander-in-chief of all the Northern forces concentrated here, and
+never went to sleep at night without first reading something from my
+books, which were always with him. I put him through a pretty severe
+examination, but he was better up than I was.
+
+The gas was very defective indeed last night, and I began with a small
+speech, to the effect that I must trust to the brightness of their faces
+for the illumination of mine; this was taken greatly. In the "Carol," a
+most ridiculous incident occurred all of a sudden. I saw a dog look out
+from among the seats into the centre aisle, and look very intently at
+me. The general attention being fixed on me, I don't think anybody saw
+the dog; but I felt so sure of his turning up again and barking, that I
+kept my eye wandering about in search of him. He was a very comic dog,
+and it was well for me that I was reading a very comic part of the book.
+But when he bounced out into the centre aisle again, in an entirely new
+place (still looking intently at me) and tried the effect of a bark upon
+my proceedings, I was seized with such a paroxysm of laughter, that it
+communicated itself to the audience, and we roared at one another loud
+and long.
+
+The President has sent to me twice, and I am going to see him to-morrow.
+He has a whole row for his family every night. Dolby rejoined his chief
+yesterday morning, and will probably remain in the august presence until
+Sunday night. He and Osgood, "training for the match," are ludicrous
+beyond belief. I saw them just now coming up a street, each trying to
+pass the other, and immediately fled. Since I have been writing this,
+they have burst in at the door and sat down on the floor to blow. Dolby
+is now writing at a neighbouring table, with his bald head smoking as if
+he were on fire. Kelly (his great adherent) asked me, when he was last
+away, whether it was quite fair that I should take Mr. Osgood out for
+"breathers" when Mr. Dolby had no such advantage. I begin to expect that
+half Boston will turn out on the 29th to see the match. In which case it
+will be unspeakably droll.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Hogarth.]
+
+                            WASHINGTON, _my Birthday_, 1868.
+                                      (_And my cold worse than ever._)
+
+This will be but a short letter, as I have been to see the President
+this morning, and have little time before the post goes. He had sent a
+gentleman to me, most courteously begging me to make my own appointment,
+and I did so. A man of very remarkable appearance indeed, of tremendous
+firmness of purpose. Not to be turned or trifled with.
+
+As I mention my cold's being so bad, I will add that I have never had
+anything the matter with me since I came here _but_ the cold. It is now
+in my throat, and slightly on my chest. It occasions me great
+discomfort, and you would suppose, seeing me in the morning, that I
+could not possibly read at night. But I have always come up to the
+scratch, have not yet missed one night, and have gradually got used to
+that. I had got much the better of it; but the dressing-room at the hall
+here is singularly cold and draughty, and so I have slid back again.
+
+The papers here having written about this being my birthday, the most
+exquisite flowers came pouring in at breakfast time from all sorts of
+people. The room is covered with them, made up into beautiful bouquets,
+and arranged in all manner of green baskets. Probably I shall find
+plenty more at the hall to-night. This is considered the dullest and
+most apathetic place in America. _My_ audiences have been superb.
+
+I mentioned the dog on the first night here. Next night I thought I
+heard (in "Copperfield") a suddenly suppressed bark. It happened in this
+wise: Osgood, standing just within the door, felt his leg touched, and
+looking down beheld the dog staring intently at me, and evidently just
+about to bark. In a transport of presence of mind and fury, he instantly
+caught him up in both hands and threw him over his own head out into the
+entry, where the check-takers received him like a game at ball. Last
+night he came again _with another dog_; but our people were so sharply
+on the look-out for him that he didn't get in. He had evidently promised
+to pass the other dog free.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Dickens.]
+
+                          BALTIMORE, U.S., _Tuesday, Feb. 11th, 1868._
+
+The weather has been desperately severe, and my cold quite as bad as
+ever. I couldn't help laughing at myself on my birthday at Washington.
+It was observed as much as though I were a little boy. Flowers and
+garlands (of the most exquisite kind) bloomed all over the room; letters
+radiant with good wishes poured in; a shirt pin, a handsome silver
+travelling bottle, a set of gold shirt studs, and a set of gold sleeve
+links were on the dinner-table. After "Boots," at night, the whole
+audience rose and remained (Secretaries of State, President's family,
+Judges of Supreme Court, and so forth) standing and cheering until I
+went back to the table and made them a little speech. On the same
+august day of the year I was received by the President, a man with a
+very remarkable and determined face. Each of us looked at each other
+very hard, and each of us managed the interview (I think) to the
+satisfaction of the other. In the outer room was sitting a certain
+sunburnt General Blair, with many evidences of the war upon him. He got
+up to shake hands with me, and then I found he had been out in the
+prairie with me five-and-twenty years ago. That afternoon my "catarrh"
+was in such a state that Charles Sumner, coming in at five o'clock and
+finding me covered with mustard poultice, and apparently voiceless,
+turned to Dolby and said: "Surely, Mr. Dolby, it is impossible that he
+can read to-night." Says Dolby: "Sir, I have told the dear Chief so four
+times to-day, and I have been very anxious. But you have no idea how he
+will change when he gets to the little table." After five minutes of the
+little table, I was not (for the time) even hoarse. The frequent
+experience of this return of force when it is wanted saves me a vast
+amount of anxiety.
+
+I wish you would get from Homan and report to me, as near as he can
+make, an approximate estimate is the right term in the trade, I believe,
+of the following work:
+
+1. To re-cover, with red leather, all the dining-room chairs.
+
+2. To ditto, with green leather, all the library chairs and the couch.
+
+3. To provide and lay down new _Brussels_ carpets in the front spare and
+the two top spares. Quality of carpet, quality of yours and mine.
+
+I have some doubts about the state of the hall floor-cloth, and also the
+floor-cloth in the dining-room. Will you and your aunt carefully examine
+both (calling in Homan too, if necessary), _and report to me_?
+
+It would seem that "No Thoroughfare" has really developed as a drama
+into an amazing success. I begin to think that I shall see it. Dolby is
+away this morning, to conquer or die in a terrific struggle with the
+Mayor of Newhaven (where I am to read next week), who has assailed him
+on a charge of false play in selling tickets. Osgood, my other keeper,
+stands at the table to take me out, and have a "breather" for the
+walking-match, so I must leave off.
+
+Think of my dreaming of Mrs. Bouncer each night!!!
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. Henry Fielding Dickens.]
+
+                          BALTIMORE, U.S., _Tuesday, Feb. 11th, 1868._
+
+MY DEAR HARRY,
+
+I should have written to you before now, but for constant and arduous
+occupation.
+
+In reference to the cricket club's not being what it might be, I agree
+with you in the main. There are some things to be considered, however,
+which you have hardly taken into account. The first thing to be avoided
+is, the slightest appearance of patronage (one of the curses of
+England). The second thing to be avoided is, the deprival of the men of
+their just right to manage their own affairs. I would rather have no
+club at all, than have either of these great mistakes made. The way out
+of them is this: Call the men together, and explain to them that the
+club might be larger, richer, and better. Say that you think that more
+of the neighbouring gentlemen could be got to be playing members. That
+you submit to them that it would be better to have a captain who could
+correspond with them, and talk to them, and in some sort manage them;
+and that, being perfectly acquainted with the game, and having long
+played it at a great public school, you propose yourself as captain, for
+the foregoing reasons. That you propose to them to make the subscription
+of the gentlemen members at least double that of the working men, for no
+other reason than that the gentlemen can afford it better; but that both
+classes of members shall have exactly the same right of voting equally
+in all that concerns the club. Say that you have consulted me upon the
+matter, and that I am of these opinions, and am ready to become chairman
+of the club, and to preside at their meetings, and to overlook its
+business affairs, and to give it five pounds a year, payable at the
+commencement of each season. Then, having brought them to this point,
+draw up the club's rules and regulations, amending them where they want
+amendment.
+
+Discreetly done, I see no difficulty in this. But it can only be
+honourably and hopefully done by having the men together. And I would
+not have them at The Falstaff, but in the hall or dining-room--the
+servants' hall, an excellent place. Whatever you do, let the men ratify;
+and let them feel their little importance, and at once perceive how much
+better the business begins to be done.
+
+I am very glad to hear of the success of your reading, and still more
+glad that you went at it in downright earnest. I should never have made
+my success in life if I had been shy of taking pains, or if I had not
+bestowed upon the least thing I have ever undertaken exactly the same
+attention and care that I have bestowed upon the greatest. Do everything
+at your best. It was but this last year that I set to and learned every
+word of my readings; and from ten years ago to last night, I have never
+read to an audience but I have watched for an opportunity of striking
+out something better somewhere. Look at such of my manuscripts as are
+in the library at Gad's, and think of the patient hours devoted year
+after year to single lines.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The weather is very severe here, and the work is very hard. Dolby,
+having been violently pitched into by the Mayor of Newhaven (a town at
+which I am to read next week), has gone bodily this morning with defiant
+written instructions from me to inform the said mayor that, if he fail
+to make out his case, he (Dolby) is to return all the money taken, and
+to tell him that I will not set foot in his jurisdiction; whereupon the
+Newhaven people will probably fall upon the mayor in his turn, and lead
+him a pleasant life.
+
+                        Ever, my dear Harry, your affectionate Father.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Hogarth.]
+
+                            PHILADELPHIA, _Thursday, Feb. 13th, 1868._
+
+We have got into an immense difficulty with the people of Newhaven. I
+have a strong suspicion that one of our men (who sold there) has been
+speculating all this while, and that he must have put front seats in his
+pockets, and sold back ones. He denies what the mayor charges, but the
+mayor holds on grimly. Dolby set off from Baltimore as soon as we found
+out what was amiss, to examine and report; but some new feature of
+difficulty must have come out, for this morning he telegraphs from New
+York (where he had to sleep last night on his way to Newhaven), that he
+is coming back for further consultation with the Chief. It will
+certainly hurt us, and will of course be distorted by the papers into
+all manner of shapes. My suspicion _may not_ be correct, but I have an
+instinctive belief that it is. We shall probably have the old New York
+row (and loss) over again, unless I can catch this mayor tripping in an
+assertion.
+
+In this very place, we are half-distracted by the speculators. They have
+been holding out for such high prices, that the public have held out
+too; and now (frightened at what they have done) the speculators are
+trying to sell their worst seats at half the cost price, so that we are
+in the ridiculous situation of having sold the room out, and yet not
+knowing what empty seats there may be. _We_ could sell at our box-office
+to any extent; but _we_ can't buy back of the speculators, because we
+informed the public that all the tickets were gone. And if we bought
+_under_ our own price and _sold_ at our own price, we should at once be
+in treaty with the speculators, and should be making money by it! Dolby,
+the much bullied, will come back here presently, half bereft of his
+senses; and I should be half bereft of mine, if the situation were not
+comically disagreeable.
+
+Nothing will induce the people to believe in the farewells. At Baltimore
+on Tuesday night (a very brilliant night indeed), they asked as they
+came out: "When will Mr. Dickens read here again?" "Never." "Nonsense!
+Not come back, after such houses as these? Come. Say when he'll read
+again." Just the same here. We could as soon persuade them that I am the
+President, as that I am going to read here, for the last time, to-morrow
+night.
+
+There is a child of the Barney Williams's in this house--a little
+girl--to whom I presented a black doll when I was here last. I have seen
+her eye at the keyhole since I began writing this, and I think she and
+the doll are outside still. "When you sent it up to me by the coloured
+boy," she said after receiving it (coloured boy is the term for black
+waiter), "I gave such a cream that ma came running in and creamed too,
+'cos she fort I'd hurt myself. But I creamed a cream of joy." _She_ had
+a friend to play with her that day, and brought the friend with her, to
+my infinite confusion. A friend all stockings, and much too tall, who
+sat on the sofa very far back, with her stockings sticking stiffly out
+in front of her, and glared at me and never spake word. Dolby found us
+confronted in a sort of fascination, like serpent and bird.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Hogarth.]
+
+                                  NEW YORK, _Monday, Feb. 17th, 1868._
+
+I got your letter of the 3rd of February here this morning. As I am off
+at seven to-morrow morning, I answer it at once, though indeed I have
+nothing to say.
+
+"True American" still sticking to me. But I am always ready for my work,
+and therefore don't much mind. Dolby and the Mayor of Newhaven
+alternately embrace and exchange mortal defiances. In writing out some
+advertisements towards midnight last night, he made a very good mistake.
+"The reading will be comprised within two _minutes_, and the audience
+are earnestly entreated to be seated ten _hours_ before its
+commencement."
+
+The weather has been finer lately, but the streets are in a horrible
+condition, through half-melted snow, and it is now snowing again. The
+walking-match (next Saturday week) is already in the Boston papers! I
+suppose half Boston will turn out on the occasion. As a sure way of not
+being conspicuous, "the men" are going to walk in flannel! They are in a
+mingled state of comicality and gravity about it that is highly
+ridiculous. Yesterday being a bright cool day, I took Dolby for a
+"buster" of eight miles. As everybody here knows me, the spectacle of
+our splitting up the fashionable avenue (the only way out of town)
+excited the greatest amazement. No doubt _that_ will be in the papers
+to-morrow. I give a gorgeous banquet to eighteen (ladies and gentlemen)
+after the match. Mr. and Mrs. Fields, Do. Ticknor, Longfellow and his
+daughter, Lowell, Holmes and his wife, etc. etc. Sporting speeches to be
+made, and the stakes (four hats) to be handed over to the winner.
+
+My ship will not be the _Cuba_ after all. She is to go into dock, and
+the _Russia_ (a larger ship, and the latest built for the Cunard line)
+is to take her place.
+
+Very glad to hear of Plorn's success. Best love to Mamie.
+
+
+[Sidenote: M. Charles Fechter.]
+
+                                    WASHINGTON, _February 24th, 1868._
+
+MY DEAR FECHTER,
+
+Your letter reached me here yesterday. I have sent you a telegram
+(addressed to the theatre) this morning, and I write this by the
+earliest return mail.
+
+My dear fellow, consider yourself my representative. Whatever you do, or
+desire to do, about the play, I fully authorise beforehand. Tell
+Webster, with my regard, that I think his proposal honest and fair; that
+I think it, in a word, like himself; and that I have perfect confidence
+in his good faith and liberality.
+
+As to making money of the play in the United States here, Boucicault has
+filled Wilkie's head with golden dreams that have _nothing_ in them. He
+makes no account of the fact that, wherever I go, the theatres (with my
+name in big letters) instantly begin playing versions of my books, and
+that the moment the Christmas number came over here they pirated it and
+played "No Thoroughfare." Now, I have enquired into the law, and am
+extremely doubtful whether I _could_ have prevented this. Why should
+they pay for the piece as you act it, when they have no actors, and when
+all they want is my name, and they can get that for nothing?
+
+Wilkie has uniformly written of you enthusiastically. In a letter I had
+from him, dated the 10th of January, he described your conception and
+execution of the part in the most glowing terms. "Here Fechter is
+magnificent." "Here his superb playing brings the house down." "I should
+call even his exit in the last act one of the subtlest and finest things
+he does in the piece." "You can hardly imagine what he gets out of the
+part, or what he makes of his passionate love for Marguerite." These
+expressions, and many others like them, crowded his letter.
+
+I never did so want to see a character played on the stage as I want to
+see you play Obenreizer. As the play was going when I last heard of it,
+I have some hopes that I MAY see it yet. Please God, your Adelphi
+dressing-room will be irradiated with the noble presence of "Never
+Wrong" (if you are acting), about the evening of Monday, the 4th of May!
+
+I am doing enormous business. It is a wearying life, away from all I
+love, but I hope that the time will soon begin to spin away. Among the
+many changes that I find here is the comfortable change that the people
+are in general extremely considerate, and very observant of my privacy.
+Even in this place, I am really almost as much my own master as if I
+were in an English country town. Generally, they are very good audiences
+indeed. They do not (I think) perceive touches of art to _be_ art; but
+they are responsive to the broad results of such touches. "Doctor
+Marigold" is a great favourite, and they laugh so unrestrainedly at "The
+Trial" from "Pickwick" (which you never heard), that it has grown about
+half as long again as it used to be.
+
+If I could send you a "brandy cocktail" by post I would. It is a highly
+meritorious dram, which I hope to present to you at Gad's. My New York
+landlord made me a "Rocky Mountain sneezer," which appeared to me to be
+compounded of all the spirits ever heard of in the world, with bitters,
+lemon, sugar, and snow. You can only make a true "sneezer" when the snow
+is lying on the ground.
+
+There, my dear boy, my paper is out, and I am going to read
+"Copperfield." Count always on my fidelity and true attachment, and look
+out, as I have already said, for a distinguished visitor about Monday,
+the 4th of May.
+
+                    Ever, my dear Fechter,
+                                 Your cordial and affectionate Friend.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Dickens.]
+
+                                   BOSTON, _Tuesday, Feb. 25th, 1868._
+
+It is so very difficult to know, by any exercise of common sense, what
+turn or height the political excitement may take next, and it may so
+easily, and so soon, swallow up all other things, that I think I shall
+suppress my next week's readings here (by good fortune not yet
+announced) and watch the course of events. Dolby's sudden desponding
+under these circumstances is so acute, that it is actually swelling his
+head as I glance at him in the glass while writing.
+
+The catarrh is no better and no worse. The weather is intensely cold.
+The walking-match (of which I will send particulars) is to come off on
+Sunday. Mrs. Fields is more delightful than ever, and Fields more
+hospitable. My room is always radiant with brilliant flowers of their
+sending. I don't know whether I told you that the walking-match is to
+celebrate the extinction of February, and the coming of the day when I
+can say "next month."
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Hogarth.]
+
+                                  BOSTON, _Thursday, Feb. 27th, 1868._
+
+This morning at breakfast I received yours of the 11th from Palace Gate
+House. I have very little news to give you in return for your budget.
+The walking-match is to come off on Saturday, and Fields and I went over
+the ground yesterday to measure the miles. We went at a tremendous pace.
+The condition of the ground is something indescribable, from half-melted
+snow, running water, and sheets and blocks of ice. The two performers
+have not the faintest notion of the weight of the task they have
+undertaken. I give a dinner afterwards, and have just now been settling
+the bill of fare and selecting the wines.
+
+In the first excitement of the presidential impeachment, our houses
+instantly went down. After carefully considering the subject, I decided
+to take advantage of the fact that next week's four readings here have
+not yet been announced, and to abolish them altogether. Nothing in this
+country lasts long, and I think the public may be heartily tired of the
+President's name by the 9th of March, when I read at a considerable
+distance from here. So behold me with a whole week's holiday in view!
+The Boston audiences have come to regard the readings and the reader as
+their peculiar property; and you would be at once amused and pleased if
+you could see the curious way in which they seem to plume themselves on
+both. They have taken to applauding too whenever they laugh or cry, and
+the result is very inspiriting. I shall remain here until Saturday, the
+7th, but shall not read here, after to-morrow night, until the 1st of
+April, when I begin my Boston farewells, six in number.
+
+
+                                                       _Friday, 28th._
+
+It has been snowing all night, and the city is in a miserable condition.
+We had a fine house last night for "Carol" and "Trial," and such an
+enthusiastic one that they persisted in a call after the "Carol," and,
+while I was out, covered the little table with flowers. The "True
+American" has taken a fresh start, as if it were quite a novelty, and is
+on the whole rather worse than ever to-day. The Cunard packet, the
+_Australasian_ (a poor ship), is some days overdue, and Dolby is
+anxiously looking out for her. There is a lull in the excitement about
+the President, but the articles of impeachment are to be produced this
+afternoon, and then it may set in again. Osgood came into camp last
+night from selling in remote places, and reports that at Rochester and
+Buffalo (both places near the frontier), Canada people bought tickets,
+who had struggled across the frozen river and clambered over all sorts
+of obstructions to get them. Some of those halls turn out to be smaller
+than represented, but I have no doubt, to use an American expression,
+that we shall "get along."
+
+To-morrow fortnight we purpose being at the Falls of Niagara, and then
+we shall turn back and really begin to wind up. I have got to know the
+"Carol" so well that I can't remember it, and occasionally go dodging
+about in the wildest manner to pick up lost pieces. They took it so
+tremendously last night that I was stopped every five minutes. One poor
+young girl in mourning burst into a passion of grief about Tiny Tim, and
+was taken out. This is all my news.
+
+Each of the pedestrians is endeavouring to persuade the other to take
+something unwholesome before starting.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Dickens.]
+
+                                    BOSTON, _Monday, March 2nd, 1868._
+
+A heavy gale of wind and a snowstorm oblige me to write suddenly for the
+Cunard steamer a day earlier than usual. The railroad between this and
+New York will probably be stopped somewhere. After all the hard weather
+we have had, this is the worst day we have seen.
+
+The walking-match came off on Saturday, over tremendously difficult
+ground, against a biting wind, and through deep snow-wreaths. It was so
+cold, too, that our hair, beards, eyelashes, eyebrows, were frozen hard,
+and hung with icicles. The course was thirteen miles. They were close
+together at the turning-point, when Osgood went ahead at a splitting
+pace and with extraordinary endurance, and won by half a mile. Dolby did
+very well indeed, and begs that he may not be despised. In the evening I
+gave a very splendid dinner. Eighteen covers, most magnificent flowers,
+such table decoration as was never seen in these parts. The whole thing
+was a great success, and everybody was delighted.
+
+I am holiday-making until Friday, when we start on the round of travel
+that is to bring us back here for the 1st of April. My holiday-making
+is simply thorough resting, except on Wednesday, when I dine with
+Longfellow. There is still great political excitement, but I hope it may
+not hurt us very much. My fear is that it may damage the farewell. Dolby
+is not of my mind as to this, and I hope he may be right. We are not
+quite determined whether Mrs. Fields did not desert our colours, by
+coming on the ground in a carriage, and having _bread soaked in brandy_
+put into the winning man's mouth as he steamed along. She pleaded that
+she would have done as much for Dolby, if _he_ had been ahead, so we are
+inclined to forgive her. As she had done so much for me in the way of
+flowers, I thought I would show her a sight in that line at the dinner.
+You never saw anything like it. Two immense crowns; the base, of the
+choicest exotics; and the loops, oval masses of violets. In the centre
+of the table an immense basket, overflowing with enormous bell-mouthed
+lilies; all round the table a bright green border of wreathed creeper,
+with clustering roses at intervals; a rose for every button-hole, and a
+bouquet for every lady. They made an exhibition of the table before
+dinner to numbers of people.
+
+P. H. has just come in with a newspaper, containing a reference (in good
+taste!) to the walking-match. He posts it to you by this post.
+
+It is telegraphed that the storm prevails over an immense extent of
+country, and is just the same at Chicago as here. I hope it may prove a
+wind-up. We are getting sick of the sound of sleigh-bells even.
+
+Your account of Anne has greatly interested me.
+
+
+[Sidenote: M. Charles Fechter.]
+
+                                      SYRACUSE, U.S. OF AMERICA,
+                                      _Sunday Night, March 8th, 1868._
+
+MY DEAR FECHTER,
+
+I am here in a most wonderful out-of-the-world place, which looks as if
+it had begun to be built yesterday, and were going to be imperfectly
+knocked together with a nail or two the day after to-morrow. I am in the
+worst inn that ever was seen, and outside is a thaw that places the
+whole country under water. I have looked out of window for the people,
+and I can't find any people. I have tried all the wines in the house,
+and there are only two wines, for which you pay six shillings a bottle,
+or fifteen, according as you feel disposed to change the name of the
+thing you ask for. (The article never changes.) The bill of fare is "in
+French," and the principal article (the carte is printed) is "Paettie de
+shay." I asked the Irish waiter what this dish was, and he said: "It was
+the name the steward giv' to oyster patties--the Frinch name." These are
+the drinks you are to wash it down with: "Mooseux," "Abasinthe,"
+"Curacco," "Marschine," "Annise," and "Margeaux"!
+
+I am growing very home-sick, and very anxious for the 22nd of April; on
+which day, please God, I embark for home. I am beginning to be tired,
+and have been depressed all the time (except when reading), and have
+lost my appetite. I cannot tell you--but you know, and therefore why
+should I?--how overjoyed I shall be to see you again, my dear boy, and
+how sorely I miss a dear friend, and how sorely I miss all art, in these
+parts. No disparagement to the country, which has a great future in
+reserve, or to its people, who are very kind to me.
+
+I mean to take my leave of readings in the autumn and winter, in a final
+series in England with Chappell. This will come into the way of literary
+work for a time, for, after I have rested--don't laugh--it is a grim
+reality--I shall have to turn my mind to--ha! ha! ha!--to--ha! ha! ha!
+(more sepulchrally than before)--the--the CHRISTMAS NUMBER!!! I feel as
+if I had murdered a Christmas number years ago (perhaps I did!) and its
+ghost perpetually haunted me. Nevertheless in some blessed rest at
+Gad's, we will talk over stage matters, and all matters, in an even way,
+and see what we can make of them, please God. Be sure that I shall not
+be in London one evening, after disembarking, without coming round to
+the theatre to embrace you, my dear fellow.
+
+I have had an American cold (the worst in the world) since Christmas
+Day. I read four times a week, with the most tremendous energy I can
+bring to bear upon it. I travel about pretty heavily. I am very resolute
+about calling on people, or receiving people, or dining out, and so save
+myself a great deal. I read in all sorts of places--churches, theatres,
+concert rooms, lecture halls. Every night I read I am described (mostly
+by people who have not the faintest notion of observing) from the sole
+of my boot to where the topmost hair of my head ought to be, but is not.
+Sometimes I am described as being "evidently nervous;" sometimes it is
+rather taken ill that "Mr. Dickens is so extraordinarily composed." My
+eyes are blue, red, grey, white, green, brown, black, hazel, violet, and
+rainbow-coloured. I am like "a well-to-do American gentleman," and the
+Emperor of the French, with an occasional touch of the Emperor of China,
+and a deterioration from the attributes of our famous townsman, Rufus W.
+B. D. Dodge Grumsher Pickville. I say all sorts of things that I never
+said, go to all sorts of places that I never saw or heard of, and have
+done all manner of things (in some previous state of existence I
+suppose) that have quite escaped my memory. You ask your friend to
+describe what he is about. This is what he is about, every day and hour
+of his American life.
+
+I hope to be back with you before you write to me!
+
+                  Ever, my dear Fechter,
+                             Your most affectionate and hearty Friend.
+
+P.S.--Don't let Madame Fechter, or Marie, or Paul forget me!
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Hogarth.]
+
+                                  SYRACUSE, _Sunday, March 8th, 1868._
+
+As we shall probably be busy all day to-morrow, I write this to-day,
+though it will not leave New York until Wednesday. This is a very grim
+place in a heavy thaw, and a most depressing one. The hotel also is
+surprisingly bad, quite a triumph in that way. We stood out for an hour
+in the melting snow, and came in again, having to change completely.
+Then we sat down by the stove (no fireplace), and there we are now. We
+were so afraid to go to bed last night, the rooms were so close and
+sour, that we played whist, double dummy, till we couldn't bear each
+other any longer. We had an old buffalo for supper, and an old pig for
+breakfast, and we are going to have I don't know what for dinner at six.
+In the public rooms downstairs, a number of men (speechless) are sitting
+in rocking-chairs, with their feet against the window-frames, staring
+out at window and spitting dolefully at intervals. Scott is in tears,
+and George the gasman is suborning people to go and clean the hall,
+which is a marvel of dirt. And yet we have taken considerably over three
+hundred pounds for to-morrow night!
+
+We were at Albany the night before last and yesterday morning; a very
+pretty town, where I am to read on the 18th and 19th. This day week we
+hope to wash out this establishment with the Falls of Niagara. And there
+is my news, except that your _last letters_ to me in America must be
+posted by the Cunard steamer, which will sail from Liverpool on
+_Saturday, the 4th of April_. These I shall be safe to get before
+embarking.
+
+I send a note to Katie (addressed to Mamie) by this mail. I wrote to
+Harry some weeks ago, stating to him on what principles he must act in
+remodelling the cricket club, if he would secure success.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Hogarth.]
+
+                                                _Monday Morning, 9th._
+
+Nothing new. Weather cloudy, and town more dismal than yesterday. It
+froze again last night, and thaws again this morning. Somebody sent me
+an Australian newspaper this morning--some citizen of Syracuse I
+mean--because of a paragraph in it describing the taking of two
+freebooters, at which taking Alfred was present. Though I do not make
+out that he had anything in the world to do with it, except having his
+name pressed into the service of the newspaper.
+
+
+                                BUFFALO, _Thursday, March 12th, 1868._
+
+I hope this may be in time for next Saturday's mail; but this is a long
+way from New York, and rivers are swollen with melted snow, and
+travelling is unusually slow.
+
+Just now (two o'clock in the afternoon) I received your sad news of the
+death of poor dear Chauncey.[23] It naturally goes to my heart. It is
+not a light thing to lose such a friend, and I truly loved him. In the
+first unreasonable train of feeling, I dwelt more than I should have
+thought possible on my being unable to attend his funeral. I know how
+little this really matters; but I know he would have wished me to be
+there with real honest tears for his memory, and I feel it very much. I
+never, never, never was better loved by man than I was by him, I am
+sure. Poor dear fellow, good affectionate gentle creature.
+
+I have not as yet received any letter from Henri, nor do I think he can
+have written to New York by your mail. I believe that I am--I know that
+I _was_--one of the executors. In that case Mr. Jackson, his agent, will
+either write to me very shortly on Henri's information of my address, or
+enquiry will be made at Gad's or at the office about it.
+
+It is difficult for me to write more just now. The news is a real shock
+at such a distance, and I must read to-night, and I must compose my
+mind. Let Mekitty know that I received her violets with great pleasure,
+and that I sent her my best love and my best thanks.
+
+On the 25th of February I read "Copperfield" and "Bob" at Boston. Either
+on that very day, or very close upon it, I was describing his
+(Townshend's) house to Fields, and telling him about the great Danby
+picture that he should see when he came to London.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Dickens.]
+
+                                ROCHESTER, _Sunday, March 16th, 1868._
+
+I found yours of the 28th February, when I came back here last night. We
+have had two brilliant sunny days at Niagara, and have seen that
+wonderful place under the finest circumstances.
+
+Enclosed I return you Homan's estimate; let all that work be done,
+including the curtains.
+
+As to the hall, I have my doubts whether one of the parqueted floors
+made by Aaron Smith's, of Bond Street, ought not to be better than
+tiles, for the reason that perhaps the nature of the house's
+construction might render the "bed" necessary for wooden flooring more
+easy to be made than the "bed" necessary for tiles. I don't think you
+can do better than call in the trusty Lillie to advise. Decide with your
+aunt on which appears to be better, under the circumstances. Have
+estimate made for _cash_, select patterns and colours, and let the work
+be done out of hand. (Here's a prompt order; now I draw breath.) Let it
+be thoroughly well done--no half measures.
+
+There is a great thaw all over the country here, and I think it has done
+the catarrh good. I am to read at the famous Newhaven on Tuesday, the
+24th. I hope without a row, but cannot say. The readings are running out
+fast now, and we are growing very restless.
+
+This is a short letter, but we are pressed for time. It is two o'clock,
+and we dine at three, before reading. To-morrow we rise at six, and have
+eleven hours' railway or so. We have now come back from our farthest
+point, and are steadily working towards home.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. W. C. Macready.]
+
+                     SPRINGFIELD, MASS., _Saturday, March 21st, 1868._
+
+MY DEAREST MACREADY,
+
+What with perpetual reading and travelling, what with a "true American
+catarrh" (on which I am complimented almost boastfully), and what with
+one of the severest winters ever known, your coals of fire received by
+the last mail did not burn my head so much as they might have done
+under less excusatory circumstances. But they scorched it too!
+
+You would find the general aspect of America and Americans decidedly
+much improved. You would find immeasurably greater consideration and
+respect for your privacy than of old. You would find a steady change for
+the better everywhere, except (oddly enough) in the railroads generally,
+which seem to have stood still, while everything else has moved. But
+there is an exception westward. There the express trains have now a very
+delightful carriage called a "drawing-room car," literally a series of
+little private drawing-rooms, with sofas and a table in each, opening
+out of a little corridor. In each, too, is a large plate-glass window,
+with which you can do as you like. As you pay extra for this luxury, it
+may be regarded as the first move towards two classes of passengers.
+When the railroad straight away to San Francisco (in six days) shall be
+opened through, it will not only have these drawing-rooms, but
+sleeping-rooms too; a bell in every little apartment communicating with
+a steward's pantry, a restaurant, a staff of servants, marble
+washing-stands, and a barber's shop! I looked into one of these cars a
+day or two ago, and it was very ingeniously arranged and quite complete.
+
+I left Niagara last Sunday, and travelled on to Albany, through three
+hundred miles of flood, villages deserted, bridges broken, fences
+drifting away, nothing but tearing water, floating ice, and absolute
+wreck and ruin. The train gave in altogether at Utica, and the
+passengers were let loose there for the night. As I was due at Albany, a
+very active superintendent of works did all he could to "get Mr. Dickens
+along," and in the morning we resumed our journey through the water,
+with a hundred men in seven-league boots pushing the ice from before us
+with long poles. How we got to Albany I can't say, but we got there
+somehow, just in time for a triumphal "Carol" and "Trial." All the
+tickets had been sold, and we found the Albanians in a state of great
+excitement. You may imagine what the flood was when I tell you that we
+took the passengers out of two trains that had their fires put out by
+the water four-and-twenty hours before, and cattle from trucks that had
+been in the water I don't know how long, but so long that the sheep had
+begun to eat each other! It was a horrible spectacle, and the haggard
+human misery of their faces was quite a new study. There was a fine
+breath of spring in the air concurrently with the great thaw; but lo and
+behold! last night it began to snow again with a strong wind, and to-day
+a snowdrift covers this place with all the desolation of winter once
+more. I never was so tired of the sight of snow. As to sleighing, I have
+been sleighing about to that extent, that I am sick of the sound of a
+sleigh-bell.
+
+I have seen all our Boston friends, except Curtis. Ticknor is dead. The
+rest are very little changed, except that Longfellow has a perfectly
+white flowing beard and long white hair. But he does not otherwise look
+old, and is infinitely handsomer than he was. I have been constantly
+with them all, and they have always talked much of you. It is the
+established joke that Boston is my "native place," and we hold all sorts
+of hearty foregatherings. They all come to every reading, and are always
+in a most delightful state of enthusiasm. They give me a parting dinner
+at the club, on the Thursday before Good Friday. To pass from Boston
+personal to New York theatrical, I will mention here that one of the
+proprietors of my New York hotel is one of the proprietors of Niblo's,
+and the most active. Consequently I have seen the "Black Crook" and the
+"White Fawn," in majesty, from an arm-chair in the first entrance, P.S.,
+more than once. Of these astonishing dramas, I beg to report (seriously)
+that I have found no human creature "behind" who has the slightest idea
+what they are about (upon my honour, my dearest Macready!), and that
+having some amiable small talk with a neat little Spanish woman, who is
+the _première danseuse_, I asked her, in joke, to let me measure her
+skirt with my dress glove. Holding the glove by the tip of the
+forefinger, I found the skirt to be just three gloves long, and yet its
+length was much in excess of the skirts of two hundred other ladies,
+whom the carpenters were at that moment getting into their places for a
+transformation scene, on revolving columns, on wires and "travellers" in
+iron cradles, up in the flies, down in the cellars, on every description
+of float that Wilmot, gone distracted, could imagine!
+
+I have taken my passage for Liverpool from New York in the Cunarder
+_Russia_, on the 22nd of April. I had the second officer's cabin on deck
+coming out, and I have the chief steward's cabin on deck going home,
+because it will be on the sunny side of the ship. I have experienced
+nothing here but good humour and cordiality. In the autumn and winter I
+have arranged with Chappells to take my farewell of reading in the
+United Kingdom for ever and ever.
+
+I am delighted to hear of Benvenuta's marriage, and I think her husband
+a very lucky man. Johnnie has my profound sympathy under his
+examinatorial woes. The noble boy will give me Gavazzi revised and
+enlarged, I expect, when I next come to Cheltenham. I will give you and
+Mrs. Macready all my American experiences when you come to London, or,
+better still, to Gad's. Meanwhile I send my hearty love to all, not
+forgetting dear Katie.
+
+Niagara is not at all spoiled by a very dizzy-looking suspension bridge.
+Is to have another still nearer to the Horse-shoe opened in July. My
+last sight of that scene (last Sunday) was thus: We went up to the
+rapids above the Horse-shoe--say two miles from it--and through the
+great cloud of spray. Everything in the magnificent valley--buildings,
+forest, high banks, air, water, everything--was _made of rainbow_.
+Turner's most imaginative drawing in his finest day has nothing in it so
+ethereal, so gorgeous in fancy, so celestial. We said to one another
+(Dolby and I), "Let it for evermore remain so," and shut our eyes and
+came away.
+
+God bless you and all dear to you, my dear old Friend!
+
+                               I am ever your affectionate and loving.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Dickens.]
+
+                                 PORTLAND, _Sunday, March 29th, 1868._
+
+I should have written to you by the last mail, but I really was too
+unwell to do it. The writing day was last Friday, when I ought to have
+left Boston for New Bedford (fifty-five miles) before eleven in the
+morning. But I was so exhausted that I could not be got up, and had to
+take my chance of an evening's train producing me in time to read, which
+it just did. With the return of snow, nine days ago, the "true American"
+(which had lulled) came back as bad as ever. I have coughed from two or
+three in the morning until five or six, and have been absolutely
+sleepless. I have had no appetite besides, and no taste. Last night here
+I took some laudanum, and it is the only thing that has done me good.
+But the life in this climate is so very hard. When I did manage to get
+from Boston to New Bedford, I read with my utmost force and vigour.
+Next morning, well or ill, I must turn out at seven to get back to
+Boston on my way here.
+
+I dine at Boston at three, and at five must come on here (a hundred and
+thirty miles or so), for to-morrow night; there being no Sunday train.
+To-morrow night I read here in a very large place, and Tuesday morning
+at six I must start again to get back to Boston once more. But after
+to-morrow night, I have only the Boston and New York farewells, thank
+God! I am most grateful to think that when we came to devise the details
+of the tour, I foresaw that it could never be done, as Dolby and Osgood
+proposed, by one unassisted man, as if he were a machine. If I had not
+cut out the work, and cut out Canada, I could never have gone there, I
+am quite sure. Even as it is, I have just now written to Dolby (who is
+in New York), to see my doctor there, and ask him to send me some
+composing medicine that I can take at night, inasmuch as without sleep I
+cannot get through. However sympathetic and devoted the people are about
+me, they _can not_ be got to comprehend that one's being able to do the
+two hours with spirit when the time comes round, may be co-existent with
+the consciousness of great depression and fatigue. I don't mind saying
+all this, now that the labour is so nearly over. You shall have a
+brighter account of me, please God, when I close this at Boston.
+
+
+                                                 _Monday, March 30th._
+
+Without any artificial aid, I got a splendid night's rest last night,
+and consequently am very much freshened up to-day. Yesterday I had a
+fine walk by the sea, and to-day I have had another on the heights
+overlooking it.
+
+
+                                              BOSTON, _Tuesday, 31st._
+
+I have safely arrived here, just in time to add a line to that effect,
+and get this off by to-morrow's English mail from New York. Catarrh
+rather better. Everything triumphant last night, except no sleep again.
+I suppose Dolby to be now on his way back to join me here. I am much
+mistaken if the political crisis do not damage the farewells by almost
+one half.
+
+I hope that I am certainly better altogether.
+
+My room well decorated with flowers, of course, and Mr. and Mrs. Fields
+coming to dinner. They are the most devoted of friends, and never in the
+way and never out of it.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Hogarth.]
+
+                                 BOSTON, _Wednesday, April 1st, 1868._
+
+I received your letter of from the 14th to the 17th of March, here, last
+night. My New York doctor has prescribed for me promptly, and I hope I
+am better. I am certainly no worse. We shall do (to the best of my
+belief) _very well_ with the farewells here and at New York, but not
+greatly. Everything is at a standstill, pending the impeachment and the
+next presidential election. I forgot whether I told you that the New
+York press are going to give me a public dinner, on Saturday, the 18th.
+
+I hear (but not from himself) that Wills has had a bad fall in hunting,
+and is, or has been, laid up. I am supposed, I take it, not to know this
+until I hear it from himself.
+
+
+_Thursday._
+
+My notion of the farewells is pretty certain now to turn out right. It
+is not at all probable that we shall do anything enormous. Every pulpit
+in Massachusetts will resound to violent politics to-day and to-night.
+You remember the Hutchinson family?[24] I have had a grateful letter
+from John Hutchinson. He speaks of "my sister Abby" as living in New
+York. The immediate object of his note is to invite me to the marriage
+of his daughter, twenty-one years of age.
+
+You will see by the evidence of this piece of paper that I am using up
+my stationery. Scott has just been making anxious calculations as to our
+powers of holding out in the articles of tooth-powder, etc. The
+calculations encourage him to believe that we shall just hold out, and
+no more. I think I am still better to-day than I was yesterday; but I am
+far from strong, and have no appetite. To see me at my little table at
+night, you would think me the freshest of the fresh. And this is the
+marvel of Fields' life.
+
+I don't forget that this is Forster's birthday.
+
+
+                                              _Friday Afternoon, 3rd._
+
+Catarrh worse than ever! And we don't know (at four) whether I can read
+to-night or must stop. Otherwise all well.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Dickens.]
+
+                                   BOSTON, _Tuesday, April 7th, 1868._
+
+I not only read last Friday, when I was doubtful of being able to do so,
+but read as I never did before, and astonished the audience quite as
+much as myself. You never saw or heard such a scene of excitement.
+
+Longfellow and all the Cambridge men urged me to give in. I have been
+very near doing so, but feel stronger to-day. I cannot tell whether the
+catarrh may have done me any lasting injury in the lungs or other
+breathing organs, until I shall have rested and got home. I hope and
+believe not. Consider the weather. There have been two snowstorms since
+I wrote last, and to-day the town is blotted out in a ceaseless whirl of
+snow and wind.
+
+I cannot eat (to anything like the ordinary extent), and have
+established this system: At seven in the morning, in bed, a tumbler of
+new cream and two tablespoonsful of rum. At twelve, a sherry cobbler and
+a biscuit. At three (dinner time), a pint of champagne. At five minutes
+to eight, an egg beaten up with a glass of sherry. Between the parts,
+the strongest beef tea that can be made, drunk hot. At a quarter-past
+ten, soup, and anything to drink that I can fancy. I don't eat more than
+half a pound of solid food in the whole four-and-twenty hours, if so
+much.
+
+If I hold out, as I hope to do, I shall be greatly pressed in leaving
+here and getting over to New York before next Saturday's mail from
+there. Do not, therefore, _if all be well_, expect to hear from me by
+Saturday's mail, but look for my last letter from America by the mail of
+the following Wednesday, the 15th. _Be sure_ that you shall hear,
+however, by Saturday's mail, if I should knock up as to reading. I am
+tremendously "beat," but I feel really and unaffectedly so much stronger
+to-day, both in my body and hopes, that I am much encouraged. I have a
+fancy that I turned my worst time last night.
+
+Dolby is as tender as a woman and as watchful as a doctor. He never
+leaves me during the reading now, but sits at the side of the platform
+and keeps his eye upon me all the time. Ditto George, the gasman,
+steadiest and most reliable man I ever employed. I am the more hopeful
+of my not having to relinquish a reading, because last night was
+"Copperfield" and "Bob"--by a quarter of an hour the longest, and, in
+consideration of the storm, by very much the most trying. Yet I was far
+fresher afterwards than I have been these three weeks.
+
+I have "Dombey" to do to-night, and must go through it carefully; so
+here ends my report. The personal affection of the people in this place
+is charming to the last.
+
+
+[Sidenote: The Hon. Mrs. Watson.]
+
+                           GAD'S HILL PLACE, _Monday, May 11th, 1868._
+
+MY DEAR MRS. WATSON,
+
+I am delighted to have your letter. It comes to me like a faithful voice
+from dear old Rockingham, and awakens many memories.
+
+The work in America has been so very hard, and the winter there has been
+so excessively severe, that I really have been very unwell for some
+months. But I had not been at sea three days on the passage home when I
+became myself again.
+
+If you will arrange with Mary Boyle any time for coming here, we shall
+be charmed to see you, and I will adapt my arrangements accordingly. I
+make this suggestion because she generally comes here early in the
+summer season. But if you will propose yourself _anyhow_, giving me a
+margin of a few days in case of my being pre-engaged for this day or
+that, we will (as my American friends say) "fix it."
+
+What with travelling, reading night after night, and speech-making day
+after day, I feel the peace of the country beyond all expression. On
+board ship coming home, a "deputation" (two in number, of whom only one
+could get into my cabin, while the other looked in at my window) came to
+ask me to read to the passengers that evening in the saloon. I
+respectfully replied that sooner than do it, I would assault the
+captain, and be put in irons.
+
+                                            Ever affectionately yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mrs. George Cattermole.]
+
+                    GAD'S HILL PLACE, HIGHAM BY ROCHESTER, KENT,
+                                           _Saturday, May 16th, 1868._
+
+MY DEAR MRS. CATTERMOLE,
+
+On my return from America just now, I accidentally heard that George had
+been ill. My sister-in-law had heard it from Forster, but vaguely. Until
+I received your letter of Wednesday's date, I had no idea that he had
+been very ill; and should have been greatly shocked by knowing it, were
+it not for the hopeful and bright assurance you give me that he is
+greatly better.
+
+My old affection for him has never cooled. The last time he dined with
+me, I asked him to come again that day ten years, for I was perfectly
+certain (this was my small joke) that I should not set eyes upon him
+sooner. The time being fully up, I hope you will remind him, with my
+love, that he is due. His hand is upon these walls here, so I should
+like him to see for himself, and _you_ to see for _yourself_, and in
+this hope I shall pursue his complete recovery.
+
+I heartily sympathise with you in your terrible anxiety, and in your
+vast relief; and, with many thanks for your letter, am ever, my dear
+Mrs. Cattermole,
+
+                                                 Affectionately yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. W. C. Macready.]
+
+                             GAD'S HILL, _Wednesday, June 10th, 1868._
+
+MY DEAREST MACREADY,
+
+Since my return from America, I have been so overwhelmed with business
+that I have not had time even to write to you. You may imagine what six
+months of arrear are to dispose of; added to this, Wills has received a
+concussion of the brain (from an accident in the hunting-field), and is
+sent away by the doctors, and strictly prohibited from even writing a
+note. Consequently all the business and money details of "All the Year
+Round" devolve upon me. And I have had to get them up, for I have never
+had experience of them. Then I am suddenly entreated to go to Paris, to
+look after the French version of "No Thoroughfare" on the stage. And I
+go, and come back, leaving it a great success.
+
+I hope Mrs. Macready and you have not abandoned the idea of coming here?
+The expression of this hope is the principal, if not the only, object of
+this present note. May the amiable secretary vouchsafe a satisfactory
+reply!
+
+Katie, Mary, and Georgina send their very best love to your Katie and
+Mrs. Macready. The undersigned is in his usual brilliant condition, and
+indeed has greatly disappointed them at home here, by coming back "so
+brown and looking so well." They expected a wreck, and were, at first,
+much mortified. But they are getting over it now.
+
+To my particular friends, the noble boy and Johnny, I beg to be warmly
+remembered.
+
+                                Ever, my dearest Macready,
+                                               Your most affectionate.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mrs. Henry Austin.]
+
+                    GAD'S HILL PLACE, HIGHAM BY ROCHESTER, KENT,
+                                           _Tuesday, July 21st, 1868._
+
+              ON THE DEATH OF MR. HENRY AUSTIN.[25]
+
+MY DEAR LETITIA,
+
+You will have had a telegram from me to-day. I received your sad news by
+this morning's post. They never, without express explanation, mind
+"Immediate" on a letter addressed to the office, because half the people
+who write there on business that does not press, or on no business at
+all, so mark their letters.
+
+On Thursday I have people to see and matters to attend to, both at the
+office and at Coutts', which, in Wills's absence, I cannot forego or
+depute to another. But, _between ourselves_, I must add something else:
+I have the greatest objection to attend a funeral in which my affections
+are not strongly and immediately concerned. I have no notion of a
+funeral as a matter of form or ceremony. And just as I should expressly
+prohibit the summoning to my own burial of anybody who was not very near
+or dear to me, so I revolt from myself appearing at that solemn rite
+unless the deceased were very near or dear to me. I cannot endure being
+dressed up by an undertaker as part of his trade show. I was not in this
+poor good fellow's house in his lifetime, and I feel that I have no
+business there when he lies dead in it. My mind is penetrated with
+sympathy and compassion for the young widow, but that feeling is a real
+thing, and my attendance as a mourner would not be--to myself. It would
+be to you, I know, but it would not be to myself. I know full well that
+you cannot delegate to me your memories of and your associations with
+the deceased, and the more true and tender they are the more invincible
+is my objection to become a form in the midst of the most awful
+realities.
+
+With love and condolence from Georgina, Mary, and Katie,
+
+                           Believe me, ever your affectionate Brother.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mrs. George Cattermole.]
+
+                             GAD'S HILL, _Wednesday, July 22nd, 1868._
+
+MY DEAR MRS. CATTERMOLE,
+
+Of course I will sign your memorial to the Academy. If you take either
+of the Landseers, certainly take Edwin (1, St. John's Wood Road, N.W.)
+But, if you would be content with Frith, I have already spoken to him,
+and believe that I can answer for him. I shall be at "All the Year
+Round" Office, 26, Wellington Street, London, to-morrow, from eleven to
+three. Frith will be here on Saturday, and I shall be here too. I spoke
+to him a fortnight ago, and I found him most earnest in the cause. He
+said he felt absolutely sure that the whole profession in its best and
+highest representation would do anything for George. I sounded him,
+having the opportunity of meeting him at dinner at Cartwright's.
+
+                                            Ever yours affectionately.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. W. H. Wills.]
+
+                                            _Friday, July 31st, 1868._
+
+MY DEAR WILLS,
+
+I had such a hard day at the office yesterday, that I had not time to
+write to you before I left. So I write to-day.
+
+I am very unwilling to abandon the Christmas number, though even in the
+case of my little Christmas books (which were immensely profitable) I
+let the idea go when I thought it was wearing out. Ever since I came
+home, I have hammered at it, more or less, and have been uneasy about
+it. I have begun something which is very droll, but it manifestly shapes
+itself towards a book, and could not in the least admit of even that
+shadowy approach to a congruous whole on the part of other contributors
+which they have ever achieved at the best. I have begun something else
+(aboard the American mail-steamer); but I don't like it, because the
+stories must come limping in after the old fashion, though, of course,
+what I _have_ done will be good for A. Y. R. In short, I have cast about
+with the greatest pains and patience, and I have been wholly unable to
+find what I want.
+
+And yet I cannot quite make up my mind to give in without another fight
+for it. I offered one hundred pounds reward at Gad's to anybody who
+could suggest a notion to satisfy me. Charles Collins suggested one
+yesterday morning, in which there is _something_, though not much. I
+will turn it over and over, and try a few more starts on my own account.
+Finally, I swear I will not give it up until August is out. Vow
+registered.
+
+I am clear that a number by "various writers" would not do. If we have
+not the usual sort of number, we must call the current number for that
+date the Christmas number, and make it as good as possible.
+
+I sit in the Châlet,[26] like Mariana in the Moated Grange, and to as
+much purpose.
+
+I am buying the freehold of the meadow at Gad's, and of an adjoining
+arable field, so that I shall now have about eight-and-twenty freehold
+acres in a ring-fence. No more now.
+
+I made up a very good number yesterday. You will see in it a very short
+article that I have called "Now!" which is a highly remarkable piece of
+description. It is done by a new man, from whom I have accepted another
+article; but he will never do anything so good again.
+
+                                                  Ever affectionately.
+
+
+[Sidenote: M. de Cerjat.]
+
+                    GAD'S HILL PLACE, HIGHAM BY ROCHESTER, KENT,
+                                         _Wednesday, Aug. 26th, 1868._
+
+MY DEAR CERJAT,
+
+I was happy to receive your esteemed letter a few days ago.
+
+The severity of the winter in America (which was quite exceptional even
+in that rigorous climate), combined with the hard work I had to do,
+tried me a good deal. Neuralgia and colds beset me, either by turns or
+both together, and I had often much to do to get through at night. But
+the sea voyage home again did wonders in restoring me, and I have been
+very well indeed, though a little fatigued, ever since. I am now
+preparing for a final reading campaign in England, Scotland, and
+Ireland. It will begin on the 6th of October, and will probably last,
+with short occasional intermissions, until June.
+
+The great subject in England for the moment is the horrible accident to
+the Irish mail-train. It is now supposed that the petroleum (known to be
+a powerful anæsthetic) rendered the unfortunate people who were burnt
+almost instantly insensible to any sensation. My escape in the
+Staplehurst accident of three years ago is not to be obliterated from my
+nervous system. To this hour I have sudden vague rushes of terror, even
+when riding in a hansom cab, which are perfectly unreasonable but quite
+insurmountable. I used to make nothing of driving a pair of horses
+habitually through the most crowded parts of London. I cannot now drive,
+with comfort to myself, on the country roads here; and I doubt if I
+could ride at all in the saddle. My reading secretary and companion
+knows so well when one of these odd momentary seizures comes upon me in
+a railway carriage, that he instantly produces a dram of brandy, which
+rallies the blood to the heart and generally prevails. I forget whether
+I ever told you that my watch (a chronometer) has never gone exactly
+since the accident? So the Irish catastrophe naturally revives the
+dreadful things I saw that day.
+
+The only other news here you know as well as I; to wit, that the country
+is going to be ruined, and that the Church is going to be ruined, and
+that both have become so used to being ruined, that they will go on
+perfectly well.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Dickens.]
+
+     OFFICE OF "ALL THE YEAR ROUND," NO. 26, WELLINGTON STREET,
+                                  STRAND, LONDON, W.C.,
+                                         _Saturday, Sept. 26th, 1868._
+
+MY DEAREST MAMIE,
+
+I will add a line to this at the Athenæum, after seeing Plorn off, to
+tell you how he went away.
+
+
+                                           ATHENÆUM, _Quarter to Six._
+
+I can honestly report that he went away, poor dear fellow, as well as
+could possibly be expected. He was pale, and had been crying, and (Harry
+said) had broken down in the railway carriage after leaving Higham
+station; but only for a short time.
+
+Just before the train started he cried a good deal, but not painfully.
+(Tell dear Georgy that I bought him his cigars.) These are hard, hard
+things, but they might have to be done without means or influence, and
+then they would be far harder. God bless him!
+
+
+        PARLIAMENT. REPLY TO A PROPOSAL MADE THROUGH
+        ALEXANDER RUSSEL, OF "THE SCOTSMAN," THAT HE
+        SHOULD ALLOW HIMSELF TO BE PUT FORWARD AS A
+        CANDIDATE FOR THE REPRESENTATION OF EDINBURGH.
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. F. D. Finlay.]
+
+                    GAD'S HILL PLACE, HIGHAM BY ROCHESTER, KENT,
+                                             _Sunday, Oct. 4th, 1868._
+
+MY DEAR FINLAY,
+
+I am much obliged to you in all friendship and sincerity for your
+letter. I have a great respect for your father-in-law and his paper, and
+I am much attached to the Edinburgh people. You may suppose, therefore,
+that if my mind were not fully made up on the parliamentary question, I
+should waver now.
+
+But my conviction that I am more useful and more happy as I am than I
+could ever be in Parliament is not to be shaken. I considered it some
+weeks ago, when I had a stirring proposal from the Birmingham people,
+and I then set it up on a rock for ever and a day.
+
+Do tell Mr. Russel that I truly feel this mark of confidence, and that I
+hope to acknowledge it in person in Edinburgh before Christmas. There is
+no man in Scotland from whom I should consider his suggestion a greater
+honour.
+
+                                                           Ever yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: M. Charles Fechter.]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Poor Plorn is gone to Australia. It was a hard parting at the last. He
+seemed to me to become once more my youngest and favourite little child
+as the day drew near, and I did not think I could have been so shaken.
+You were his idol to the hour of his departure, and he asked me to tell
+you how much he wanted to bid you good-bye.
+
+Kindest love from all.
+
+                                                        Ever heartily.
+
+
+[Sidenote: The same.]
+
+                                  OFFICE OF "ALL THE YEAR ROUND,"
+                                          _Wednesday, Oct. 7th, 1868._
+
+MY DEAR FECHTER,
+
+I got your letter sent to Gad's Hill this morning. Until I received it,
+I supposed the piece to have been put into English from your French by
+young Ben. If I understand that the English is yours, then I say that it
+is extraordinarily good, written by one in another country.
+
+I do not read again in London until the 20th; and then "Copperfield."
+But by that time you will be at work yourself.
+
+Let us dine at six to-day, in order that we may not have to hurry for
+the comic dog.
+
+                                                      Ever faithfully.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Hogarth.]
+
+                 QUEEN'S HOTEL, MANCHESTER, _Sunday, Oct. 11th, 1868._
+
+MY DEAREST GEORGY,
+
+We had a fine audience last night in the Free Trade Hall, though not
+what we consider a large money-house. The let in Liverpool is extremely
+good, and we are going over there at half-past one. We got down here
+pleasantly enough and in good time; so all has gone well you see.
+
+Titiens, Santley, and an opera company of that class are at the theatre
+here. They have been doing very poorly in Manchester.
+
+There is the whole of my scanty news. I was in wonderful voice last
+night, but croak a little this morning, after so much speaking in so
+very large a place. Otherwise I am all right. I find myself constantly
+thinking of Plorn.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Dickens.]
+
+                  ADELPHI HOTEL, LIVERPOOL, _Monday, Oct. 12th, 1868._
+
+MY DEAREST MAMIE,
+
+Our lets here are excellent, and we shall have a great house to-night.
+We had a very fine and enthusiastic audience in the Free Trade Hall, at
+Manchester, on Saturday; but our first nights there never count up in
+money, as the rest do. Yesterday, "Charlotte," Sainton, and Piatti
+stayed with us here; and they went on to Hull this morning. It was
+pleasant to be alone again, though they were all very agreeable.
+
+The exertion of going on for two hours in that immense place at
+Manchester being very great, I was hoarse all day yesterday, though I
+was not much distressed on Saturday night. I am becoming melodious again
+(at three in the afternoon) rapidly, and count on being quite restored
+by a basin of turtle at dinner.
+
+I am glad to hear about Armatage, and hope that a service begun in a
+personal attachment to Plorn may go on well. I shall never be
+over-confident in such matters, I think, any more.
+
+The day is delicious here. We have had a blow on the Mersey this
+morning, and exulted over the American steamers. With kind regard to Sir
+William and Lady Humphery.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Hogarth.]
+
+                 ADELPHI HOTEL, LIVERPOOL, _Tuesday, Oct. 13th, 1868._
+
+As I sent a line to Mary yesterday, I enclose you Alfred's letter.
+Please send it on to her when you next write to Penton.
+
+I have just now written to Mrs. Forster, asking her to explain to Miss
+Forster how she could have an easy-chair or a sofa behind my side screen
+on Tuesday, without occasioning the smallest inconvenience to anybody.
+Also, how she would have a door close at hand, leading at once to cool
+passages and a quiet room, etc. etc. etc. It is a sad story.
+
+We had a fine house here last night, and a large turn-away. "Marigold"
+and "Trial" went immensely. I doubt if "Marigold" were ever more
+enthusiastically received. "Copperfield" and "Bob" to-night, and a large
+let. This notwithstanding election meetings and all sorts of things.
+
+My favourite room brought my voice round last night, and I am in
+considerable force.
+
+Dolby sends kindest regard, and the message: "Everton toffee shall not
+be forgotten."
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. Henry Fielding Dickens.]
+
+                ADELPHI HOTEL, LIVERPOOL, _Thursday, Oct. 15th, 1868._
+
+MY DEAR HARRY,
+
+I have your letter here this morning. I enclose you another cheque for
+twenty-five pounds, and I write to London by this post, ordering three
+dozen sherry, two dozen port, and three dozen light claret, to be sent
+down to you.
+
+Now, observe attentively. We must have no shadow of debt. Square up
+everything whatsoever that it has been necessary to buy. Let not a
+farthing be outstanding on any account, when we begin together with your
+allowance. Be particular in the minutest detail.
+
+I wish to have no secret from you in the relations we are to establish
+together, and I therefore send you Joe Chitty's letter bodily. Reading
+it, you will know exactly what I know, and will understand that I treat
+you with perfect confidence. It appears to me that an allowance of two
+hundred and fifty pounds a year will be handsome for all your wants, if
+I send you your wines. I mean this to include your tailor's bills as
+well as every other expense; and I strongly recommend you to buy nothing
+in Cambridge, and to take credit for nothing but the clothes with which
+your tailor provides you. As soon as you have got your furniture
+accounts in, let us wipe all those preliminary expenses clean out, and I
+will then send you your first quarter. We will count in it October,
+November, and December; and your second quarter will begin with the New
+Year. If you dislike, at first, taking charge of so large a sum as
+sixty-two pounds ten shillings, you can have your money from me
+half-quarterly.
+
+You know how hard I work for what I get, and I think you know that I
+never had money help from any human creature after I was a child. You
+know that you are one of many heavy charges on me, and that I trust to
+your so exercising your abilities and improving the advantages of your
+past expensive education, as soon to diminish _this_ charge. I say no
+more on that head.
+
+Whatever you do, above all other things keep out of debt and confide in
+me. If you ever find yourself on the verge of any perplexity or
+difficulty, come to me. You will never find me hard with you while you
+are manly and truthful.
+
+As your brothers have gone away one by one, I have written to each of
+them what I am now going to write to you. You know that you have never
+been hampered with religious forms of restraint, and that with mere
+unmeaning forms I have no sympathy. But I most strongly and
+affectionately impress upon you the priceless value of the New
+Testament, and the study of that book as the one unfailing guide in
+life. Deeply respecting it, and bowing down before the character of our
+Saviour, as separated from the vain constructions and inventions of men,
+you cannot go very wrong, and will always preserve at heart a true
+spirit of veneration and humility. Similarly I impress upon you the
+habit of saying a Christian prayer every night and morning. These things
+have stood by me all through my life, and remember that I tried to
+render the New Testament intelligible to you and lovable by you when you
+were a mere baby.
+
+And so God bless you.
+
+                                        Ever your affectionate Father.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. William Charles Kent.]
+
+                                  OFFICE OF "ALL THE YEAR ROUND,"
+                                            _Monday, Nov. 16th, 1868._
+
+MY DEAR KENT,
+
+I was on the eve of writing to you.
+
+We thought of keeping the trial private; but Oxenford has suggested to
+Chappell that he would like to take the opportunity of to-morrow night's
+reading, of saying something about "Oliver" in _Wednesday's paper_.
+Chappell has told Levy of this, and also Mr. Tompkin, of _The Post_,
+who was there. Consequently, on Wednesday evening your charming article
+can come out to the best advantage.
+
+You have no idea of the difficulty of getting in the end of Sikes. As to
+the man with the invaluable composition! my dear fellow, believe me, no
+audience on earth could be held for ten minutes after the girl's death.
+Give them time, and they would be revengeful for having had such a
+strain put upon them. Trust me to be right. I stand there, and I know.
+
+Concerning Harry, I like to guide the boys to a distinct choice, rather
+than to press it on them. That will be my course as to the Middle
+Temple, of which I think as you do.
+
+With cordial thanks for every word in your letter,
+
+                                          Affectionately yours always.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mrs. F. Lehmann.]
+
+                 KENNEDY'S HOTEL, EDINBURGH, _Sunday, Dec. 6th, 1868._
+
+MY DEAR MRS. LEHMANN,
+
+I hope you will see Nancy with the light of a great audience upon her
+some time between this and May; always supposing that she should not
+prove too weird and woeful for the general public.
+
+You know the aspect of this city on a Sunday, and how gay and bright it
+is. The merry music of the blithe bells, the waving flags, the
+prettily-decorated houses with their draperies of various colours, and
+the radiant countenances at the windows and in the streets, how charming
+they are! The usual preparations are making for the band in the open
+air, in the afternoon; and the usual pretty children (selected for that
+purpose) are at this moment hanging garlands round the Scott monument,
+preparatory to the innocent Sunday dance round that edifice, with which
+the diversions invariably close. It is pleasant to think that these
+customs were themselves of the early Christians, those early birds who
+_didn't_ catch the worm--and nothing else--and choke their young with
+it.
+
+                                              Faithfully yours always.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Hogarth.]
+
+                 KENNEDY'S HOTEL, EDINBURGH, _Sunday, Dec. 6th, 1868._
+
+We got down here to our time to the moment; and, considering the length
+of the journey, very easily. I made a calculation on the road, that the
+railway travelling over such a distance involves something more than
+thirty thousand shocks to the nerves. Dolby didn't like it at all.
+
+The signals for a gale were up at Berwick, and along the road between
+there and here. It came on just as we arrived, and blew tremendously
+hard all night. The wind is still very high, though the sky is bright
+and the sun shining. We couldn't sleep for the noise.
+
+We are very comfortably quartered. I fancy that the "business" will be
+on the whole better here than in Glasgow, where trade is said to be very
+bad. But I think I shall be pretty correct in both places as to the run
+being on the final readings.
+
+We are going up Arthur's Seat presently, which will be a pull for our
+fat friend.
+
+Scott, in a new Mephistopheles hat, baffles imagination and description.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. W. Wilkie Collins.]
+
+                KENNEDY'S HOTEL, EDINBURGH, _Tuesday, Dec. 8th, 1868._
+
+MY DEAR WILKIE,
+
+I am hard at it here as usual, though with an audience so finely
+perceptive that the labour is much diminished. I have got together in a
+very short space the conclusion of "Oliver Twist" that you suggested,
+and am trying it daily with the object of rising from that blank state
+of horror into a fierce and passionate rush for the end. As yet I cannot
+make a certain effect of it; but when I shall have gone over it as many
+score of times as over the rest of that reading, perhaps I may strike
+one out.
+
+I shall be very glad to hear when you have done your play, and I _am_
+glad to hear that you like the steamer. I agree with you about the
+reading perfectly. In No. 3 you will see an exact account of some places
+I visited at Ratcliffe. There are two little instances in it of
+something comic rising up in the midst of the direst misery, that struck
+me very humorously at the time.
+
+As I have determined not to do the "Oliver Murder" until after the 5th
+of January, when I shall ascertain its effect on a great audience, it is
+curious to notice how the shadow of its coming affects the Scotch mind.
+There was such a disposition to hold back for it here (until I return to
+finish in February) that we had next to no "let" when we arrived. It all
+came with a rush yesterday. They gave me a most magnificent welcome back
+from America last night.
+
+I am perpetually counting the weeks before me to be "read" through, and
+am perpetually longing for the end of them; and yet I sometimes wonder
+whether I shall miss something when they are over.
+
+It is a very, very bad day here, very dark and very wet. Dolby is over
+at Glasgow, and I am sitting at a side window looking up the length of
+Prince's Street, watching the mist change over the Castle and murdering
+Nancy by turns.
+
+                                                  Ever affectionately.
+
+P.S.--I have read the whole of Fitzgerald's "Zero," and the idea is
+exceedingly well wrought out.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Hogarth.]
+
+              KENNEDY'S HOTEL, EDINBURGH, _Saturday, Dec. 12th, 1868._
+
+I send another _Scotsman_ by this post, because it is really a good
+newspaper, well written, and well managed. We had an immense house here
+last night, and a very large turn-away.
+
+We have four guests to dinner to-day: Peter Fraser, Ballantyne, John
+Blackwood, and Mr. Russel. Immense preparations are making in the
+establishment, "on account," Mr. Kennedy says, "of a' four yon chiels
+being chiels wha' ken a guid dinner." I enquired after poor Doctor Burt,
+not having the least idea that he was dead.
+
+My voice holds out splendidly so far, and I have had no return of the
+American. But I sleep very indifferently indeed.
+
+It blew appallingly here the night before last, but the wind has since
+shifted northward, and it is now bright and cold. The _Star of Hope_,
+that picked up those shipwrecked people in the boat, came into Leith
+yesterday, and was received with tremendous cheers. Her captain must be
+a good man and a noble fellow.
+
+
+[Sidenote: The same.]
+
+                KENNEDY'S HOTEL, EDINBURGH, _Monday, Dec. 14th, 1868._
+
+The dinner-party of Saturday last was an immense success. Russel swore
+on the occasion that he would go over to Belfast expressly to dine with
+me at the Finlays'. Ballantyne informed me that he was going to send you
+some Scotch remembrance (I don't know what) at Christmas!
+
+The Edinburgh houses are very fine. The Glasgow room is a big wandering
+place, with five prices in it, which makes it the more aggravating, as
+the people get into knots which they can't break, as if they were afraid
+of one another.
+
+Forgery of my name is becoming popular. You sent me, this morning, a
+letter from Russell Sturgis, answering a supposed letter of mine
+(presented by "Miss Jefferies"), and assuring me of his readiness to
+give not only the ten pounds I asked for, but any contribution I wanted,
+towards sending that lady and her family back to Boston.
+
+I wish you would take an opportunity of forewarning Lady Tennent that
+the first night's reading she will attend is an experiment quite out of
+the way, and that she may find it rather horrible.
+
+The keeper of the Edinburgh Hall, a fine old soldier, presented me, on
+Friday night, with the finest red camellia for my button-hole that ever
+was seen. Nobody can imagine how he came by it, as the florists had had
+a considerable demand for that colour from ladies in the stalls, and
+could get no such thing.
+
+The day is dark, wet, and windy. The weather is likely to be vile indeed
+at Glasgow, where it always rains, and where the sun is never seen
+through the smoke. We go over there to-morrow at ten.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Dickens.]
+
+                                 CARRICK'S ROYAL HOTEL, GLASGOW,
+                                           _Tuesday, Dec. 15th, 1868._
+
+It occurs to me that my table at St. James's Hall might be appropriately
+ornamented with a little holly next Tuesday. If the two front legs were
+entwined with it, for instance, and a border of it ran round the top of
+the fringe in front, with a little sprig by way of bouquet at each
+corner, it would present a seasonable appearance.
+
+If you will think of this, and will have the materials ready in a little
+basket, I will call for you at the office at half-past twelve on
+Tuesday, and take you up to the hall, where the table will be ready for
+you.
+
+No news, except that we had a great crush and a wonderful audience in
+Edinburgh last night.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Hogarth.]
+
+                                 CARRICK'S ROYAL HOTEL, GLASGOW,
+                                         _Wednesday, Dec. 16th, 1868._
+
+This is to report all well, except that I have wretched nights. The
+weather is diabolical here, and times are very bad. I cut "Copperfield"
+with a bold dexterity that amazed myself and utterly confounded George
+at the wing; knocking off that and "Bob" by ten minutes to ten.
+
+I don't know anything about the Liverpool banquet, except from _The
+Times_. As I don't finish there in February (as they seem to have
+supposed), but in April, it may, perhaps, stand over or blow over
+altogether. Such a thing would be a serious addition to the work, and
+yet refusal on my part would be too ungracious.
+
+The density and darkness of this atmosphere are fearful. I shall be
+heartily glad to start for Edinburgh again on Friday morning.
+
+
+[Sidenote: The same.]
+
+                KENNEDY'S HOTEL, EDINBURGH, _Friday, Dec. 18th, 1868._
+
+I am heartily glad to get back here this afternoon. The day is bright
+and cheerful, and the relief from Glasgow inexpressible. The
+affectionate regard of the people exceeds all bounds, and is shown in
+every way. The manager of the railway being at the reading the other
+night, wrote to me next morning, saying that a large saloon should be
+prepared for my journey up, if I would let him know when I purposed
+making the journey. On my accepting the offer he wrote again, saying
+that he had inspected "our Northern saloons," and not finding them so
+convenient for sleeping in as the best English, had sent up to King's
+Cross for the best of the latter; which I would please consider my own
+carriage as long as I wanted it. The audiences do everything but
+embrace me, and take as much pains with the readings as I do.
+
+I find your Christmas present (just arrived) to be a haggis and
+shortbread!
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. J. C. Parkinson.]
+
+                    GAD'S HILL PLACE, HIGHAM BY ROCHESTER, KENT,
+                                                _Christmas Day, 1868._
+
+MY DEAR PARKINSON,
+
+When your letter was delivered at "All the Year Round" Office yesterday,
+I was attending a funeral. It comes to hand here consequently to-day.
+
+I am diffident of addressing Mr. Gladstone on the subject of your desire
+to be appointed to the vacant Commissionership of Inland Revenue,
+because, although my respect for him and confidence in him are second to
+those of no man in England (a bold word at this time, but a truthful
+one), my personal acquaintance with him is very slight. But you may
+make, through any of your friends, any use you please of this letter,
+towards the end of bringing its contents under Mr. Gladstone's notice.
+
+In expressing my conviction that you deserve the place, and are in every
+way qualified for it, I found my testimony upon as accurate a knowledge
+of your character and abilities as anyone can possibly have acquired. In
+my editorship both of "Household Words" and "All the Year Round," you
+know very well that I have invariably offered you those subjects of
+political and social interest to write upon, in which integrity,
+exactness, a remarkable power of generalising evidence and balancing
+facts, and a special clearness in stating the case, were indispensable
+on the part of the writer. My confidence in your powers has never been
+misplaced, and through all our literary intercourse you have never been
+hasty or wrong. Whatever trust you have undertaken has been so
+completely discharged, that it has become my habit to read your proofs
+rather for my own edification than (as in other cases) for the detection
+of some slip here or there, or the more pithy presentation of the
+subject.
+
+That your literary work has never interfered with the discharge of your
+official duties, I may assume to be at least as well known to your
+colleagues as it is to me. It is idle to say that if the post were in my
+gift you should have it, because you have had, for some years, most of
+the posts of high trust that have been at my disposal. An excellent
+public servant in your literary sphere of action, I should be heartily
+glad if you could have this new opportunity of distinguishing yourself
+in the same character. And this is at least unselfish in me, for I
+suppose I should then lose you?
+
+                                              Always faithfully yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. Edward Bulwer Lytton Dickens.]
+
+          LETTER TO HIS YOUNGEST SON ON HIS DEPARTURE FOR
+                       AUSTRALIA IN 1868.[27]
+
+MY DEAREST PLORN,
+
+I write this note to-day because your going away is much upon my mind,
+and because I want you to have a few parting words from me to think of
+now and then at quiet times. I need not tell you that I love you dearly,
+and am very, very sorry in my heart to part with you. But this life is
+half made up of partings, and these pains must be borne. It is my
+comfort and my sincere conviction that you are going to try the life for
+which you are beat fitted. I think its freedom and wildness more suited
+to you than any experiment in a study or office would ever have been;
+and without that training, you could have followed no other suitable
+occupation.
+
+What you have already wanted until now has been a set, steady, constant
+purpose. I therefore exhort you to persevere in a thorough determination
+to do whatever you have to do as well as you can do it. I was not so old
+as you are now when I first had to win my food, and do this out of this
+determination, and I have never slackened in it since.
+
+Never take a mean advantage of anyone in any transaction, and never be
+hard upon people who are in your power. Try to do to others, as you
+would have them do to you, and do not be discouraged if they fail
+sometimes. It is much better for you that they should fail in obeying
+the greatest rule laid down by our Saviour, than that you should.
+
+I put a New Testament among your books, for the very same reasons, and
+with the very same hopes that made me write an easy account of it for
+you, when you were a little child; because it is the best book that ever
+was or will be known in the world, and because it teaches you the best
+lessons by which any human creature who tries to be truthful and
+faithful to duty can possibly be guided. As your brothers have gone
+away, one by one, I have written to each such words as I am now writing
+to you, and have entreated them all to guide themselves by this book,
+putting aside the interpretations and inventions of men.
+
+You will remember that you have never at home been wearied about
+religious observances or mere formalities. I have always been anxious
+not to weary my children with such things before they are old enough to
+form opinions respecting them. You will therefore understand the better
+that I now most solemnly impress upon you the truth and beauty of the
+Christian religion, as it came from Christ Himself, and the
+impossibility of your going far wrong if you humbly but heartily respect
+it.
+
+Only one thing more on this head. The more we are in earnest as to
+feeling it, the less we are disposed to hold forth about it. Never
+abandon the wholesome practice of saying your own private prayers, night
+and morning. I have never abandoned it myself, and I know the comfort of
+it.
+
+I hope you will always be able to say in after life, that you had a kind
+father. You cannot show your affection for him so well, or make him so
+happy, as by doing your duty.
+
+                                             Your affectionate Father.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[20] The Agricultural College, Cirencester.
+
+[21] "No Thoroughfare."
+
+[22] The Mr. H. F. Chorley so often mentioned was the well-known musical
+critic, and a dear and intimate friend of Charles Dickens and his
+family. We have no letters to him, Mr. Chorley having destroyed all his
+correspondence before his death.
+
+[23] Mr. Chauncey Hare Townshend. He was one of the dearest friends of
+Charles Dickens and a very constant correspondent; but no letters
+addressed to him are in existence.
+
+[24] An American family of brothers and a sister who came to London to
+give a musical entertainment shortly after Charles Dickens's return from
+his first visit to America. He had a great interest in, and liking for,
+these young people.
+
+[25] Cousin and adopted child of Mr. and Mrs. Austin.
+
+[26] A model of a Swiss châlet, and a present from M. Charles Fechter,
+used by Charles Dickens as a summer writing-room.
+
+[27] This letter has been already published by Mr. Forster in his
+"Life."
+
+
+
+
+1869.
+
+NARRATIVE.
+
+
+The "Farewell Readings" in town and country were resumed immediately
+after the beginning of this year, and were to have been continued until
+the end of May. The work was even harder than it had ever been. Charles
+Dickens began his country tour in Ireland early in January, and read
+continuously in all parts of England and Scotland until the end of
+April. A public dinner (in commemoration of his last readings in the
+town) was given to him at Liverpool on the 10th April. Besides all this
+severe country work, he was giving a series of readings at St. James's
+Hall, and reading the "Murder" from "Oliver Twist," in London and in the
+country, frequently four times a week. In the second week of February, a
+sudden and unusually violent attack of the old trouble in his foot made
+it imperatively necessary to postpone a reading at St. James's Hall, and
+to delay for a day or two his departure for Scotland. The foot continued
+to cause him pain and inconvenience, but, as will be seen from his
+letters, he generally spoke of himself as otherwise well, until he
+arrived at Preston, where he was to read on the 22nd of April. The day
+before this appointed reading, he writes home of some grave symptoms
+which he had observed in himself, and had reported to his doctor, Mr. F.
+Carr Beard. That gentleman, taking alarm at what he considered
+"indisputable evidences of overwork," wisely resolved not to content
+himself with written consultations, but went down to Preston on the day
+appointed for the reading there, and, after seeing his patient,
+peremptorily stopped it, carried him off to Liverpool, and the next day
+to London. There he consulted Sir Thomas Watson, who entirely
+corroborated Mr. Beard's opinion. And the two doctors agreed that the
+course of readings must be stopped for this year, and that reading,
+_combined with travelling_, must be stopped _for ever_. Charles Dickens
+had no alternative but to acquiesce in this verdict; but he felt it
+keenly, not only for himself, but for the sake of the Messrs. Chappell,
+who showed the most disinterested kindness and solicitude on the
+occasion. He at once returned home to Gad's Hill, and the rest and quiet
+of the country restored him, for the time, to almost his usual condition
+of health and spirits. But it was observed, by all who loved him, that
+from this time forth he never regained his old vigour and elasticity.
+The attack at Preston was the "beginning of the end!"
+
+During the spring and summer of this year, he received visits from many
+dearly valued American friends. In May, he stayed with his daughter and
+sister-in-law for two or three weeks at the St. James's Hotel,
+Piccadilly, having promised to be in London at the time of the arrival
+of Mr. and Mrs. Fields, of Boston, who visited Europe, accompanied by
+Miss Mabel Lowell (the daughter of the famous American poet) this year.
+Besides these friends, Mr. and Mrs. Childs, of Philadelphia--from whom
+he had received the greatest kindness and hospitality, and for whom he
+had a hearty regard--Dr. Fordyce Barker and his son, Mr. Eytinge (an
+illustrator of an American edition of Charles Dickens's works), and Mr.
+Bayard Taylor paid visits to Gad's Hill, which were thoroughly enjoyed
+by Charles Dickens and his family. This last summer was a very happy
+one. He had the annual summer visitors and parties of his friends in the
+neighbourhood. He was, as usual, projecting improvements in his beloved
+country home; one, which he called the "crowning improvement of all,"
+was a large conservatory, which was to be added during the absence of
+the family in London in the following spring.
+
+The state of Mr. Wills's health made it necessary for him now to retire
+altogether from the editorship of "All the Year Round." Charles
+Dickens's own letters express the regret which he felt at the
+dissolution of this long and always pleasant association. Mr. Wills's
+place at the office was filled by Charles Dickens's eldest son, now sole
+editor and proprietor of the journal.
+
+In September Charles Dickens went to Birmingham, accompanied by his son
+Harry, and presided at the opening of the session of (what he calls in
+his letter to Mr. Arthur Ryland, "_our_ Institution") the Midland
+Institute. He made a speech on education to the young students, and
+promised to go back early in the following year and distribute the
+prizes. In one of the letters which we give to Mr. Ryland, he speaks of
+himself as "being in full force again," and "going to finish his
+farewell readings soon after Christmas." He had obtained the sanction of
+Sir Thomas Watson to giving twelve readings, _in London only_, which he
+had fixed for the beginning of the following year.
+
+The letter to his friend Mr. Finlay, which opens the year, was in reply
+to a proposal for a public banquet at Belfast, projected by the Mayor of
+that town, and conveyed through Mr. Finlay. This gentleman was at that
+time proprietor of _The Northern Whig_ newspaper at Belfast, and he was
+son-in-law to Mr. Alexander Russel, editor of _The Scotsman_.
+
+Charles Dickens's letter this New Year to M. de Cerjat was his last.
+That faithful and affectionate friend died very shortly afterwards.
+
+To Miss Mary Boyle he writes to acknowledge a New Year's gift, which he
+had been much touched by receiving from her, at a time when he knew she
+was deeply afflicted by the sudden death of her brother, Captain
+Cavendish Boyle, for whom Charles Dickens had a true regard and
+friendship.
+
+While he was giving his series of London readings in the spring, he
+received a numerously signed circular letter from actors and actresses
+of the various London theatres. They were very curious about his new
+reading of the "Oliver Twist" murder, and representing to him the
+impossibility of their attending an evening, requested him to give a
+morning reading, for their especial benefit. We give his answer,
+complying with the request. And the occasion was, to him, a most
+gratifying and deeply interesting one.
+
+The letter to Mr. Edmund Ollier was in answer to an invitation to be
+present at the inauguration of a bust of Mr. Leigh Hunt, which was to be
+placed over his grave at Kensal Green.
+
+The letter to Mr. Shirley Brooks, the well-known writer, who succeeded
+Mr. Mark Lemon as editor of "Punch," and for whom Charles Dickens had a
+cordial regard, was on the subject of a memorial on behalf of Mrs. Peter
+Cunningham, whose husband had recently died.
+
+The "remarkable story," of which he writes to his daughter in August,
+was called "An Experience." It was written by a lady (who prefers to be
+anonymous) who had been a contributor to "Household Words" from its
+first starting, and was always highly valued in this capacity by Charles
+Dickens.
+
+Our latest letters for this year are in October. One to Mr. Charles
+Kent, sympathising with him on a disappointment which he had experienced
+in a business undertaking, and one to Mr. Macready, in which he tells
+him of his being in the "preliminary agonies" of a new book. The first
+number of "Edwin Drood" was to appear before the end of his course of
+readings in March; and he was at work so long beforehand with a view to
+sparing himself, and having some numbers ready before the publication of
+the first one.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. F. D. Finlay.]
+
+                          THE ATHENÆUM (CLUB), _New Year's Day, 1869._
+
+MY DEAR FINLAY,
+
+First my heartfelt wishes for many prosperous and happy years. Next, as
+to the mayor's kind intentions. I feel really grateful to him and
+gratified by the whole idea, but acceptance of the distinction on my
+part would be impracticable. My time in Ireland is all anticipated, and
+I could not possibly prolong my stay, because I _must_ be back in London
+to read on Tuesday fortnight, and then must immediately set forth for
+the West of England. It is not likely, besides, that I shall get through
+these farewells before the end of May. And the work is so hard, and my
+voice is so precious, that I fear to add an ounce to the fatigue, or I
+might be overweighted. The avoidance of gas and crowds when I am not in
+the act of being cooked before those lights of mine, is an essential
+part of the training to which (as I think you know) I strictly adhere,
+and although I have accepted the Liverpool invitation, I have done so as
+an exception; the Liverpool people having always treated me in our
+public relations with a kind of personal affection.
+
+I am sincerely anxious that the Mayor of Belfast should know how the
+case stands with me. If you will kindly set me straight and right, I
+shall be truly obliged to you.
+
+My sister-in-law has been very unwell (though she is now much better),
+and is recommended a brisk change. As she is a good sailor, I mean to
+bring her to Ireland with me; at which she is highly delighted.
+
+                                                Faithfully yours ever.
+
+
+[Sidenote: M. de Cerjat.]
+
+                    GAD'S HILL PLACE, HIGHAM BY ROCHESTER, KENT,
+                                             _Monday, Jan. 4th, 1869._
+
+MY DEAR CERJAT,
+
+I will answer your question first. Have I done with my farewell
+readings? Lord bless you, no; and I shall think myself well out of it if
+I get done by the end of May. I have undertaken one hundred and six, and
+have as yet only vanquished twenty-eight. To-morrow night I read in
+London for the first time the "Murder" from "Oliver Twist," which I have
+re-arranged for the purpose. Next day I start for Dublin and Belfast. I
+am just back from Scotland for a few Christmas holidays. I go back there
+next month; and in the meantime and afterwards go everywhere else.
+
+Take my guarantee for it, you may be quite comfortable on the subject of
+papal aspirations and encroachments. The English people are in
+unconquerable opposition to that church. They have the animosity in the
+blood, derived from the history of the past, though perhaps
+unconsciously. But they do sincerely want to win Ireland over if they
+can. They know that since the Union she has been hardly used. They know
+that Scotland has _her_ religion, and a very uncomfortable one. They
+know that Scotland, though intensely anti-papal, perceives it to be
+unjust that Ireland has not _her_ religion too, and has very
+emphatically declared her opinion in the late elections. They know that
+a richly-endowed church, forced upon a people who don't belong to it, is
+a grievance with these people. They know that many things, but
+especially an artfully and schemingly managed institution like the
+Romish Church, thrive upon a grievance, and that Rome has thriven
+exceedingly upon this, and made the most of it. Lastly, the best among
+them know that there is a gathering cloud in the West, considerably
+bigger than a man's hand, under which a powerful Irish-American body,
+rich and active, is always drawing Ireland in that direction; and that
+these are not times in which other powers would back our holding Ireland
+by force, unless we could make our claim good in proving fair and equal
+government.
+
+Poor Townshend charged me in his will "to publish without alteration his
+religious opinions, which he sincerely believed would tend to the
+happiness of mankind." To publish them without alteration is absolutely
+impossible; for they are distributed in the strangest fragments through
+the strangest note-books, pocket-books, slips of paper and what not, and
+produce a most incoherent and tautological result. I infer that he must
+have held some always-postponed idea of fitting them together. For these
+reasons I would certainly publish nothing about them, if I had any
+discretion in the matter. Having none, I suppose a book must be made.
+His pictures and rings are gone to the South Kensington Museum, and are
+now exhibiting there.
+
+Charley Collins is no better and no worse. Katie looks very young and
+very pretty. Her sister and Miss Hogarth (my joint housekeepers) have
+been on duty this Christmas, and have had enough to do. My boys are now
+all dispersed in South America, India, and Australia, except Charley,
+whom I have taken on at "All the Year Round" Office, and Henry, who is
+an undergraduate at Trinity Hall, and I hope will make his mark there.
+All well.
+
+The Thames Embankment is (faults of ugliness in detail apart) the finest
+public work yet done. From Westminster Bridge to near Waterloo it is now
+lighted up at night, and has a fine effect. They have begun to plant it
+with trees, and the footway (not the road) is already open to the
+Temple. Besides its beauty, and its usefulness in relieving the crowded
+streets, it will greatly quicken and deepen what is learnedly called
+the "scour" of the river. But the Corporation of London and some other
+nuisances have brought the weirs above Twickenham into a very bare and
+unsound condition, and they already begin to give and vanish, as the
+stream runs faster and stronger.
+
+Your undersigned friend has had a few occasional reminders of his "true
+American catarrh." Although I have exerted my voice very much, it has
+not yet been once touched. In America I was obliged to patch it up
+constantly.
+
+I like to read your patriarchal account of yourself among your Swiss
+vines and fig-trees. You wouldn't recognise Gad's Hill now; I have so
+changed it, and bought land about it. And yet I often think that if Mary
+were to marry (which she won't) I should sell it and go genteelly
+vagabondising over the face of the earth. Then indeed I might see
+Lausanne again. But I don't seem in the way of it at present, for the
+older I get, the more I do and the harder I work.
+
+                                            Yours ever affectionately.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Mary Boyle.]
+
+                                  OFFICE OF "ALL THE YEAR ROUND,"
+                                          _Wednesday, Jan. 6th, 1869._
+
+MY DEAR MARY,
+
+I was more affected than you can easily believe, by the sight of your
+gift lying on my dressing-table on the morning of the new year. To be
+remembered in a friend's heart when it is sore is a touching thing; and
+that and the remembrance of the dead quite overpowered me, the one being
+inseparable from the other.
+
+You may be sure that I shall attach a special interest and value to the
+beautiful present, and shall wear it as a kind of charm. God bless you,
+and may we carry the friendship through many coming years!
+
+My preparations for a certain murder that I had to do last night have
+rendered me unfit for letter-writing these last few days, or you would
+have heard from me sooner. The crime being completely off my mind and
+the blood spilled, I am (like many of my fellow-criminals) in a highly
+edifying state to-day.
+
+                            Ever believe me, your affectionate Friend.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Dickens.]
+
+                                TORQUAY, _Wednesday, Jan. 27th, 1869._
+
+MY DEAREST MAMIE,
+
+We have been doing immensely.
+
+This place is most beautiful, though colder now than one would expect.
+This hotel, an immense place, built among picturesque broken rocks out
+in the blue sea, is quite delicious. There are bright green trees in the
+garden, and new peas a foot high. Our rooms are _en suite_, all
+commanding the sea, and each with two very large plate-glass windows.
+Everything good and well served.
+
+A _pantomime_ was being done last night, in the place where I am to read
+to-night. It is something between a theatre, a circus, a riding-school,
+a Methodist chapel, and a cow-house. I was so disgusted with its
+acoustic properties on going in to look at it, that the whole
+unfortunate staff have been all day, and now are, sticking up baize and
+carpets in it to prevent echoes.
+
+I have rarely seen a more uncomfortable edifice than I thought it last
+night.
+
+At Clifton, on Monday night, we had a contagion of fainting. And yet the
+place was not hot. I should think we had from a dozen to twenty ladies
+borne out, stiff and rigid, at various times. It became quite
+ridiculous.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Hogarth.]
+
+                                      BATH, _Friday, Jan. 29th, 1869._
+
+MY DEAREST GEORGY,
+
+You must not trust blank places in my list, because many have been, and
+will be, gradually filled up. After the Tuesday's reading in London, I
+have TWO for that same week in the country--Nottingham and Leicester. In
+the following week I have none; but my arrangements are all at sea as
+yet, for I must somehow and somewhere do an "Uncommercial" in that week,
+and I also want to get poor Chauncey's "opinions" to the printer.
+
+This mouldy old roosting-place comes out mouldily as to let of course. I
+hate the sight of the bygone assembly-rooms, and the Bath chairs
+trundling the dowagers about the streets. As to to-morrow morning in the
+daylight!----
+
+I have no cold to speak of. Dolby sends kindest regard.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mrs. Lehmann.]
+
+                                  OFFICE, _Wednesday, Feb. 3rd, 1869._
+
+DEAR MRS. LEHMANN,
+
+Before getting your kind note, I had written to Lehmann, explaining why
+I cannot allow myself any social pleasure while my farewell task is yet
+unfinished. The work is so very hard, that every little scrap of rest
+_and silence_ I can pick up is precious. And even those morsels are so
+flavoured with "All the Year Round," that they are not quite the genuine
+article.
+
+Joachim[28] came round to see me at the hall last night, and I told him
+how sorry I was to forego the pleasure of meeting him (he is a noble
+fellow!) at your pleasant table.
+
+I am glad you are coming to the "Murder" on the 2nd of March. (The house
+will be prodigious.) Such little changes as I have made shall be
+carefully presented to your critical notice, and I hope will be crowned
+with your approval. But you are always such a fine audience that I have
+no fear on that head. I saw Chorley yesterday in his own room. A sad and
+solitary sight. The widowed Drake, with a certain _gin_coherence of
+manner, presented a blooming countenance and buxom form in the passage;
+so buxom indeed that she was obliged to retire before me like a modest
+stopper, before I could get into the dining decanter where poor Chorley
+reposed.
+
+                                              Faithfully yours always.
+
+P.S.--My love to Rudie.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Hogarth.]
+
+                                 GLASGOW, _Thursday, Feb. 25th, 1869._
+
+I received your letter at Edinburgh this morning. I did not write to you
+yesterday, as there had been no reading on the previous night.
+
+The foot bears the fatigue wonderfully well, and really occasions me no
+inconvenience beyond the necessity of wearing the big work of art. Syme
+saw me again this morning, and utterly scouted the gout notion
+altogether. I think the Edinburgh audience understood the "Murder"
+better last night than any audience that has heard it yet. "Business" is
+enormous, and Dolby jubilant.
+
+It is a most deplorable afternoon here, deplorable even for Glasgow. A
+great wind blowing, and sleet driving before it in a storm of heavy
+blobs. We had to drive our train dead in the teeth of the wind, and got
+in here late, and are pressed for time.
+
+Strange that in the North we have had absolutely no snow. There was a
+very thin scattering on the Pentlands for an hour or two, but no more.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Hogarth.]
+
+                                 EDINBURGH, _Friday, Feb. 26th, 1869._
+
+Writing to-morrow morning would be all but impracticable for me; would
+be quite so for Dolby, who has to go to the agents and "settle up" in
+the midst of his breakfast. So I write to-day, in reply to your note
+received at Glasgow this morning.
+
+The foot conducts itself splendidly. We had a most enormous cram at
+Glasgow. Syme saw me again yesterday (before I left here for Glasgow),
+and repeated "Gout!" with the greatest indignation and contempt, several
+times. The aching is going off as the day goes on, if it be worth
+mentioning again. The ride from Glasgow was charming this morning; the
+sun shining brilliantly, and the country looking beautiful.
+
+I told you what the Nortons were. Mabel Lowell is a charming little
+thing, and very retiring in manner and expression.
+
+We shall have a scene here to-night, no doubt. The night before last,
+Ballantyne, unable to get in, had a seat behind the screen, and was
+nearly frightened off it by the "Murder." Every vestige of colour had
+left his face when I came off, and he sat staring over a glass of
+champagne in the wildest way. I have utterly left off _my_ champagne,
+and, I think, with good results. Nothing during the readings but a very
+little weak iced brandy-and-water.
+
+I hope you will find me greatly improved on Tuesday.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Dickens.]
+
+                                BIRMINGHAM, _Friday, March 5th, 1869._
+
+This is to send you my best love, and to wish you many and many happy
+returns of to-morrow, which I miraculously remember to be your
+birthday.
+
+I saw this morning a very pretty fan here. I was going to buy it as a
+remembrance of the occasion, when I was checked by a dim misgiving that
+you had a fan not long ago from Chorley. Tell me what you would like
+better, and consider me your debtor in that article, whatever it may be.
+
+I have had my usual left boot on this morning, and have had an hour's
+walk. It was in a gale of wind and a simoom of dust, but I greatly
+enjoyed it. Immense enthusiasm at Wolverhampton last night over
+"Marigold." Scott made a most amazing ass of himself yesterday. He
+reported that he had left behind somewhere three books--"Boots,"
+"Murder," and "Gamp." We immediately telegraphed to the office. Answer,
+no books there. As my impression was that he must have left them at St.
+James's Hall, we then arranged to send him up to London at seven this
+morning. Meanwhile (though not reproached), he wept copiously and
+audibly. I had asked him over and over again, was he sure he had not put
+them in my large black trunk? Too sure, too sure. Hadn't opened that
+trunk after Tuesday night's reading. He opened it to get some clothes
+out when I went to bed, and there the books were! He produced them with
+an air of injured surprise, as if we had put them there.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Hogarth.]
+
+                 QUEEN'S HOTEL, MANCHESTER, _Sunday, March 7th, 1869._
+
+We have had our sitting-room chimney afire this morning, and have had to
+turn out elsewhere to breakfast; but the chamber has since been cleaned
+up, and we are reinstated. Manchester is (_for_ Manchester) bright and
+fresh.
+
+Tell Russell that a crop of hay is to be got off the meadow this year,
+before the club use it. They did not make such use of it last year as
+reconciles me to losing another hay-crop. So they must wait until the
+hay is in, before they commence active operations.
+
+Poor Olliffe! I am truly sorry to read those sad words about his
+suffering, and fear that the end is not far off.
+
+We are very comfortably housed here, and certainly that immense hall is
+a wonderful place for its size. Without much greater expenditure of
+voice than usual, I a little enlarged the action last night, and Dolby
+(who went to all the distant points of view) reported that he could
+detect no difference between it and any other place. As always happens
+now--and did not at first--they were unanimously taken by Noah
+Claypole's laugh. But the go, throughout, was enormous. Sims Reeves was
+doing Henry Bertram at the theatre, and of course took some of our
+shillings. It was a night of excitement for Cottonopolis.
+
+I received from Mrs. Keeley this morning a very good photograph of poor
+old Bob. Yesterday I had a letter from Harry, reminding me that our
+intended Cambridge day is the day next after that of the boat-race.
+Clearly it must be changed.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Hogarth.]
+
+              QUEEN'S HOTEL, MANCHESTER, _Saturday, March 20th, 1869._
+
+Getting yours and its enclosure, Mary's note, at two this afternoon, I
+write a line at once in order that you may have it on Monday morning.
+
+The Theatre Royal, Liverpool, will be a charming place to read in.
+Ladies are to dine at the dinner, and we hear it is to be a very grand
+affair. Dolby is doubtful whether it may not "hurt the business," by
+drawing a great deal of money in another direction, which I think
+possible enough. Trade is very bad _here_, and the gloom of the Preston
+strike seems to brood over the place. The Titiens Company have been
+doing wretchedly. I should have a greater sympathy with them if they
+were not practising in the next room now.
+
+My love to Letitia and Harriette,[29] wherein Dolby (highly gratified by
+being held in remembrance) joins with the same to you.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Hogarth.]
+
+                               MANCHESTER, _Sunday, March 21st, 1869._
+
+Will you tell Mary that I have had a letter from Frith, in which he says
+that he will be happy to show her his pictures "any day in the first
+week of April"? I have replied that she will be proud to receive his
+invitation. His object in writing was to relieve his mind about the
+"Murder," of which he cannot say enough.
+
+Tremendous enthusiasm here last night, calling in the most thunderous
+manner after "Marigold," and again after the "Trial," shaking the great
+hall, and cheering furiously.
+
+Love to all.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. John Clarke.]
+
+                    GAD'S HILL PLACE, HIGHAM BY ROCHESTER, KENT,
+                                        _Wednesday, March 24th, 1869._
+
+LADIES AND GENTLEMEN,
+
+I beg to assure you that I am much gratified by the desire you do me the
+honour to express in your letter handed to me by Mr. John Clarke.
+
+Before that letter reached me, I had heard of your wish, and had
+mentioned to Messrs. Chappell that it would be highly agreeable to me to
+anticipate it, if possible. They readily responded, and we agreed upon
+having three morning readings in London. As they are not yet publicly
+announced, I add a note of the days and subjects:
+
+Saturday, May 1st. "Boots at the Holly-Tree Inn," and "Sikes and Nancy"
+from "Oliver Twist."
+
+Saturday, May 8th. "The Christmas Carol."
+
+Saturday, May 22nd. "Sikes and Nancy" from "Oliver Twist," and "The
+Trial" from "Pickwick."
+
+With the warmest interest in your art, and in its claims upon the
+general gratitude and respect,
+
+                            Believe me, always faithfully your Friend.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Hogarth.]
+
+                  ADELPHI HOTEL, LIVERPOOL, _Sunday, April 4th, 1869._
+
+By this post I send to Mary the truly affecting account of poor dear
+Katie Macready's death. It is as sorrowful as anything so peaceful and
+trustful can be!
+
+Both my feet are very tender, and often feel as though they were in hot
+water. But I was wonderfully well and strong, thank God! and had no end
+of voice for the two nights running in that great Birmingham hall. We
+had enormous houses.
+
+So far as I understand the dinner arrangements here, they are much too
+long. As to the acoustics of that hall, and the position of the tables
+(both as bad as bad can be), my only consolation is that, if anybody can
+be heard, _I_ probably can be. The honorary secretary tells me that six
+hundred people are to dine. The mayor, being no speaker and out of
+health besides, hands over the toast of the evening to Lord Dufferin.
+The town is full of the festival. The Theatre Royal, touched up for the
+occasion, will look remarkably bright and well for the readings, and our
+lets are large. It is remarkable that our largest let as yet is for
+Thursday, not Friday. I infer that the dinner damages Friday, but Dolby
+does not think so. There appears to be great curiosity to hear the
+"Murder." (On Friday night last I read to two thousand people, and odd
+hundreds.)
+
+I hear that Anthony Trollope, Dixon, Lord Houghton, Lemon, Esquiros (of
+the _Revue des Deux Mondes_), and Sala are to be called upon to speak;
+the last, for the newspaper press. All the Liverpool notabilities are to
+muster. And Manchester is to be represented by its mayor with due
+formality.
+
+I had been this morning to look at St. George's Hall, and suggest what
+can be done to improve its acoustics. As usually happens in such cases,
+their most important arrangements are already made and unchangeable. I
+should not have placed the tables in the committee's way at all, and
+could certainly have placed the daïs to much greater advantage. So all
+the good I could do was to show where banners could be hung with some
+hope of stopping echoes. Such is my small news, soon exhausted. We
+arrived here at three yesterday afternoon; it is now mid-day; Chorley
+has not yet appeared, but he had called at the local agent's while I was
+at Birmingham.
+
+It is a curious little instance of the way in which things fit together
+that there is a ship-of-war in the Mersey, whose flags and so forth are
+to be brought up to St. George's Hall for the dinner. She is the
+_Donegal_, of which Paynter told me he had just been captain, when he
+told me all about Sydney at Bath.
+
+One of the pleasantest things I have experienced here this time, is the
+manner in which I am stopped in the streets by working men, who want to
+shake hands with me, and tell me they know my books. I never go out but
+this happens. Down at the docks just now, a cooper with a fearful
+stutter presented himself in this way. His modesty, combined with a
+conviction that if he were in earnest I would see it and wouldn't repel
+him, made up as true a piece of natural politeness as I ever saw.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Hogarth.]
+
+             IMPERIAL HOTEL, BLACKPOOL, _Wednesday, April 21st, 1869._
+
+I send you this hasty line to let you know that I have come to this
+sea-beach hotel (charming) for a day's rest. I am much better than I was
+on Sunday, but shall want careful looking to, to get through the
+readings. My weakness and deadness are all _on the left side_, and if I
+don't look at anything I try to touch with my left hand, I don't know
+where it is. I am in (secret) consultation with Frank Beard; he
+recognises, in the exact description I have given him, indisputable
+evidences of overwork, which he would wish to treat immediately. So I
+have said: "Go in and win."
+
+I have had a delicious walk by the sea to-day, and I sleep soundly, and
+have picked up amazingly in appetite. My foot is greatly better too, and
+I wear my own boot.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Dickens.]
+
+                        PRESTON, _Thursday Evening, April 22nd, 1869._
+
+_Don't be in the least alarmed._ Beard has come down, and instantly
+echoes my impression (perfectly unknown to him), that the readings must
+be _stopped_. I have had symptoms that must not be disregarded. I go to
+Liverpool to-night with him (to get away from here), and proceed to the
+office to-morrow.
+
+
+[Sidenote: The Lord John Russell.]
+
+                    GAD'S HILL PLACE, HIGHAM BY ROCHESTER, KENT,
+                                          _Wednesday, May 26th, 1869._
+
+MY DEAR LORD RUSSELL,
+
+I have delayed answering your kind letter, in order that you might get
+home before I wrote. I am happy to report myself quite well again, and I
+shall be charmed to come to Pembroke Lodge on any day that may be most
+convenient to Lady Russell and yourself after the middle of June.
+
+You gratify me beyond expression by your reference to the Liverpool
+dinner. I made the allusion to you with all my heart at least, and it
+was most magnificently received.
+
+I beg to send my kind regard to Lady Russell, with many thanks for her
+remembrance, and am ever,
+
+                               My dear Lord Russell, faithfully yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. W. H. Wills.]
+
+                                  OFFICE OF "ALL THE YEAR ROUND,"
+                                          _Thursday, June 24th, 1869._
+
+MY DEAR WILLS,
+
+At a great meeting[30] compounded of your late "Chief," Charley, Morley,
+Grieve, and Telbin, your letter was read to-day, and a very sincere
+record of regret and thanks was placed on the books of the great
+institution.
+
+Many thanks for the suggestion about the condition of churches. I am so
+aweary of church questions of all sorts that I am not quite clear as to
+tackling this. But I am turning it in my mind. I am afraid of two
+things: firstly, that the thing would not be picturesquely done;
+secondly, that a general cucumber-coolness would pervade the mind of our
+circulation.
+
+Nothing new here but a speaking-pipe, a post-box, and a mouldy smell
+from some forgotten crypt--an extra mouldy smell, mouldier than of yore.
+Lillie sniffs, projects one eye into nineteen hundred and ninety-nine,
+and does no more.
+
+I have been to Chadwick's, to look at a new kind of cottage he has built
+(very ingenious and cheap).
+
+We were all much disappointed last Saturday afternoon by a neighbouring
+fire being only at a carpenter's, and not at Drury Lane Theatre.
+Ellen's[31] child having an eye nearly poked out by a young friend, and
+being asked whether the young friend was not very sorry afterwards,
+replied: "No. _She_ wasn't. _I_ was."
+
+London execrable.
+
+                                            Ever affectionately yours.
+
+P.S.--Love to Mrs. Wills.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. Shirley Brooks.]
+
+                    GAD'S HILL PLACE, HIGHAM BY ROCHESTER, KENT,
+                                           _Tuesday, July 12th, 1869._
+
+MY DEAR BROOKS,
+
+I have appended my sign manual to the memorial, which I think is very
+discreetly drawn up. I have a strong feeling of sympathy with poor Mrs.
+Cunningham, for I remember the pretty house she managed charmingly. She
+has always done her duty well, and has had hard trials. But I greatly
+doubt the success of the memorial, I am sorry to add.
+
+It was hotter here yesterday on this Kentish chalk than I have felt it
+anywhere for many a day. Now it is overcast and raining hard, much to
+the satisfaction of great farmers like myself.
+
+I am glad to infer from your companionship with the Cocked Hats, that
+there is no such thing as gout within several miles of you. May it keep
+its distance.
+
+                               Ever, my dear Brooks, faithfully yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. W. C. Macready.]
+
+                               GAD'S HILL, _Tuesday, July 20th, 1869._
+
+MY DEAREST MACREADY,
+
+I have received your letter here to-day, and deeply feel with you and
+for you the affliction of poor dear Katie's loss. I was not unprepared
+for the sad news, but it comes in such a rush of old remembrances and
+withered joys that strikes to the heart.
+
+God bless you! Love and youth are still beside you, and in that thought
+I take comfort for my dear old friend.
+
+I am happy to report myself perfectly well and flourishing. We are just
+now announcing the resumption and conclusion of the broken series of
+farewell readings in a London course of twelve, beginning early in the
+new year.
+
+Scarcely a day has gone by this summer in which we have not talked of
+you and yours. Georgina, Mary, and I continually speak of you. In the
+spirit we certainly are even more together than we used to be in the
+body in the old times. I don't know whether you have heard that Harry
+has taken the second scholarship (fifty pounds a year) at Trinity Hall,
+Cambridge. The bigwigs expect him to do a good deal there.
+
+Wills having given up in consequence of broken health (he has been my
+sub-editor for twenty years), I have taken Charley into "All the Year
+Round." He is a very good man of business, and evinces considerable
+aptitude in sub-editing work.
+
+This place is immensely improved since you were here, and really is now
+very pretty indeed. We are sorry that there is no present prospect of
+your coming to see it; but I like to know of your being at the sea, and
+having to do--_from the beach_, as Mrs. Keeley used to say in "The
+Prisoner of War"--with the winds and the waves and all their freshening
+influences.
+
+I dined at Greenwich a few days ago with Delane. He asked me about you
+with much interest. He looks as if he had never seen a printing-office,
+and had never been out of bed after midnight.
+
+Great excitement caused here by your capital news of Butty. I suppose
+Willy has at least a dozen children by this time.
+
+Our loves to the noble boy and to dear Mrs. Macready.
+
+                            Ever, my dearest Macready,
+                                       Your attached and affectionate.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. Edmund Ollier.]
+
+                    GAD'S HILL PLACE, HIGHAM BY ROCHESTER, KENT,
+                                            _Tuesday, Aug. 3rd, 1869._
+
+MY DEAR MR. OLLIER,
+
+I am very sensible of the feeling of the Committee towards me; and I
+receive their invitation (conveyed through you) as a most acceptable
+mark of their consideration.
+
+But I have a very strong objection to speech-making beside graves. I do
+not expect or wish my feeling in this wise to guide other men; still, it
+is so serious with me, and the idea of ever being the subject of such a
+ceremony myself is so repugnant to my soul, that I must decline to
+officiate.
+
+                                              Faithfully yours always.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Dickens.]
+
+      OFFICE OF "ALL THE YEAR ROUND," NO. 26, WELLINGTON STREET,
+                             STRAND, LONDON, W.C.,
+                                            _Tuesday, Aug. 3rd, 1869._
+
+MY DEAREST MAMIE,
+
+I send you the second chapter of the remarkable story. The printer is
+late with it, and I have not had time to read it, and as I altered it
+considerably here and there, I have no doubt there are some verbal
+mistakes in it. However, they will probably express themselves.
+
+But I offer a prize of six pairs of gloves--between you, and your aunt,
+and Ellen Stone, as competitors--to whomsoever will tell me what idea in
+this second part is mine. I don't mean an idea in language, in the
+turning of a sentence, in any little description of an action, or a
+gesture, or what not in a small way, but an idea, distinctly affecting
+the whole story _as I found it_. You are all to assume that I found it
+in the main as you read it, with one exception. If I had written it, I
+should have made the woman love the man at last. And I should have
+shadowed that possibility out, by the child's bringing them a little
+more together on that holiday Sunday.
+
+But I didn't write it. So, finding that it wanted something, I put that
+something in. What was it?
+
+Love to Ellen Stone.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. Arthur Ryland.]
+
+                    GAD'S HILL PLACE, HIGHAM BY ROCHESTER, KENT,
+                                            _Friday, Aug. 13th, 1869._
+
+MY DEAR MR. RYLAND,
+
+Many thanks for your letter.
+
+I have very strong opinions on the subject of speechification, and hold
+that there is, everywhere, a vast amount too much of it. A sense of
+absurdity would be so strong upon me, if I got up at Birmingham to make
+a flourish on the advantages of education in the abstract for all sorts
+and conditions of men, that I should inevitably check myself and present
+a surprising incarnation of the soul of wit. But if I could interest
+myself in the practical usefulness of the particular institution; in the
+ways of life of the students; in their examples of perseverance and
+determination to get on; in their numbers, their favourite studies, the
+number of hours they must daily give to the work that must be done for a
+livelihood, before they can devote themselves to the acquisition of new
+knowledge, and so forth, then I could interest others. This is the kind
+of information I want. Mere holding forth "I utterly detest, abominate,
+and abjure."
+
+I fear I shall not be in London next week. But if you will kindly send
+me here, at your leisure, the roughest notes of such points as I have
+indicated, I shall be heartily obliged to you, and will take care of
+their falling into shape and order in my mind. Meantime I "make a note
+of" Monday, 27th September, and of writing to you touching your kind
+offer of hospitality, three weeks before that date.
+
+I beg to send my kind regard to Mrs. and Miss Ryland, and am always,
+
+                                                Very faithfully yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. Frederic Ouvry.]
+
+                    GAD'S HILL PLACE, HIGHAM BY ROCHESTER, KENT,
+                                            _Sunday, Aug. 22nd, 1869._
+
+MY DEAR OUVRY,
+
+I will expect a call from you at the office, on Thursday, at your own
+most convenient hour. I admit the soft impeachment concerning Mrs. Gamp:
+I likes my payments to be made reg'lar, and I likewise likes my
+publisher to draw it mild.
+
+                                                           Ever yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. Arthur Ryland.]
+
+                    GAD'S HILL PLACE, HIGHAM BY ROCHESTER, KENT,
+                                            _Monday, Sept. 6th, 1869._
+
+MY DEAR MR. RYLAND,
+
+I am sorry to find--I had a foreshadowing of it some weeks ago--that I
+shall not be able to profit by your kind offer of hospitality when I
+come to Birmingham for _our_ Institution. I must come down in time for a
+quiet dinner at the hotel with my "Readings" secretary, Mr. Dolby, and
+must away next morning. Besides having a great deal in hand just now
+(the title of a new book among other things), I shall have visitors from
+abroad here at the time, and am severely claimed by my daughter, who
+indeed is disloyal to Birmingham in the matter of my going away at all.
+Pray represent me to Mrs. Ryland as the innocent victim of
+circumstances, and as sacrificing pleasure to the work I have to do, and
+to the training under which alone I can do it without feeling it.
+
+You will see from the enclosed that I am in full force, and going to
+finish my readings, please God, after Christmas. I am in the hope of
+receiving your promised notes in due course, and continue in the
+irreverent condition in which I last reported myself on the subject of
+speech-making. Now that men not only make the nights of the session
+hideous by what the Americans call "orating" in Parliament, but trouble
+the peace of the vacation by saying over again what they said there
+(with the addition of what they _didn't_ say there, and never will have
+the courage to say there), I feel indeed that silence, like gold across
+the Atlantic, is a rarity at a premium.
+
+                                              Faithfully yours always.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. William Charles Kent.]
+
+                                  OFFICE OF "ALL THE YEAR ROUND,"
+                                          _Thursday, Oct. 7th, 1869._
+
+MY DEAR KENT,
+
+I felt that you would be deeply disappointed. I thought it better not to
+make the first sign while you were depressed, but my mind has been
+constantly with you. And not mine alone. You cannot think with what
+affection and sympathy you have been made the subject of our family
+dinner talk at Gad's Hill these last three days. Nothing could exceed
+the interest of my daughters and my sister-in-law, or the earnestness of
+their feeling about it. I have been really touched by its warm and
+genuine expression.
+
+Cheer up, my dear fellow; cheer up, for God's sake. That is, for the
+sake of all that is good in you and around you.
+
+                                        Ever your affectionate Friend.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. W. C. Macready.]
+
+                                GAD'S HILL, _Monday, Oct. 18th, 1869._
+
+MY DEAREST MACREADY,
+
+I duly received your letter nearly a fortnight ago, with the greatest
+interest and pleasure. Above all things I am delighted with the prospect
+of seeing you here next summer; a prospect which has been received with
+nine times nine and one more by the whole house. You will hardly know
+the place again, it is so changed. You are not expected to admire, but
+there _is_ a conservatory building at this moment--be still, my soul!
+
+This leaves me in the preliminary agonies of a new book, which I hope to
+begin publishing (in twelve numbers, not twenty) next March. The coming
+readings being all in London, and being, after the first fortnight, only
+once a week, will divert my attention very little, I hope.
+
+Harry has just gone up to Cambridge again, and I hope will get a
+fellowship in good time.
+
+Wills is much gratified by your remembrance, and sends you his warm
+regard. He wishes me to represent that he is very little to be pitied.
+That he suffers no pain, scarcely inconvenience, even, so long as he is
+idle. That he likes idleness exceedingly. He has bought a country place
+by Welwyn in Hertfordshire, near Lytton's, and takes possession
+presently.
+
+My boy Sydney is now a second lieutenant, the youngest in the Service, I
+believe. He has the highest testimonials as an officer.
+
+You may be quite sure there will be no international racing in American
+waters. Oxford knows better, or I am mistaken. The Harvard crew were a
+very good set of fellows, and very modest.
+
+Ryland of Birmingham doesn't look a day older, and was full of interest
+in you, and asked me to remind you of him. By-the-bye, at Elkington's I
+saw a pair of immense tea-urns from a railway station (Stafford), sent
+there to be repaired. They were honeycombed within in all directions,
+and had been supplying the passengers, under the active agency of hot
+water, with decomposed lead, copper, and a few other deadly poisons, for
+heaven knows how many years!
+
+I must leave off in a hurry to catch the post, after a hard day's work.
+
+                  Ever, my dearest Macready,
+                                  Your most affectionate and attached.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[28] Herr Joseph Joachim, the renowned violinist.
+
+[29] His sister-in-law, Mrs. Augustus Dickens, always a welcome visitor
+at Gad's Hill.
+
+[30] Of the Guild of Literature and Art.
+
+[31] The housekeeper at the office.
+
+
+
+
+1870.
+
+NARRATIVE.
+
+
+Charles Dickens passed his last Christmas and New Year's Day at Gad's
+Hill, with a party of family and friends, in the usual way, except that
+he was suffering again from an attack of the foot trouble, particularly
+on Christmas Day, when he was quite disabled by it and unable to walk at
+all--able only to join the party in the evening by keeping his room all
+day. However, he was better in a day or two, and early in January he
+went to London, where he had taken the house of his friends, Mr. and
+Mrs. Milner Gibson, for the season.
+
+His series of "Farewell Readings" at St. James's Hall began in January,
+and ended on the 16th March. He was writing "Edwin Drood" also, and was,
+of course, constantly occupied with "All the Year Round" work. In the
+beginning of January, he fulfilled his promise of paying a second visit
+to Birmingham and making a speech, of which he writes in his last letter
+to Mr. Macready.
+
+For his last reading he gave the "Christmas Carol" and "The Trial" from
+"Pickwick," and at the end of the evening he addressed a few farewell
+words to his audience. It was a memorable and splendid occasion. He was
+very deeply affected by the loving enthusiasm of his greeting, and it
+was a real sorrow to him to give up for ever the personal associations
+with thousands of the readers of his books. But when the pain, mingled
+with pleasure, of this last reading was over, he felt greatly the relief
+of having undisturbed time for his own quieter pursuits, and looked
+forward to writing the last numbers of "Edwin Drood" at Gad's Hill,
+where he was to return in June.
+
+The last public appearance of any kind that he made was at the Royal
+Academy dinner in May. He was at the time far from well, but he made a
+great effort to be present and to speak, from his strong desire to pay a
+tribute to the memory of his dear old friend Mr. Maclise, who died in
+April.
+
+Her Majesty having expressed a wish, conveyed through Mr. Helps
+(afterwards Sir Arthur Helps), to have a personal interview with Charles
+Dickens, he accompanied Mr. Helps to Buckingham Palace one afternoon in
+March. He was most graciously and kindly received by her Majesty, and
+came away with a hope that the visit had been mutually agreeable. The
+Queen presented him with a copy of her "Journal in the Highlands," with
+an autograph inscription. And he had afterwards the pleasure of
+requesting her acceptance of a set of his books. He attended a levée
+held by the Prince of Wales in April, and the last time he dined out in
+London was at a party given by Lord Houghton for the King of the
+Belgians and the Prince of Wales, who had both expressed a desire to
+meet Charles Dickens. All through the season he had been suffering, at
+intervals, from the swollen foot, and on this occasion it was so bad,
+that up to the last moment it was very doubtful whether he could fulfil
+his engagement.
+
+We have very few letters for this year, and none of any very particular
+interest, but we give them all, as they are _the last_.
+
+Mr. S. L. Fildes was his "new illustrator," to whom he alludes in a note
+to Mr. Frith; we also give a short note to Mr. Fildes himself.
+
+The correspondence of Charles Dickens with Mrs. Dallas Glyn, the
+celebrated actress, for whom he had a great friendship, is so much on
+the subject of her own business, that we have only been able to select
+two notes of any public interest.
+
+In explanation of _the last letter_, we give an extract from a letter
+addressed to _The Daily News_ by Mr. J. M. Makeham, soon after the death
+of Charles Dickens, as follows: "That the public may exactly understand
+the circumstances under which Charles Dickens's letter to me was
+written, I am bound to explain that it is in reply to a letter which I
+addressed to him in reference to a passage in the tenth chapter of
+"Edwin Drood," respecting which I ventured to suggest that he had,
+perhaps, forgotten that the figure of speech alluded to by him, in a way
+which, to my certain knowledge, was distasteful to some of his admirers,
+was drawn from a passage of Holy Writ which is greatly reverenced by a
+large number of his countrymen as a prophetic description of the
+sufferings of our Saviour."
+
+The MS. of the little "History of the New Testament" is now in the
+possession of his eldest daughter. She has (together with her aunt)
+received many earnest entreaties, both from friends and strangers, that
+this history might be allowed to be published, for the benefit of other
+children.
+
+These many petitions have his daughter's fullest sympathy. But she knows
+that her father wrote this history ONLY for his own children, that it
+was his particular wish that it never should be published, and she
+therefore holds this wish as sacred and irrevocable.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. W. H. Wills.]
+
+            5, HYDE PARK PLACE, LONDON, W., _Sunday, Jan. 23rd, 1870._
+
+MY DEAR WILLS,
+
+In the note I had from you about Nancy and Sikes, you seem to refer to
+some other note you had written me. Therefore I think it well merely to
+mention that I have received no other note.
+
+I do not wonder at your not being up to the undertaking (even if you had
+had no cough) under the wearing circumstances. It was a very curious
+scene. The actors and actresses (most of the latter looking very pretty)
+mustered in extraordinary force, and were a fine audience. I set myself
+to carrying out of themselves and their observation, those who were bent
+on watching how the effects were got; and I believe I succeeded. Coming
+back to it again, however, I feel it was madness ever to do it so
+continuously. My ordinary pulse is seventy-two, and it runs up under
+this effort to one hundred and twelve. Besides which, it takes me ten or
+twelve minutes to get my wind back at all; I being, in the meantime,
+like the man who lost the fight--in fact, his express image. Frank Beard
+was in attendance to make divers experiments to report to Watson; and
+although, as you know, he stopped it instantly when he found me at
+Preston, he was very much astonished by the effects of the reading on
+the reader.
+
+So I hope you may be able to come and hear it before it is silent for
+ever. It is done again on the evenings of the 1st February, 15th
+February, and 8th March. I hope, now I have got over the mornings, that
+I may be able to work on my book. But up to this time the great
+preparation required in getting the subjects up again, and the twice a
+week besides, have almost exclusively occupied me.
+
+I have something the matter with my right thumb, and can't (as you see)
+write plainly. I sent a word to poor Robert Chambers,[32] and I send my
+love to Mrs. Wills.
+
+                            Ever, my dear Wills, affectionately yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mrs. Dallas.]
+
+                                  OFFICE OF "ALL THE YEAR ROUND,"
+                                         _Wednesday, Jan. 16th, 1870._
+
+MY DEAR MRS. DALLAS,
+
+It is perfectly delightful to me to get your fervent and sympathetic
+note this morning. A thousand thanks for it. I will take care that two
+places on the front row, by my daughter, are reserved for your occasion
+next time. I cannot see you in too good a seat, or too often.
+
+                               Believe me, ever very faithfully yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. S. L. Fildes.]
+
+                                  OFFICE OF "ALL THE YEAR ROUND,"
+                                         _Wednesday, Jan. 16th, 1870._
+
+DEAR SIR,
+
+I beg to thank you for the highly meritorious and interesting specimens
+of your art that you have had the kindness to send me. I return them
+herewith, after having examined them with the greatest pleasure.
+
+I am naturally curious to see your drawing from "David Copperfield," in
+order that I may compare it with my own idea. In the meanwhile, I can
+honestly assure you that I entertain the greatest admiration for your
+remarkable powers.
+
+                                                     Faithfully yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. Henry Fielding Dickens.]
+
+                  5, HYDE PARK PLACE, W., _Thursday, Feb. 17th, 1870._
+
+MY DEAR HARRY,
+
+I am extremely glad to hear that you have made a good start at the
+Union. Take any amount of pains about it; open your mouth well and
+roundly, speak to the last person visible, and give yourself time.
+
+Loves from all.
+
+                                                  Ever affectionately.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. W. C. Macready.]
+
+                                         _Wednesday, March 2nd, 1870._
+
+MY DEAREST MACREADY,
+
+This is to wish you and yours all happiness and prosperity at the
+well-remembered anniversary to-morrow. You may be sure that loves and
+happy returns will not be forgotten at _our_ table.
+
+I have been getting on very well with my book, and we are having immense
+audiences at St. James's Hall. Mary has been celebrating the first
+glimpses of spring by having the measles. She got over the disorder very
+easily, but a weakness remains behind. Katie is blooming. Georgina is in
+perfect order, and all send you their very best loves. It gave me true
+pleasure to have your sympathy with me in the second little speech at
+Birmingham. I was determined that my Radicalism should not be called in
+question. The electric wires are not very exact in their reporting, but
+at all events the sense was there. Ryland, as usual, made all sorts of
+enquiries about you.
+
+With love to dear Mrs. Macready and the noble boy my particular friend,
+and a hearty embrace to you,
+
+                          I am ever, my dearest Macready,
+                                               Your most affectionate.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. ----.]
+
+                                  OFFICE OF "ALL THE YEAR ROUND,"
+                                         _Wednesday, March 9th, 1870._
+
+MY DEAR ----,
+
+You make me very uneasy on the subject of your new long story here, by
+sowing your name broadcast in so many fields at once, and undertaking
+such an impossible amount of fiction at one time. Just as you are coming
+on with us, you have another story in progress in "The Gentleman's
+Magazine," and another announced in "Once a Week." And so far as I know
+the art we both profess, it cannot be reasonably pursued in this way. I
+think the short story you are now finishing in these pages obviously
+marked by traces of great haste and small consideration; and a long
+story similarly blemished would really do the publication irreparable
+harm.
+
+These considerations are so much upon my mind that I cannot forbear
+representing them to you, in the hope that they may induce you to take a
+little more into account the necessity of care and preparation, and some
+self-denial in the quantity done. I am quite sure that I write fully as
+much in your interest as in that of "All the Year Round."
+
+                                  Believe me, always faithfully yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: The same.]
+
+                   5, HYDE PARK PLACE, W., _Friday, March 11th, 1870._
+
+MY DEAR ----,
+
+Of course the engagement between us is to continue, and I am sure you
+know me too well to suppose that I have ever had a thought to the
+contrary. Your explanation is (as it naturally would be, being yours)
+manly and honest, and I am both satisfied and hopeful.
+
+                                                           Ever yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. William Charles Kent.]
+
+                 5, HYDE PARK PLACE, W., _Saturday, March 26th, 1870._
+
+MY DEAR KENT,
+
+I received both copies of _The Sun_, with the tenderest pleasure and
+gratification.
+
+Everything that I can let you have in aid of the proposed record[33]
+(which, _of course_, would be far more agreeable to me if done by you
+than by any other hand), shall be at your service. Dolby has all the
+figures relating to America, and you shall have for reference the books
+from which I read. They are afterwards going into Forster's
+collection.[34]
+
+                                                  Ever affectionately.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. Henry Fielding Dickens.]
+
+                  5, HYDE PARK PLACE, W., _Tuesday, March 29th, 1870._
+
+MY DEAR HARRY,
+
+Your next Tuesday's subject is a very good one. I would not lose the
+point that narrow-minded fanatics, who decry the theatre and defame its
+artists, are absolutely the advocates of depraved and barbarous
+amusements. For wherever a good drama and a well-regulated theatre
+decline, some distorted form of theatrical entertainment will infallibly
+arise in their place. In one of the last chapters of "Hard Times," Mr.
+Sleary says something to the effect: "People will be entertained
+thomehow, thquire. Make the betht of uth, and not the wortht."
+
+                                                  Ever affectionately.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. Shirley Brooks.]
+
+                    5, HYDE PARK PLACE, W., _Friday, April 1st, 1870._
+
+MY DEAR SHIRLEY BROOKS,
+
+I have written to Mr. Low, expressing my regret that I cannot comply
+with his request, backed as it is by my friend S. B. But I have told him
+what is perfectly true--that I leave town for the peaceful following of
+my own pursuits, at the end of next month; that I have excused myself
+from filling all manner of claims, on the ground that the public
+engagements I could make for the season were very few and were all made;
+and that I cannot bear hot rooms when I am at work. I have smoothed this
+as you would have me smooth it.
+
+With your longing for fresh air I can thoroughly sympathise. May you get
+it soon, and may you enjoy it, and profit by it half as much as I wish!
+
+                                                Ever faithfully yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. W. P. Frith, R.A.]
+
+                 5, HYDE PARK PLACE, W., _Saturday, April 16th, 1870._
+
+MY DEAR FRITH,
+
+I shall be happy to go on Wednesday evening, if convenient.
+
+You please me with what you say of my new illustrator, of whom I have
+great hopes.
+
+                                                Faithfully yours ever.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. William Charles Kent.]
+
+                                   _Monday Morning, April 25th, 1870._
+
+MY DEAR KENT,
+
+I received your book[35] with the greatest pleasure, and heartily thank
+you for it. It is a volume of a highly prepossessing appearance, and a
+most friendly look. I felt as if I should have taken to it at sight;
+even (a very large even) though I had known nothing of its contents, or
+of its author!
+
+For the last week I have been most perseveringly and ding-dong-doggedly
+at work, making headway but slowly. The spring always has a restless
+influence over me; and I weary, at any season, of this London dining-out
+beyond expression; and I yearn for the country again. This is my excuse
+for not having written to you sooner. Besides which, I had a baseless
+conviction that I should see you at the office last Thursday. Not having
+done so, I fear you must be worse, or no better? If you _can_ let me
+have a report of yourself, pray do.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mrs. Frederick Pollock.]
+
+                      5, HYDE PARK PLACE, W., _Monday, May 2nd, 1870._
+
+MY DEAR MRS. POLLOCK,
+
+Pray tell the illustrious Philip van Artevelde, that I will deal with
+the nefarious case in question if I can. I am a little doubtful of the
+practicability of doing so, and frisking outside the bounds of the law
+of libel. I have that high opinion of the law of England generally,
+which one is likely to derive from the impression that it puts all the
+honest men under the diabolical hoofs of all the scoundrels. It makes me
+cautious of doing right; an admirable instance of its wisdom!
+
+I was very sorry to have gone astray from you that Sunday; but as the
+earlier disciples entertained angels unawares, so the later often miss
+them haphazard.
+
+Your description of La Font's acting is the complete truth in one short
+sentence: Nature's triumph over art; reversing the copy-book axiom! But
+the Lord deliver us from Plessy's mechanical ingenuousness!!
+
+And your petitioner will ever pray.
+
+And ever be,
+
+                                                     Faithfully yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mrs. E. M. Ward.]
+
+                  5, HYDE PARK PLACE, W., _Wednesday, May 11th, 1870._
+
+MY DEAR MRS. WARD,
+
+I grieve to say that I am literally laid by the heels, and incapable of
+dining with you to-morrow. A neuralgic affection of the foot, which
+usually seizes me about twice a year, and which will yield to nothing
+but days of fomentation and horizontal rest, set in last night, and has
+caused me very great pain ever since, and will too clearly be no better
+until it has had its usual time in which to wear itself out. I send my
+kindest regard to Ward, and beg to be pitied.
+
+                                  Believe me, faithfully yours always.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. William Charles Kent.]
+
+                    5, HYDE PARK PLACE, W., _Tuesday, May 17th, 1870._
+
+MY DEAR KENT,
+
+Many, many thanks! It is only my neuralgic foot. It has given me such a
+sharp twist this time that I have not been able, in its extreme
+sensitiveness, to put any covering upon it except scalding fomentations.
+Having viciously bubbled and blistered it in all directions, I hope it
+now begins to see the folly of its ways.
+
+                                                  Affectionately ever.
+
+P.S.--I hope the Sun shines.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mrs. Bancroft.]
+
+                    GAD'S HILL PLACE, HIGHAM BY ROCHESTER, KENT,
+                                           _Thursday, May 31st, 1870._
+
+MY DEAR MRS. BANCROFT,[36]
+
+I am most heartily obliged to you for your kind note, which I received
+here only last night, having come here from town circuitously to get a
+little change of air on the road. My sense of your interest cannot be
+better proved than by my trying the remedy you recommend, and that I
+will do immediately. As I shall be in town on Thursday, my troubling you
+to order it would be quite unjustifiable. I will use your name in
+applying for it, and will report the result after a fair trial. Whether
+this remedy succeeds or fails as to the neuralgia, I shall always
+consider myself under an obligation to it for having indirectly procured
+me the great pleasure of receiving a communication from you; for I hope
+I may lay claim to being one of the most earnest and delighted of your
+many artistic admirers.
+
+                                         Believe me, faithfully yours.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[32] On the death of his second wife.
+
+[33] Of the Readings. The intention was carried out. Mr. Kent's book,
+"Charles Dickens as a Reader," was published in 1872.
+
+[34] No doubt Charles Dickens intended to add the Reading Books to the
+legacy of his MSS. to Mr. Forster. But he did not do so, therefore the
+"Readings" are not a part of the "Forster Collection" at the South
+Kensington Museum.
+
+[35] A new collective edition of "Kent's Poems," dedicated to his
+cousin, Colonel Kent, of the 77th Regiment.
+
+[36] Miss Marie Wilton.
+
+
+
+
+TWO LAST LETTERS.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. William Charles Kent.]
+
+
+[Illustration: Gad's Hill Place,
+                          Higham by Rochester, Kent.[37]
+
+        HW: Wednesday Eighth June 1870
+
+
+HW: Dear Kent
+
+Tomorrow is a very bad day for me to make a call, as, in addition to my
+usual office business, I have a mass of accounts to settle with Wills.
+But I hope I may be ready for you at 3 o'clock. If I can't be--why, then
+I shan't be.
+
+You must really get rid of those Opal enjoyments. They are too
+overpowering:
+
+"These violent delights have violent ends."
+
+I think it was a father of your churches who made the wise remark to a
+young gentleman who got up early (or stayed out late) at Verona?
+
+                                 Ever affectionately
+                                             Signature: ChD]
+
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. John M. Makeham.]
+
+                               =Gad's Hill Place,=
+                                          =Higham by Rochester, Kent.=
+
+[Illustration: HW: Wednesday Eighth June 1870
+
+Dear Sir
+
+It would be quite inconceivable I think--but for your
+letter--that any reasonable reader could possibly attach a scriptural
+reference to a passage in a book of mine, reproducing a much abused
+social figure of speech, impressed into all sorts of service on all
+sorts of inappropriate occasions, without the faintest connexion of it
+with its original source. I am truly shocked to find that any reader can
+make the mistake
+
+I have always striven in my writings to express veneration for the life
+and lessons of our Saviour; because I feel it; and because I re-wrote
+that history for my children--every one of whom knew it from having it
+repeated to them--long before they could read, and almost as soon as
+they could speak.
+
+But I have never made proclamation of this from the house tops
+
+                                          Faithfully Yours,
+                                                       Charles Dickens
+
+John M. Markham Esq.]
+
+All through this spring in London, Charles Dickens had been ailing in
+health, and it was remarked by many friends that he had a weary look,
+and was "aged" and altered. But he was generally in good spirits, and
+his family had no uneasiness about him, relying upon the country quiet
+and comparative rest at Gad's Hill to have their usual influence in
+restoring his health and strength. On the 2nd June he attended a private
+play at the house of Mr. and Mrs. Freake, where his two daughters were
+among the actresses. The next day he went back to Gad's Hill. His
+daughter Kate (whose home was there at all times when she chose, and
+almost always through the summer months) went down on Sunday, the 5th
+June, for a day's visit, to see the "great improvement of the
+conservatory." Her father laughingly assured her she had now seen "the
+last" improvement at Gad's Hill. At this time he was tolerably well, but
+she remarked to her sister and aunt how strangely he was tired, and what
+a curious grey colour he had in his face after a very short walk on that
+Sunday afternoon. However, he seemed quite himself again in the evening.
+The next day his daughter Kate went back, accompanied by her sister, who
+was to pay her a short visit, to London.
+
+Charles Dickens was very hard at work on the sixth number of "Edwin
+Drood." On the Monday and Tuesday he was well, but he was unequal to
+much exercise. His last walk was one of his greatest favourites--through
+Cobham Park and Wood--on the afternoon of Tuesday.
+
+On the morning of Wednesday, the 8th (one of the loveliest days of a
+lovely summer), he was very well; in excellent spirits about his book,
+of which he said he _must_ finish his number that day--the next
+(Thursday) being the day of his weekly visit to "All the Year Round"
+office. Therefore, he would write all day in the Châlet, and take no
+walk or drive until the evening. In the middle of the day he came to the
+house for an hour's rest, and smoked a cigar in the conservatory--out of
+which new addition to the house he was taking the greatest personal
+enjoyment--and seemed perfectly well, and exceedingly cheerful and
+hopeful. When he came again to the house, about an hour before the time
+fixed for the early dinner, he seemed very tired, silent, and absorbed.
+But this was so usual with him after a day of engrossing work, that it
+caused no alarm or surprise to his sister-in-law--the only member of his
+household who happened to be at home. He wrote some letters--among them,
+these last letters which we give--in the library of the house, and also
+arranged many trifling business matters, with a view to his departure
+for London the next morning. He was to be accompanied, on his return at
+the end of the week, by Mr. Fildes, to introduce the "new illustrator"
+to the neighbourhood in which many of the scenes of this last book of
+Charles Dickens, as of his first, were laid.
+
+It was not until they were seated at the dinner-table that a striking
+change in the colour and expression of his face startled his
+sister-in-law, and on her asking him if he was ill, he said, "Yes, very
+ill; I have been very ill for the last hour." But on her expressing an
+intention of sending instantly for a doctor, he stopped her, and said:
+"No, he would go on with dinner, and go afterwards to London." And then
+he made an effort to struggle against the fit that was fast coming on
+him, and talked, but incoherently, and soon very indistinctly. It being
+now evident that he _was_ ill, and very seriously ill, his sister-in-law
+begged him to come to his own room before she sent off for medical help.
+"Come and lie down," she entreated. "Yes, on the ground," he said, very
+distinctly--these were the last words he spoke--and he slid from her
+arm, and fell upon the floor.
+
+The servants brought a couch into the dining-room, where he was laid. A
+messenger was despatched for Mr. Steele, the Rochester doctor, and with
+a telegram to his doctor in London, and to his daughters. This was a few
+minutes after six o'clock.
+
+His daughters arrived, with Mr. Frank Beard, this same evening. His
+eldest son the next morning, and his son Henry and his sister Letitia in
+the evening of the 9th--too late, alas!
+
+All through the night, Charles Dickens never opened his eyes, or showed
+a sign of consciousness. In the afternoon of the 9th, Dr. Russell
+Reynolds arrived at Gad's Hill, having been summoned by Mr. Frank Beard
+to meet himself and Mr. Steele. But he could only confirm their hopeless
+verdict, and made his opinion known with much kind sympathy, to the
+family, before returning to London.
+
+Charles Dickens remained in the same unconscious state until the evening
+of this day, when, at ten minutes past six, the watchers saw a shudder
+pass over him, heard him give a deep sigh, saw one tear roll down his
+cheek, and he was gone from them. And as they saw the dark shadow steal
+across his calm, beautiful face, not one among them--could they have
+been given such a power--would have recalled his sweet spirit back to
+earth.
+
+As his family were aware that Charles Dickens had a wish to be buried
+near Gad's Hill, arrangements were made for his burial in the pretty
+churchyard of Shorne, a neighbouring village, of which he was very fond.
+But this intention was abandoned in consequence of a pressing request
+from the Dean and Chapter of Rochester Cathedral that his remains might
+be placed there. A grave was prepared and everything arranged, when it
+was made known to the family, through Dean Stanley, that there was a
+general and very earnest desire that Charles Dickens should find his
+resting-place in Westminster Abbey. To such a fitting tribute to his
+memory they could make no possible objection, although it was with great
+regret that they relinquished the idea of laying him in a place so
+closely identified with his life and his works. His name,
+notwithstanding, is associated with Rochester, a tablet to his memory
+having been placed by his executors on the wall of Rochester Cathedral.
+
+With regard to Westminster Abbey, his family only stipulated that the
+funeral might be made as private as possible, and that the words of his
+will, "I emphatically direct that I be buried in an inexpensive,
+unostentatious, and strictly private manner," should be religiously
+adhered to. And so they were. The solemn service in the vast cathedral
+being as private as the most thoughtful consideration could make it.
+
+The family of Charles Dickens were deeply grateful to all in authority
+who so carried out his wishes. And more especially to Dean Stanley and
+to the (late) Lady Augusta Stanley, for the tender sympathy shown by
+them to the mourners on this day, and also on Sunday, the 19th, when the
+Dean preached his beautiful funeral sermon.
+
+As during his life Charles Dickens's fondness for air, light, and gay
+colours amounted almost to a passion, so when he lay dead in the home he
+had so dearly loved, these things were not forgotten.
+
+The pretty room opening into the conservatory (from which he had never
+been removed since his seizure) was kept bright with the most beautiful
+of all kinds of flowers, and flooded with the summer sun:
+
+        "And nothing stirred in the room. The old, old
+        fashion. The fashion that came in with our
+        first garments, and will last unchanged until
+        our race has run its course, and the wide
+        firmament is rolled up like a scroll. The old,
+        old fashion--death!
+
+        "Oh, thank God, all who see it, for that older
+        fashion yet, of immortality!"
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[37] This letter has lately been presented by Mr. Charles Kent to the
+British Museum.
+
+
+
+
+INDEX.
+
+
+  A'Beckett, Gilbert, i. 134
+
+  Actors, Dickens a friend to poor, ii. 134
+
+  Affidavit, a facetious, i. 101
+
+  Agassiz, Professor, ii. 226, 309
+
+  Agate, John, ii. 136;
+    letter to, ii. 154
+
+  Ainsworth, W. H., letters to, i. 43, 75, 92
+
+  Alison, Sir Archibald, i. 170
+
+  "All the Year Round," commencement of, ii. 83;
+    "The Uncommercial Traveller" in, ii. 107;
+    Christmas Numbers of: "The Haunted House," ii. 84;
+    "A Message from the Sea," ii. 108, 137;
+    "Tom Tiddler's Ground," ii. 136;
+    "Somebody's Luggage," ii. 171;
+    "Mrs. Lirriper's Lodgings," ii. 187;
+    "Mrs. Lirriper's Legacy," ii. 209, 210;
+    "Dr. Marigold's Prescriptions," ii. 224, 239, 246;
+    "Mugby Junction," ii. 244, 265;
+    "No Thoroughfare," ii. 268, 300, 327, 332, 334, 338, 350, 356,
+        361, 362, 384;
+    and see ii. 386,
+    and see Charles Dickens as an Editor
+
+  America, feeling for Dickens in the backwoods of, i. 40, 41;
+    Dickens's first visit to, i. 53;
+    his welcome in, i. 59;
+    his opinion of, i. 60-64;
+    freedom of opinion in, i. 61;
+    Dickens's levées in, i. 66;
+    change of temperature in, i. 66;
+    hotel charges in, i. 67;
+    midnight rambles in New York, i. 67;
+    descriptions of Niagara, i. 69, 70; ii. 372, 377;
+    a maid's views on Niagara, i. 72;
+    copyright in, i. 71, 73, 74;
+    Dickens's tribute to Mrs. Trollope's book on, i. 81;
+    press-ridden, i. 97;
+    absence of quiet in, i. 98;
+    criticisms of Dickens in, i. 151;
+    the great war in, ii. 142, 143;
+    feeling between England and, ii. 240;
+    Dickens's second visit to--the journey, ii. 302-306;
+    Dickens's letters on, ii. 306-382;
+    fires in, ii. 317, 320;
+    treatment of luggage in, ii. 321;
+    drinks in, ii. 329, 363;
+    literary piracy in, ii. 332;
+    walking-match between Dolby and Osgood in, ii. 346, 352, 353,
+        360, 361, 364, 366, 377;
+    changes and improvements in since Dickens's first visit,
+        ii. 348, 374;
+    the negroes in, ii. 349;
+    personal descriptions of Dickens in, ii. 369;
+    travelling in, ii. 375;
+    and see Readings
+
+  "American Notes," publication of, i. 54
+
+  Andersen, Hans Christian, ii. 3
+
+  "Animal Magnetism," tag to, written by Dickens, i. 238
+
+  Anne, Mrs. Dickens's maid, i. 72, 414; ii. 18, 25, 28, 343
+
+  "Apprentices, The Tour of the Two Idle," ii. 5, 32, 33
+
+  "Arabian Nights," a mistake in the, i. 88, 89
+
+  Armatage, Isaac, ii. 391
+
+  Armstrong, the Misses, letter to, ii. 175;
+    and see ii. 176
+
+  Astley's Theatre, description of a clown at, i. 116
+
+  Austin, Henry, i. 240; ii. 135, 157;
+    and see Letters
+
+  Austin, Mrs. Henry, ii. 447;
+    letters to, ii. 154, 180, 384
+
+  Author, the highest reward of an, i. 41
+
+  Autobiography, a concise, of Dickens, i. 437
+
+  Autograph of Dickens in 1833, i. 2;
+    Dickens leaves his in Shakespeare's room, i. 13;
+    of Boz, i. 43;
+    of Dickens as Bobadil, i. 195;
+    facsimile of Dickens's handwriting in 1856, i. 421;
+    facsimile letters of Dickens written the day before his death,
+        ii. 443-445
+
+
+  Babbage, Charles, letters to, i. 86, 87, 186
+
+  Ballantyne, ii. 415
+
+  Bancroft, Mrs., letter to, ii. 441
+
+  Banks, G., i. 273; letter to, i. 296
+
+  Barber, Dickens's gardener, ii. 102
+
+  Barker, Dr. Fordyce, ii. 378, 405
+
+  "Barnaby Rudge" written and published, i. 36;
+    Dickens's descriptions of the illustrations of:
+      the raven, i. 38;
+      the locksmith's house, i. 39;
+      rioters in The Maypole, i. 45;
+      scene in the ruins of the Warren, i. 46;
+      abduction of Dolly Varden, i. 48;
+      Lord George Gordon in the Tower, the duel, frontispiece, i. 50;
+      Hugh taken to gaol, i. 51
+
+  "Battle of Life, The," dedication of, i. 147, 157;
+    Dickens superintends rehearsals of the play of, i. 163, 165, 167;
+    sale of, i. 166, 176;
+    reception of the play of, i. 167
+
+  Baylis, Mr., ii. 170;
+    letter to, ii. 179
+
+  Beadle, a, in office, ii. 134
+
+  Beard, Frank, ii. 182, 405, 421, 434, 447
+
+  Beaucourt, M., i. 297, 357, 439
+
+  Bedstead, a German, i. 128
+
+  Beecher, Ward, ii. 341
+
+  Begging letters, Dickens's answers to, i. 148-150
+
+  Belgians, the King of the, ii. 432
+
+  Benzon, Miss Lily, letter to, ii. 258
+
+  Berry, one of Dickens's readings men, ii. 54, 159, 160
+
+  Bicknell, Henry, i. 215;
+    letter to, i. 229
+
+  Biographers, Dickens on, i. 190;
+    his opinion of John Forster as a biographer, i. 188-191
+
+  Birthday wishes, i. 51
+
+  "Black-eyed Susan," Dickens as T. P. Cooke in, i. 113;
+    a new version of, i. 114
+
+  Blackwood, Mr., ii. 165
+
+  Blair, General, ii. 355
+
+  Blanchard, Laman, letter to, i. 99
+
+  "Bleak House," commenced, i. 241;
+    publication of, i. 272;
+    Dickens's opinion of, i. 279;
+    circulation of, i. 289, 309, 317
+
+  Blessington, Lady, i. 171
+
+  Bobadil, Captain, Dickens plays, i. 134;
+    Dickens's remarks on, i. 144;
+    a letter after, i. 195
+
+  Book-backs, Dickens's imitation, i. 265, 266
+
+  Book Clubs, established, i. 94;
+    Dickens on, i. 104
+
+  Boucicault, Dion, ii. 260, 261
+
+  Boulogne, Dickens at, i. 271, 297, 304-312, 341, 414, 439-448;
+    a Shakespearian performance at, i. 308;
+    _en fête_, i. 315;
+    illuminations at, on the occasion of the Prince Consort's visit,
+        i. 362;
+    fire at, i. 364;
+    condition of, during the Crimean war, i. 365;
+    letters descriptive of, i. 305, 306, 309, 312, 357, 358, 360, 372
+
+  Bouncer, Mrs., Miss Dickens's dog, ii. 109, 126, 189, 356
+
+  Bow Street Runners, ii. 178
+
+  Boxall, Sir William, i. 233, 237
+
+  Boyle, Captain Cavendish, ii. 407
+
+  Boyle, Miss Mary, i. 211, 214, 227, 414; ii. 123, 145, 315, 406;
+    and see Letters
+
+  Breach of Promise, a new sort of, i. 179
+
+  Breakfast, a Yorkshire, i. 9
+
+  Broadstairs, Dickens at, i. 4, 6, 17, 28, 36, 53, 134, 170, 185,
+        213, 240; ii. 84, 99;
+    description of lodgings at, i. 33;
+    amusements of, i. 180, 182;
+    size of Fort House at, i. 254
+
+  Bromley, Sir Richard, ii. 126
+
+  Brookfield, Mrs., letter to, ii. 249
+
+  Brookfield, The Rev. W., letters to, ii. 199, 200
+
+  Brooks, Shirley, ii. 407;
+    letters to, ii. 423, 438
+
+  Brougham, Lord, i. 182; ii. 144
+
+  Browne, H. K., i. 6, 13
+
+  Buckstone, J. B., i. 360
+
+  Burnett, Mrs., i. 185
+
+
+  Cabin, a, on board ship, i. 56
+
+  Campbell, Lord, ii, 144
+
+  Capital punishment, Dickens's views on, i. 209
+
+  Carlisle, the Earl of, letters to, i. 253, 281; ii. 12, 118, 157
+
+  Carlyle, Thomas, ii. 112
+
+  Cartwright, Samuel, ii. 326;
+    letter to, ii. 348
+
+  Castlereagh, Lord, i. 245
+
+  Cat-hunting, i. 449
+
+  Cattermole, George, i. 42, 143; ii. 327, 383;
+    and see Letters
+
+  Cattermole, Mrs., letters to, ii. 383, 385
+
+  Céleste, Madame, ii. 106
+
+  Cerjat, M. de, i. 147; ii. 406;
+    and see Letters
+
+  Chambers, Robert, ii. 167, 434
+
+  Chancery, Dickens on the Court of, i. 450
+
+  Chapman and Hall, Messrs., i. 3;
+    letter to, i. 55
+
+  Chappell, Messrs., ii. 244, 245, 267, 309, 326, 405
+
+  Charities, Dickens's sufferings from public, ii. 47
+
+  Children, stories of, i. 223, 365, 420; ii. 196, 359, 423
+
+  Childs, Mr., ii. 337, 405
+
+  "Chimes, The," written, i. 95;
+    an attack on cant, i. 118, 129;
+    Dickens's opinion of, i. 129, 133;
+    Dickens gives a private reading of, i. 133
+
+  Chorley, H. F., ii. 338, 350
+
+  "Christmas Carol, The," publication of, i. 85;
+    criticisms on, i. 99
+
+  Christmas greetings, i. 167
+
+  Church, Dickens on the, ii. 221;
+    service on board ship, ii. 348;
+    Dickens on the Romish, ii. 409, 410
+
+  Circumlocution, Dickens on, ii. 241, 270
+
+  Clarke, John, letter to, ii. 418
+
+  Cockspur Street Society, the, i. 85-87
+
+  Cold, effects of a, i. 92, 93;
+    remedy for a, i. 168
+
+  Colden, David, i. 64
+
+  Collins, C. A., ii. 84, 100, 113, 221, 242, 387, 410
+
+  Collins, Wilkie, i. 241, 272, 297, 332, 359, 376, 385, 388, 413,
+        414, 447; ii. 33, 84, 108, 170, 268, 292;
+    and see Letters
+
+  Comedy, Mr. Webster's offer for a prize, Dickens an imaginary
+        competitor, i. 86, 90
+
+  Compton, Mrs., letter to, ii. 22
+
+  Conjuring feats, i. 96;
+    and see ii. 243
+
+  Cooke, T. P., i. 113; ii. 4;
+    letter to, ii. 21
+
+  Copyright, i. 13;
+    Dickens's struggles to secure English, in America, i. 71, 73, 74
+
+  Costello, Dudley, i. 241;
+    letters to, i. 104, 205
+
+  Cottage, a cheap, i. 18
+
+  Coutts, Miss, i. 410
+
+  Covent Garden Theatre, Macready retires from management of, i. 18;
+    ruins of, i. 430;
+    a scene at, ii. 133
+
+  "Cricket on the Hearth, The," i. 135, 145
+
+  Croker, J. Crofton, i. 272;
+    letter to, i. 275
+
+  Cruikshank, George, i. 170
+
+  Cunningham, Mrs., ii. 423
+
+  Cunningham, Peter, i. 186, 407;
+    letters to, i. 195, 270, 312, 356
+
+
+  Dacres, Sir Sydney, ii. 329
+
+  _Daily News, The_, started, i. 135
+
+  Dallas, Mrs., letters to, ii. 195, 434
+
+  Dallas, Mr., ii. 235
+
+  "David Copperfield," dedication of, i. 147;
+    purpose of Little Emily in, i. 211;
+    success of, i. 211;
+    reading of, i. 377, 382;
+    Dickens's favourite work, i. 382;
+    and see i. 204, 221, 227, 279
+
+  Deane, F. H., letter to, i. 68
+
+  Delane, John, i. 298; ii. 425;
+    letter to, i. 314
+
+  De la Rue, Mr., ii. 210
+
+  Devonshire, the Duke of, letters to, i. 437, 443, 457
+
+  Devrient, Emil, i. 277
+
+  Dickens, Charles, at Furnival's Inn, i. 1;
+    his marriage, i. 1;
+    employed as a parliamentary reporter, i. 1;
+    spends his honeymoon at Chalk, Kent, i. 1;
+    employed on _The Morning Chronicle_, i. 2;
+    removes to Doughty Street, i. 4;
+    writes for the stage, i. 4, 5, 7, 16, 17;
+    his visit to the Yorkshire schools, i. 6;
+    at Twickenham Park, i. 6;
+    his visits to Broadstairs, see Broadstairs;
+    his visit to Stratford-on-Avon and Kenilworth, i. 6, 12;
+    in Shakespeare's room, i. 13;
+    elected at the Athenæum Club, i. 12;
+    removes to Devonshire Terrace, i. 17;
+    portraits of, see Portraits;
+    visits to Scotland, i. 36, ii. 39, and see ii. 395;
+    personal feeling of for his characters, i. 36, 37, 42;
+    declines to enter Parliament, i. 37, 44; ii. 389;
+    public dinners to, i. 36, 53, 273; ii. 268, 301, 404, 406, 417,
+        419, 420;
+    an enemy of cant, i. 88, 118, 129;
+    visits of to America, see America;
+    expedition of to Cornwall, i. 54;
+    his travels in Italy, see Italy;
+    political opinions of, i. 62, 63, 88, 104;
+    fancy signatures to letters of, i. 91, 146, 152, 181, 206,
+        237, 425; ii. 195;
+    takes the chair at the opening of the Liverpool Mechanics'
+        Institute, i. 94, and see i. 100-102;
+    his theatrical performances, see Theatrical Performances;
+    effects of work on, i. 121,; ii. 248, 266, 325;
+    _The Daily News_, started by, i. 135;
+    his visits to Lausanne and Switzerland, i. 147, 297, and
+        see Switzerland;
+    his visits to Paris, see Paris;
+    as a stage, manager, i. 163, 167, 231, 232, 237; ii. 26;
+    at Chester Place, Regent's Park, i. 169;
+    takes the chair at the opening of the Leeds Mechanics' Institute,
+        and of the Glasgow Athenæum, i. 170;
+    at Brighton, i. 185, 213;
+    at Bonchurch, i, 204;
+    purchases Tavistock House, i. 240, and see Tavistock House;
+    as an editor, i. 246, 259, 269, 270, 285; ii. 127, 217, 262, 286,
+        292;
+    his readings, see Readings;
+    illnesses of, i. 14, 297; ii. 404, 405, 421, 446;
+    in America, ii. 338, 341, 347, 353, 355, 360, 365, 373, 377, 380,
+        381;
+    his visits to Boulogne, see Boulogne;
+    presentation of plate to, at Birmingham, i. 348;
+    purchases Gad's Hill, i. 377, 414, and see Gad's Hill;
+    delivers a speech on Administrative Reform, i. 377;
+    at Folkestone, i. 377, 378;
+    restlessness of, when at work, i. 402, 425;
+    tour of, in the North, ii. 5, 29-32;
+    his kindly criticisms of young writers, ii. 16, 34, 267, 277,
+        for other criticisms see i. 152, 188; ii. 14, 43, 215, 249;
+    elected a member of the Birmingham Institute, ii. 34;
+    religious views of, ii. 82, 202, 221, 394, 403, 444;
+    visit of, to Cornwall, ii. 108;
+    at Hanover Terrace, Regent's Park, ii. 135;
+    visits Lord Lytton at Knebworth, ii. 136;
+    at Hyde Park Gate South, ii. 170;
+    at 57, Gloucester Place, Hyde Park, ii. 208;
+    at Somer's Place, Hyde Park, ii. 224;
+    in the Staplehurst accident, ii. 224;
+    at Southwick Place, Hyde Park, ii. 224;
+    his energy, ii. 291;
+    one of the secrets of the success of, ii. 357, 392;
+    the Midland Institute at Birmingham opened by, ii. 406, and
+        see ii. 427;
+    his last speech, at the Royal Academy dinner, ii. 432;
+    his interview with the Queen, ii. 432;
+    attends a levée of the Prince of Wales, ii. 432;
+    his last illness, ii. 446;
+    his death, ii. 448;
+    funeral of, ii. 448, 449;
+    and see Letters of
+
+  Dickens, Mrs. Charles, marriage of, i. 1;
+    visit of, to America, i. 53;
+    at Rome, i. 135;
+    accident to, i. 215;
+    at Malvern, i. 239;
+    present to, at Birmingham, i. 298;
+    and see Letters
+
+  Dickens, Charles, jun., birth of, i. 4;
+    nickname of, i. 76;
+    at Eton, i. 212, 240, 243, 255, 258;
+    at Leipsic, i. 297, 310, 319;
+    at Barings', i. 455;
+    marriage of, ii. 208;
+    on "All the Year Round," ii. 406, 410, 424;
+    and see i. 169, 233, 237, 243, 255, 258, 290, 347, 378, 405, 426;
+        ii. 88, 114, 123, 140, 145, 176, 447;
+    letters to, ii. 310, 338
+
+  Dickens, Kate, nickname of, i. 76;
+    marriage of, ii. 107, 113;
+    illness of, ii. 266, 271; and see ii. 39, 75, 77, 84, 221, 410,
+        436, 446;
+    letters to, i. 178; ii. 99
+
+  Dickens, Mamie, nickname of, i. 76;
+    illnesses of, i. 363, 436;
+    accident to, ii. 129;
+    and see ii. 39, 49, 55, 75, 77, 84, 87, 114, 116, 120, 145, 179,
+        234, 411, 447, and Letters
+
+  Dickens, Walter, nickname of, i. 76;
+    goes to India, ii. 19, 21;
+    attached to the 42nd Highlanders, ii. 114, 176;
+    death of, ii. 208, 212; and see i. 268, 314, 378, 443; ii. 4
+
+  Dickens, Frank, nickname of, i. 126;
+    letter of, to Dickens, ii. 93;
+    in India, ii. 208, 212; and see ii. 114, 131, 140, 177
+
+  Dickens, Alfred, at Wimbledon School, ii. 122;
+    settles in Australia, ii. 327; and see ii. 177, 371
+
+  Dickens, Sydney, birth of, i. 169;
+    nickname of, i. 170;
+    death of, i. 171;
+    story of, i. 223;
+    a naval cadet, ii. 125, 126, 145, 167;
+    on board H.M.S. _Orlando_, ii. 169; and see i. 363; ii. 114,
+        118, 122, 177, 202, 236, 260, 296, 430
+
+  Dickens, Henry, entered at Trinity Hall, Cambridge, ii. 327;
+    wins a scholarship, ii. 424, 430;
+      and see i. 363; ii. 177, 190, 254, 255, 329, 371, 389, 395,
+        406, 410, 447;
+    letters to, ii. 356, 392, 435, 438
+
+  Dickens, Edward, nicknames of, i. 322, 338;
+    goes to Australia, ii. 327, 329;
+    Dickens's love for, ii. 389-391;
+      and see i. 353, 359, 365, 403, 420, 426, 439; ii. 53, 76, 79,
+        92, 95, 153, 190, 199;
+    letter to, ii. 402
+
+  Dickens, Dora, birth of, i. 213;
+    death of, i. 240
+
+  Dickens, Alfred, sen., i. 184, 410; ii. 199
+
+  Dickens, Mrs. Augustus, ii. 418
+
+  Dickens, Fanny, see Mrs. Burnett
+
+  Dickens, Frederick, i. 9
+
+  Dickens, John, i. 240, 437; ii. 240
+
+  Dickens, Mrs. John, ii. 333
+
+  Dickens, Letitia, see Mrs. Henry Austin
+
+  Dickenson, Captain, ii. 224, 232
+
+  Dickson, David, letter to, i. 89
+
+  Diezman, S. A., letter to, i. 32
+
+  Dilke, C. W., ii. 5;
+    letter to, ii. 12
+
+  Dillon, C., ii. 42
+
+  Dinner, a search for a, i. 326;
+    ladies at public dinners, i. 103
+
+  Dogs, Dickens's, i. 67, 109, 110; ii. 50, 96, 101; ii. 203, 237,
+        242, 245, 264, 269;
+    a plague of, i. 292;
+    stories of, i. 109, 352, 354, 455
+
+  Dolby, George, ii. 245, 252-255, 267, 273, 280, 295, 296, 308, 310,
+        311, 317-323, 328, 330, 335, 336, 340, 345-347, 352-360, 363,
+        367, 381
+
+  "Dombey and Son," i. 147;
+    success of, i. 156, 176;
+    sale of, i. 162
+
+  D'Orsay, Comte, i. 171, 244
+
+  Driver, Dickens's estimate of himself as a, i. 2
+
+  Drury Lane Theatre, the saloon at, i. 37;
+    suggestions for the saloon at, i. 52, 53
+
+  Dufferin, Lord, ii. 419
+
+  Dwarf, the Tartar, ii. 255
+
+
+  Earthquake, an, in England, ii. 206
+
+  Edinburgh on a Sunday, ii. 395
+
+  Education, Dickens an advocate of, for the people, i. 104
+
+  "Edwin Drood," ii. 407, 431, 432, 446
+
+  Eeles, Mr., letters to, i. 265, 269
+
+  Egg, Augustus, i. 170, 172, 226, 297, 320, 332; ii. 198
+
+  Eliot, Sir John, Dickens on Forster's life of, ii. 215
+
+  Elliotson, Dr., i. 37, 149, ii. 99
+
+  Elton, Mr., i. 85, 92
+
+  Elwin, Rev. W., ii. 136, 151
+
+  Ely, Miss, letter to, i. 153
+
+  Emerson, Mr., ii. 306
+
+  Emery, Mr., i. 429
+
+  England, state of, in 1855, i. 391;
+    politically, i. 406
+
+  Epitaph, Dickens's, on a little child, i. 68
+
+  Executions, Dickens on public, i. 209, 212
+
+  Exhibition, an infant school at the, i. 257
+
+  Eytinge, Mr., ii. 405
+
+
+  Fairy Tales, Dickens on, i. 307
+
+  "Faust," Gounod's, ii. 191, 193
+
+  Fechter, Charles, ii. 171, 177, 187, 193, 201, 219, 270, 386; and
+        see Letters
+
+  Felton, Mr., ii. 85
+
+  Ferguson, Sir William, ii. 246, 247
+
+  Féval, Paul, ii. 183, 192
+
+  Fielding, Henry, i. 394
+
+  Fields, Cyrus W., ii. 85, 308, 344, 361, 364, 379, 405
+
+  Fields, Mrs., ii. 306, 308, 319, 344, 361, 364, 367, 379, 405
+
+  Fildes, S. L., ii. 432, 447;
+    letter to, ii. 435
+
+  Finlay, F. D., ii. 406;
+    letters to, ii. 297, 389, 408
+
+  Fitzgerald, Mrs., ii. 285
+
+  Fitzgerald, Percy, ii. 187, 397;
+    and see Letters
+
+  Flunkeydom, scholastic, ii. 68
+
+  Forgues, M., i. 415, 421
+
+  Forster, Miss, ii. 327
+
+  Forster, John, i. 7, 10, 134, 143, 225, 240, 268, 428; ii. 108, 130,
+        265;
+    and see Letters
+
+  Franklin, Sir John, i. 373
+
+  Freake, Mr. and Mrs., ii. 446
+
+  French portraits of the English, i. 175
+
+  Friday, Dickens's lucky day, i. 414, 429
+
+  Frith, W. P., ii. 84, 93, 385, 418;
+    letters to, i. 79; ii. 439
+
+  Frost, the great, of 1861, ii. 139
+
+  Funerals, Dickens on state, i. 290; ii. 385
+
+
+  Gad's Hill, purchase of, i. 377, 378, 414;
+    Dickens takes possession of, ii. 3;
+    his childish impressions of, ii. 8;
+    improvements in, ii. 107, 373, 406, 446;
+    sports at, ii. 205;
+    cricket club at, ii. 356;
+    letters concerning, i. 384, 410, 429; ii. 15, 18, 25, 28, 49, 106,
+        119, 227
+
+  Gaskell, Mrs., i. 214;
+    and see Letters
+
+  Germany, esteem felt for Dickens in, i. 32
+
+  Ghost, stalking a, ii. 131
+
+  Gibson, M., i. 315; ii. 121
+
+  Gibson, Mr. and Mrs. Milner, ii. 431
+
+  Gladstone, Right Hon. W. E., ii. 401
+
+  Goldsmith, Oliver, Dickens on Forster's Life of, i. 188;
+    on the works of, i. 380
+
+  Gordon, Andrew, ii. 131
+
+  Gordon, Mr. Sheriff, ii. 164
+
+  "Great Expectations," commenced, ii. 108, 136;
+    letters concerning, ii. 128, 133, 140, 142, 143, 151
+
+  Grief, the perversity of, exemplified, i. 18
+
+  Grimaldi, Life of, edited by Dickens, i. 4
+
+  Guild of Literature and Art, i. 239;
+    theatrical performances in aid of the, i. 239, 241, 248, 252, 268,
+        271;
+    and see ii. 41
+
+
+  Haldimand, Mr., i. 147, 169, 212, 380;
+    letters to, i. 157, 254
+
+  Halleck, Fitz-Greene, i. 59
+
+  "Hard Times," i. 341;
+    satire of, explained, i. 349;
+    letters concerning, i. 355, 371
+
+  Harley, J. P., letters to, i. 5, 23
+
+  Harness, Rev. W., ii. 253;
+    letters to, i. 37, 76, 361
+
+  "Haunted Man, The," i. 170, 185, 241;
+    subjects for illustrations in, described, i. 200, 201;
+    dramatisation of, i. 203
+
+  Headland, Mr., ii. 135, 149, 158, 160
+
+  Helps, Sir Arthur, ii. 432
+
+  Henderson, Mrs., letter to, ii. 293
+
+  Hewett, Captain, i. 57
+
+  "History of England, The Child's," i. 297
+
+  Hogarth, Mary, i. 4, 9
+
+  Hogarth, Georgina, i. 425; ii. 50, 114, 145, 179, 202, 408, 436;
+    and see Letters
+
+  Hogge, Mrs., letter to, ii. 46
+
+  Holland, Lady, i. 11
+
+  Holmes, Mr., ii. 306
+
+  Home, longings for, i. 64, 70
+
+  Hood, Tom, i. 287;
+    letter to, i. 80
+
+  Horne, Mrs., letter to, i. 456
+
+  Horne, R. H., letter to, i. 93
+
+  Hospital, a dinner at a, i. 88;
+    Great Ormond Street, ii. 40, 46
+
+  Houghton, Lord, ii. 432;
+    letter to, i. 41
+
+  "Household Words," i. 148;
+    scheme of, i. 216;
+    suggested titles for, i. 219;
+    success of, i. 221;
+    Christmas numbers of, i. 241, 288;
+    "The Golden Mary," i. 414; ii. 11,
+    "A House to Let," ii. 40;
+    incorporated with "All the Year Round," ii. 83;
+    letters concerning, i. 219, 221, 250, 285, 286, 291-293, 295, 299,
+        301, 334, 335, 353, 423, 452; ii. 68
+
+  Hughes, Master Hastings, letter to, i. 14
+
+  Hulkes, Mrs., ii. 224, 315, 329;
+    letter to, ii. 232
+
+  Hullah, John, i. 5; ii. 131
+
+  Humphery, Mr. and Mrs., afterwards Sir W. and Lady, ii. 187
+
+  Hunt, Leigh, ii. 407
+
+  Hutchinson, John, ii. 380
+
+
+  _Illustrated London News_, offers to Dickens from, i. 150
+
+  Illustrations of Dickens's works, his descriptions for, i. 38-40,
+        45, 46, 50, 51, 200-203; ii. 237
+
+  Impeachment of the Five Members, Dickens on Forster's, ii. 14
+
+  Ireland, a dialogue in, ii. 61;
+    feeling for Dickens in, ii. 65;
+    Fenianism in, ii. 282-286;
+    proposed banquet to Dickens in, ii. 406;
+    Dickens on the Established Church in, ii. 409;
+    and see ii. 57, 60, 64
+
+  Italy, Dickens's first visit to, i. 94;
+    the sky of, i. 106;
+    the colouring of, i. 106;
+    a sunset in, i. 106;
+    twilight in, i. 107;
+    frescoes in, i. 107;
+    churches in, i. 108;
+    fruit in, i. 109;
+    climate of, i. 111;
+    a coastguard in, i. 116;
+    Dickens at Albaro, i. 105-117;
+    at Genoa, i. 120-122, 134, 321;
+    at Venice and Verona, i. 119-121, 337;
+    at Naples, i. 134-141, 322;
+    an ascent of Vesuvius, i. 137-141;
+    at Rome, i. 134, 135, 325-333;
+    Dickens on the unity of, ii. 84, 89, 90, 140, 211;
+    and see i. 297, 346
+
+
+  Jamaica, the insurrection in, ii. 241
+
+  Jeffrey, Lord, i. 184, 218
+
+  Jerrold, Douglas, i. 134, 225, 268, 390; ii. 3, 4, 19;
+    and see Letters
+
+  Jews, Dickens's friendly feeling for, ii. 204, 223, 280
+
+  Joachim, Joseph, ii. 413
+
+  John, Dickens's manservant, ii. 54, 56, 57, 72, 153, 187, 188, 255
+
+  Joll, Miss, letter to, i. 209
+
+  Jones, Walter, letter to, ii. 232
+
+
+  Keeley, Mrs., ii. 417
+
+  Keeley, Robert, i. 165;
+    letter to, i. 105
+
+  Kelly, Miss, i. 302, 303
+
+  Kelly, one of Dickens's readings men, ii. 305, 306, 342
+
+  Kemble, Fanny, ii. 344, 346
+
+  Kent, W. Charles, i. 186; ii. 225, 268, 407;
+    and see Letters
+
+  Kinkel, Dr., i. 230
+
+  Knight, Charles, i. 94; ii. 208;
+    and see Letters
+
+  Knowles, Sheridan, i. 214;
+    letter to, i. 215
+
+
+  "Lady of Lyons, The," ii. 298
+
+  La Font, ii. 440
+
+  Lamartine, i. 187
+
+  Landor, Walter Savage, i. 268, 337; ii. 66;
+    and see Letters
+
+  Landseer, Edwin, letter to, i. 103
+
+  Landseer, Tom, i. 27
+
+  Lansdowne, Lord, i. 275
+
+  Law, Dickens's opinion of English, ii. 440
+
+  Layard, A. H., i. 377; ii. 108;
+    letters to, i. 390, 391
+
+  Leclercq, Miss, ii. 246
+
+  Lectures, Dickens on public, i. 97
+
+  Leech, John, i. 134, 186, 225, 226, 239
+
+  Le Gros, Mr., i. 140, 332
+
+  Lehmann, Mrs., ii. 39, 75;
+    and see Letters
+
+  Lehmann, F., ii. 39, 75
+
+  Lemaître, M., i. 386
+
+  Lemon, Mark, i. 134, 186, 225, 226, 376, 390;
+    and see Letters
+
+  Lemon, Mrs., i. 419
+
+  Léotard, ii. 142
+
+  LETTERS OF CHARLES DICKENS TO:
+    Agate, John, ii. 154
+    Ainsworth, W. H., i. 43, 75, 92
+    Anonymous, i. 277; ii. 276
+    Armstrong, the Misses, ii. 175
+    Austin, Henry, i. 2, 69-73, 76, 262-264, 266, 361; ii. 18, 25, 28
+    Austin, Mrs., ii. 154, 180, 384
+    Babbage, Charles, i. 86, 87, 186
+    Bancroft, Mrs., ii. 441
+    Banks, G., i. 296
+    Baylis, Mr., ii. 179
+    Benzon, Miss, ii. 258
+    Bicknell, H., i. 229
+    Blanchard, Laman, i. 99
+    Boyle, Miss, i. 224, 225, 227, 245, 265, 279, 345, 381, 423;
+        ii. 10, 132, 157, 169, 186, 245, 315, 411
+    Brookfield, Mrs., ii. 249
+    Brookfield, Rev. W., ii. 199, 200
+    Brooks, Shirley, ii. 423, 438
+    Carlisle, the Earl of, i. 253, 281; ii. 12, 118, 157
+    Cartwright, Samuel, ii. 348
+    Cattermole, Mrs., ii. 383, 385
+    Cattermole, George, i. 22, 28-30, 31, 33-36, 38, 39, 42, 43,
+        45-48, 50, 51, 81, 143
+    Cerjat, M. de, i. 161, 210, 346, 378; ii. 7, 48, 86, 113, 138,
+        176, 200, 220, 240, 268, 387, 409
+    Chapman and Hall, i. 55
+    Clarke, John, ii. 418
+    Collins, Wilkie, i. 294, 358, 362, 397, 400, 403, 419, 437, 448;
+        ii. 40, 67, 101, 110, 129, 146, 182, 198, 209, 332, 397
+    Compton, Mrs., ii. 22
+    Cooke, T. P., ii. 21
+    Costello, Dudley, i. 104, 205
+    Croker, J. Crofton, i. 275
+    Cunningham, Peter, i. 195, 270, 312, 356
+    Dallas, Mrs., ii. 195, 434
+    Deane, F. H., i. 68
+    Delane, John, i. 314
+    Devonshire, the Duke of, i. 437, 443, 457
+    Dickens, Mrs. Charles, i. 12, 100, 123, 127, 130, 132, 165, 166,
+        206, 223, 244, 249, 267, 330, 406, 433
+    Dickens, Charles, ii. 310, 338
+    Dickens, Edward, ii. 402
+    Dickens, Henry, ii. 356, 392, 435, 438
+    Dickens, Miss Kate, i. 178; ii. 99
+    Dickens, Miss, i. 176, 178, 182, 199, 205, 453; ii. 52, 53, 56,
+        63, 72, 78, 95, 99, 124, 150, 161, 163, 165, 188, 190, 243,
+        252, 254, 256, 273, 275, 276, 278, 279, 283, 285, 299, 302,
+        306, 313, 316, 321, 324, 337, 341, 343, 350, 351, 354, 363,
+        366, 372, 377, 380, 389, 391, 399, 412, 415, 421, 426
+    Dickson, David, i. 89
+    Diezman, S. A., i. 32
+    Dilke, C. W., ii. 12
+    Eeles, Mr., i. 265, 269
+    Ely, Miss, i. 153
+    Fechter, Charles, ii. 183, 185, 191, 260, 297, 361, 368, 390
+    Fildes, S. L., ii. 435
+    Finlay, F. D., ii. 297, 389, 408
+    Fitzgerald, Percy, ii. 203, 217, 234, 237, 247, 263, 293, 294
+    Forster, John, i. 167, 188, 393; ii. 14, 42, 76, 97, 111, 128,
+        142, 215
+    Frith, W. P., i. 79; ii. 439
+    Gaskell, Mrs., i. 216, 269, 270, 292, 293, 301, 355, 360, 381
+    Haldimand, Mr., i. 157
+    Halleck, Fitz-Greene, i. 59
+    Harley, J. P., i. 5, 23
+    Harness, Rev. W., i. 37, 76, 361
+    Henderson, Mrs., ii. 293
+    Hogarth, Catherine, i. 3
+    Hogarth, Miss, i. 135, 177, 183, 319, 320, 322, 325, 337, 359, 385,
+        426, 428, 429, 435; ii. 28, 31, 33, 51, 55, 58, 61, 65, 70, 74,
+        75, 79, 126, 132, 137, 151, 152, 156, 158, 162, 165, 172-174,
+        190, 206, 248, 251, 253, 255, 257, 272, 274, 277, 279, 281,
+        282, 284-286, 295, 298, 303, 304, 307, 315, 317, 319, 327, 330,
+        334, 341, 345, 353, 358, 360, 364, 370, 371, 379, 391, 392, 396,
+        398, 400, 413-419, 421
+    Hogge, Mrs., ii. 46
+    Hood, Tom, i. 80
+    Horne, Mrs., i. 456
+    Horne, R. H., i. 93
+    Hughes, Master, i. 14
+    Hulkes, Mrs., ii. 232
+    Jerrold, Douglas, i. 87, 90, 118, 154, 427
+    Jewish Lady, a, ii. 204, 223, 280
+    Joll, Miss, i. 209
+    Jones, Walter, ii. 232
+    Keeley, Robert, i. 105
+    Kent, W. Charles, i. 188, 461; ii. 225, 239, 246, 299, 394, 429,
+        437, 439, 441, 443
+    Knight, Charles, i. 104, 152, 218, 259, 277, 280, 349, 351; ii.
+        195, 212
+    Knowles, Sheridan, i. 215
+    Landor, Walter Savage, i. 157, 230, 313, 343, 441
+    Landseer, Edwin, i. 103
+    Layard, A. H., i. 390, 391
+    Lehmann, Mrs. F., ii. 196, 234, 395, 413
+    Lemon, Mark, i. 192, 203, 207, 243, 281, 394, 396, 416, 439, 440
+    Longman, Thomas, i. 73; ii. 106
+    Longman, William, i. 24
+    Lovejoy, G., i. 44
+    Lytton, Sir E. B., ii. 116
+    Maclise, Daniel, i. 33, 105
+    Macready, W. C., i. 5, 16, 17, 18, 24, 26, 27, 49, 52, 60, 77, 79,
+        95, 117, 129, 141, 144, 146, 154, 183, 187, 194, 195, 198, 247,
+        252, 273, 283, 300, 307, 368, 399, 404, 430, 431, 446, 451, 459;
+        ii. 10, 19, 22, 46, 109, 141, 150, 192, 197, 226, 227, 229, 265,
+        373, 383, 424, 429, 436
+    Major, Mrs., ii. 196
+    Makeham, John, ii. 444
+    Marston, Dr. Westland, ii. 43
+    Milnes, R. Monckton, i. 41
+    Mitton, Thomas, i. 10, 19, 56, 58, 65, 121, 136, 458; ii. 229
+    Morpeth, Viscount, i. 92, 146,
+      and see Carlisle, The Earl of Ollier, Edmund, ii. 213, 425
+    Ouvry, F., ii. 205, 427
+    Owen, Professor, ii. 235
+    Panizzi, Antonio, ii. 89, 90, 92
+    Pardoe, Miss, i. 73
+    Parkinson, J. C., ii. 401
+    Pollock, Mrs. F., ii. 440
+    Pollock, Sir F., ii. 214
+    Poole, John, i. 236
+    Power, Miss, i. 179, 181, 460; ii. 127, 194
+    Power, Mrs., ii. 300
+    Procter, Adelaide, i. 374
+    Procter, B. W., i. 354; ii. 5, 82, 90, 223, 259
+    Procter, Mrs., ii. 226, 238
+    Reade, Charles, ii. 206
+    Regnier, Monsieur, i. 302, 303, 383, 411; ii. 44, 45, 102, 105, 189
+    Roberts, David, i. 215, 246, 248, 389
+    Russell, Lord John, i. 277, 316; ii. 118, 235, 422
+    Ryland, Arthur, i. 349, 382, 388; ii. 34, 233, 426, 428
+    Sandys, William, i. 178
+    Saunders, John, i. 366
+    Sculthorpe, W. R., ii. 104
+    Smith, Arthur, ii. 85, 147
+    Smith, H. P., i. 74, 179, 181
+    Stanfield, Clarkson, i. 92, 102, 113, 144, 151, 205, 299, 373, 394,
+        395, 398; ii. 184, 219, 287
+    Stanfield, George, ii. 289
+    Stone, Marcus, i. 340; ii. 211, 236
+    Stone, Frank, i. 199-201, 206, 259, 261, 295, 305, 355, 365, 396,
+        397; ii. 16, 24, 25, 27, 35, 82, 103
+    Storrar, Mrs., ii. 216
+    "_Sun, The_," the editor of, i. 187
+    Tagart, Edward, i. 111, 173
+    Talfourd, Miss Mary, i. 51
+    Talfourd, Serjeant, i. 10
+    Tennent, Sir James Emerson, i. 329; ii. 6, 218, 259
+    Thackeray, W. M., ii. 41
+    Thornbury, Walter, ii. 178, 262, 286
+    Tomlin, John, i. 40
+    Toole, J. L., ii. 300
+    Trollope, Mrs., i. 81, 397
+    Viardot, Madame, i. 412
+    Ward, E. M., ii. 141
+    Ward, Mrs., ii. 441
+    Watkins, John, i. 287; ii. 148
+    Watson, Hon. Mrs., i. 171, 196, 209, 226, 228, 231, 234, 237, 242,
+        254, 276, 282, 289, 309, 317, 343, 370, 402, 412, 453; ii. 93,
+        121, 144, 301, 382
+    Watson, Hon. R., i. 159
+    White, Mrs., ii. 94
+    White, Miss, ii. 92
+    White, Rev. James, i. 149, 193, 208, 217, 220, 288, 291, 292, 350;
+        ii. 11, 15, 81, 97
+    Wills, W. H., i. 148-150, 219, 221, 222, 244, 250, 285, 286, 292,
+        295, 299, 303, 304, 307, 315, 333, 334, 352, 357, 384, 387,
+        401, 407, 408, 410, 415, 433, 450, 452; ii. 119, 167, 168, 171,
+        207, 290, 292, 295, 301, 386, 422, 433
+    Wilson, Effingham, i. 199
+    Yates, Edmund, ii. 20, 34, 41, 47, 91, 123, 149, 238
+    Yates, Mrs., ii. 48
+
+  Lewes, G. H., i. 170
+
+  "Lighthouse, The," the play of, i. 337;
+    Dickens's prologue to, i. 461;
+    Dickens's "Song of the Wreck" in, i. 461;
+    and see ii. 198
+
+  Linton, Mrs., ii. 207
+
+  Lion, a chained, i. 144
+
+  Literary Fund, the, ii. 5, 12
+
+  "Little Dorrit," i. 378, 413, 415;
+    proposed name of, i. 402;
+    sale of, i. 426;
+    letters concerning, i. 402, 403, 406, 426
+
+  Lockhart, Mr., ii. 207
+
+  London, the Mayor of, from a French point of view, i. 175;
+    in September, i. 318;
+    Dickens's opinion of the Corporation of, i. 389; ii. 411;
+    facetious advice to country visitors to, i. 252
+
+  Longfellow, W. H., ii. 306, 308, 312, 326, 333, 361, 375
+
+  Longman, Thomas, letters to, i. 73; ii. 106
+
+  Longman, William, letter to, i. 24
+
+  Lovejoy, G., i. 44
+
+  Lowell, Miss Mabel, ii. 405, 415
+
+  Lyceum Theatre under Fechter, ii. 187, 191, 245;
+    and see Fechter
+
+  Lyndhurst, Lord, i. 147; ii. 144
+
+  Lynn, Miss, i. 378
+
+  Lyttelton, Hon. Spencer, i. 239, 245
+
+  Lytton, the first Lord, i. 214, 239; ii. 108, 135, 143, 247, 268;
+    letter to, ii. 116
+
+  Lytton, Lord, ii. 108
+
+
+  Maclise, Daniel, i. 18, 23, 80, 177, 370; ii. 432;
+    letters to, i. 33, 105
+
+  Macready, W. C., i. 94, 133, 239, 413; ii. 169, 172, 173;
+    and see Letters
+
+  Macready, Benvenuta, i. 431; ii. 194
+
+  Macready, Kate, i. 415; ii. 193
+
+  Macready, Mrs., ii. 172, 288
+
+  Macready, Jonathan, ii. 376
+
+  Macready, Nina, i. 195
+
+  Macready, W., ii. 425
+
+  Major, Mrs., letter to, ii. 196
+
+  Makeham, J. M., ii. 432;
+    Dickens's last letter written to, ii. 444
+
+  Malleson, Mr. and Mrs., ii. 315
+
+  Marsh, Dickens's coachman, a story of, ii. 181
+
+  Marston, Dr. Westland, ii. 42, 44, 45;
+    letter to, ii. 43
+
+  Martineau, i. 61, 229
+
+  "Martin Chuzzlewit," i. 53;
+    dramatised, i. 95, 105;
+    a story of Mrs. Harris, ii. 41
+
+  "Master Humphrey's Clock," i. 28;
+    the plan of, described, i. 29;
+    letters concerning illustrations for, i. 29-31, 33-36, 38-40,
+        45-47, 50-51
+
+  "Mémoires du Diable, Les," i. 444
+
+  Mesmerism, a séance of, ii. 100
+
+  Missionaries, Dickens on, i. 227; ii. 241
+
+  Mitton, Thomas, see Letters
+
+  Molesworth, Lady, ii. 187, 189
+
+  Monuments, Dickens on, i. 287, 356
+
+  Moore, Tom, i. 163
+
+  Morgan, Captain, ii. 136, 143
+
+  Morgan, W., ii. 308, 336
+
+  Morley, Mr., i. 399
+
+  Morpeth, Viscount, letters to, i. 92, 146;
+    and see Carlisle, The Earl of
+
+  Motley, Mr., ii. 142
+
+  Mountain, a hazardous ascent of a, ii. 29
+
+  Mulgrave, Earl of, i. 57
+
+
+  Narrative, i. 1, 4, 6, 17, 28, 36, 53, 57, 85, 94, 134, 147, 169,
+      185, 204, 213, 239, 271, 296, 341, 376, 413; ii. 3, 39, 83,
+      107, 135, 169, 187, 208, 224, 244, 266, 325, 404, 431, 446
+
+  Nathan, Messrs. H. and L., i. 232, 233, 235
+
+  Neville, Mr., ii. 186
+
+  Newsvendors' Benevolent Institution, ii. 232
+
+  New Testament, Dickens's love for the, ii. 394, 403;
+    Dickens writes a history of the, for his children, ii. 433
+
+  "Nicholas Nickleby," publication of, i. 6;
+    rewards and punishments of characters in, i. 14;
+    Dickens at work on, i. 16;
+    dedication of, i, 26;
+    the Kenwigs in, i, 25;
+    and see ii. 200
+
+  Nicknames, Dickens's, of George Cattermole, i. 42, 143;
+    of his children, i. 76, 126, 170, 322, 338, 453;
+    nautical, i. 152;
+    of himself, i. 198, 206, 307, 362;
+    of Frank Stone, i. 214, 305
+
+  Norton, C. E., ii. 326
+
+  Noviomagians, the, i. 272
+
+
+  "Old Curiosity Shop, The," Dickens engaged on, i. 28;
+    scenes in, described by Dickens for illustration, i. 21, 33-37, 42;
+    Dickens heartbroken over the story, i. 36, 37, 42
+
+  "Oliver Twist," publication of, i. 4;
+    Dickens at work on, i. 11;
+    the reading of "The Murder" from, ii. 326, 395, 397, 399
+
+  Ollier, Edmund, ii. 209, 407;
+    letters to, ii. 213, 425
+
+  Olliffe, Lady, ii. 187, 190
+
+  Olliffe, Sir J., ii. 417
+
+  Olliffe, the Misses, ii. 190
+
+  Organs, street, i. 104
+
+  Osgood, Mr., ii. 310, 336, 337, 340, 346, 352, 356, 366
+
+  "Our Mutual Friend," ii. 208, 210, 224;
+    and as to illustrations for, see ii. 211, 237
+
+  Ouvry, Frederic, ii. 188, 300;
+    letters to, ii. 205, 427
+
+  Overs, i. 37, 49
+
+  Owen, Professor, ii. 235
+
+
+  Panizzi, Antonio, ii. 84;
+    letters to, ii. 89, 90, 92
+
+  Pardoe, Miss, letter to, i. 73
+
+  Paris, Dickens at, i. 130, 131, 147, 157-161, 169, 174, 239, 376,
+        378, 385-387, 413, 406-425, 430, 431; ii. 171, 187;
+    house-hunting in, i. 158;
+    description of Dickens's house in, i. 159;
+    state of, in 1846, i. 160, 161;
+    feeling of people of, for Dickens, i. 411;
+    Dickens's reading at, ii. 187-190, 192
+
+  Parkinson, J. C., ii. 327;
+    letter to, ii. 401
+
+  Parrots, human, i. 87, 121
+
+  "Patrician's Daughter, The," prologue to, written by Dickens,
+      i. 55, 77
+
+  Patronage, the curse of England, ii. 213, 356
+
+  Paxton, Sir Joseph, i. 446
+
+  Phelps, J., i. 366
+
+  "Pickwick," origin and publication of, i. 1, 3;
+    first mention of Jingle, i. 3;
+    conclusion of, celebrated, i. 5;
+    the design of the Shepherd in, explained, i. 85, 89
+
+  Picnic, a, of the elements, i, 116;
+    with Eton boys, i. 255, 258
+
+  "Picnic Papers," Dickens's share of the, ii. 91
+
+  Plessy, Madame, i. 412; ii. 440
+
+  Pollock, Sir F., ii. 97, 144, 209;
+    letter to, ii. 10, 214
+
+  Pollock, Mrs. F., letter to, ii. 440
+
+  Poole, John, i. 298, 317; ii. 228;
+    letter to, i. 236
+
+  "Poor Travellers, The," i. 378;
+    sale of, i. 379
+
+  Portraits of Dickens, by Maclise, i. 18, 23;
+    by Frith, ii. 84, 93;
+    by Ary Scheffer, i. 414, 434;
+    by John Watkins, ii. 148;
+    a caricature, ii. 146
+
+  Postman, an Albaro, i. 112, 117
+
+  Power, Miss, i. 442; ii. 82, 293, 300;
+    and see Letters
+
+  Power, Nelly, i. 443
+
+  Power, Mrs., letter to, ii. 300
+
+  Presence of mind of Dickens, ii. 161, 224, 230
+
+  Press, the, freedom of, i. 49;
+    in America, i. 97;
+    taxation of the, i. 274
+
+  Procter, Adelaide, i. 341; ii. 238;
+    letter to, i. 374
+
+  Procter, B. W., i. 341; ii. 83, 91;
+    and see Letters
+
+  Procter, Mrs., letter to, ii. 226, 238
+
+  Publishing system, how to improve the, i. 86
+
+  Purse, the power of the, i. 88
+
+  Putnam, Mr., ii. 312
+
+
+  Queen, the, Dickens's theatrical performance before, i. 239;
+    his feeling for, ii. 168;
+    his interview with, ii. 432
+
+
+  Rae, Dr., i. 373
+
+  Railways, ii. 242
+
+  Reade, Charles, ii. 188;
+    letter to, ii. 206
+
+  Reader, Charles Dickens as a, ii. 437
+
+  Readings, Dickens's public, for charities, i. 297, 341, 377; ii. 4,
+        169, 170;
+    first reading for his own benefit, ii. 39;
+    at Paris, ii. 187, 189, 192;
+    in America, ii. 267;
+    farewell series of readings in England, ii. 326, 404, 405;
+    trial reading of "The Murder" from "Oliver Twist," ii. 326;
+    reading to the actors, ii. 407, 418;
+    farewell reading, ii. 431;
+    effects of "The Murder" reading on Dickens, ii. 434;
+    books of the, ii. 438;
+    letters concerning the readings in England, Scotland, and Ireland,
+        i. 344, 348, 369, 371, 379, 382, 388, 413, 424; ii. 20, 49,
+        51-67, 70-80, 87, 103, 145, 147, 151-168, 174, 178, 197, 200,
+        251-258, 272-286;
+    letters concerning American, ii. 83, 85, 290, 294, 298, 299,
+        306-382;
+    letters concerning the farewell series of, ii. 391, 392, 395-400,
+        412-421
+
+  Reform, Dickens speaks on Administrative, i. 377, 399;
+    association for, i. 399;
+    Dickens on Parliamentary, ii. 87, 269
+
+  Refreshment rooms, i. 424
+
+  Regnier, M., i. 298;
+    and see Letters
+
+  Reynolds, Dr. Russell, ii. 448
+
+  Richardson, Samuel, Dickens's opinion of, i. 175
+
+  "Rivals, The," a scene from, rewritten, i. 345
+
+  Roberts, David, i. 214; ii. 75;
+    letters to, i. 215, 246, 248, 389
+
+  "Robinson Crusoe," Dickens on, i. 443
+
+  Robson, F., i. 451
+
+  Roche, Dickens's courier, i. 95, 122-126, 139
+
+  Rochester Cathedral, proposed burial of Dickens in, ii. 448
+
+  Royal Academy, female students at the, ii. 121;
+    Dickens's last public appearance, at the dinner of the, ii. 431
+
+  Russel, Alexander, ii. 389, 390, 398, 406
+
+  Russell, Lord John, i. 272; ii. 85;
+    and see Letters
+
+  Russell, W. H., ii. 4
+
+  Ryland, Arthur, ii. 4, 430;
+    and see Letters
+
+
+  Sainton-Dolby, Madame, ii. 295, 391
+
+  Sanatorium for art-students, i. 102
+
+  Sand, Georges, i. 420
+
+  Sandys, William, letter to, i. 178
+
+  Saunders, John, i. 341;
+    letter to, i. 366
+
+  Savage, i. 271
+
+  Saville, Miss, ii. 186
+
+  Scheffer, Ary, i. 414, 434; ii. 149
+
+  Schoolmistress, a Yorkshire, i. 8
+
+  Scott, Sir Walter, i. 22, 254
+
+  Scott, Dickens's dresser, ii. 272, 305, 306, 317, 321, 342, 370, 416
+
+  Scribe, Eugène, i. 430, 432
+
+  Sculthorpe, W. R., letter to, ii. 104
+
+  Seaside, the, in wet weather, i. 90
+
+  Sea voyage, a, i. 322
+
+  Shaftesbury, Lord, ii. 242
+
+  Shakespeare, Dickens in room of, i. 13;
+    Dickens's criticisms of Charles Knight's biography of, i. 152;
+    and see i. 178
+
+  Shea, Mr. Justice, ii. 247
+
+  Shower-bath, a perpetual, i. 207
+
+  "Sketches," publication of the, i. 1
+
+  Smith, Arthur, ii. 4, 39, 52, 53, 56-60, 64-67, 71, 72, 78, 80,
+      104, 109, 135, 145, 149-153;
+    letters to, ii. 85, 147
+
+  Smith, H. P., letters to, i. 74, 179, 181
+
+  Smith, Sydney, i. 24
+
+  Smollett, Dickens on the works of, i. 356
+
+  Snevellicci, Miss, in real life, i. 13
+
+  Snore, a mighty, i. 158
+
+  Songs by Dickens: on Mark Lemon, i. 207;
+    of "The Wreck" in "The Lighthouse," i. 461
+
+  Speaking, Dickens on public, ii. 426, 428;
+    advice to his son Henry on public, ii. 435
+
+  Spencer, Lord, i. 242
+
+  Spider, a fearful, i. 180
+
+  Spiritualism, Dickens on, i. 350, 397
+
+  Stage-coach, American story of a, ii. 292
+
+  Stage suggestions, i. 79;
+    a stage mob, i. 174;
+    a piece of stage business, i. 156
+
+  Stanfield, Clarkson, i. 370, 377, 429, 435, 454; ii. 75, 194, 267;
+    and see Letters
+
+  Stanfield, George, letter to, ii. 289
+
+  Stanley, Dean, ii. 448, 449
+
+  Stanley, Lady Augusta, ii. 449
+
+  Staplehurst, Dickens in the railway accident at, ii. 224;
+    description of the accident, ii. 229-233;
+    effects of the accident on Dickens, ii. 388
+
+  Staunton, Mr. Secretary, ii. 351
+
+  Steele, Sir Richard, Dickens on Forster's essay on, i. 393
+
+  Steele, Mr., ii. 447, 448
+
+  Stone, Arthur, i. 436
+
+  Stone, Ellen, ii. 81
+
+  Stone, Frank, i. 134, 143, 225, 240; ii. 84;
+    and see Letters
+
+  Stone, Marcus, i. 299; ii. 84, 106, 208;
+    letters to, i. 340; ii. 211, 236
+
+  Storrar, Mrs., ii. 209;
+    letter to, ii. 216
+
+  "Strange Gentleman, The," farce written by Dickens and produced, i. 4;
+    price of, i. 5;
+    sent to Macready, i. 16
+
+  Strikes, Dickens on, i. 416
+
+  Sumner, Charles, ii. 351, 355
+
+  _Sun, The_, newspaper, ii. 225;
+    letter to editor of, i. 187
+
+  Switzerland, the Simplon Pass in, i. 127;
+    pleasant recollections of, i. 197, 218;
+    Dickens at Lausanne in, i. 147;
+    a revolution in, i. 155, 175;
+    friends in, i. 157;
+    Dickens's love for, i. 158;
+    letters concerning Lausanne in, i. 147, 154, 160, 172, 179
+
+  Sympathy, letters of, i. 193, 265, 282, 283, 394; ii. 94, 97,
+      123, 154, 180, 289, 293
+
+
+  Tagart, Edward, letters to, i. 111, 173
+
+  "Tale of Two Cities, A," ii. 83, 84, 158;
+    letters concerning, ii. 98, 102, 105, 106, 116
+
+  Talfourd, Miss Mary, letter to, i. 51
+
+  Talfourd, Mr. Justice, i. 7;
+    letter to, i. 10
+
+  Taüchnitz, Baron, i. 188, 195
+
+  Tavistock House, purchase of, i. 240;
+    sale of, ii. 107;
+    letters concerning, i. 259, 261-266
+
+  Taxation, Dickens on, i. 218;
+    of newspapers, i. 273
+
+  Taylor, Bayard, ii. 405
+
+  Telegraph, the dramatic side of the, i. 417
+
+  Tennent, Sir James Emerson, i. 298; ii. 209, 224;
+    letters to, i. 329; ii. 218, 259
+
+  Tenniel, John, i. 241
+
+  Tennyson, Alfred, Dickens's admiration for, ii. 98
+
+  Terry, Miss Kate, ii. 193
+
+  Thackeray, W. M., ii. 4, 39, 137, 208, 210, 214;
+    letter to, ii. 41
+
+  Thames, drainage of the, ii. 50;
+    embankment of the, ii. 410
+
+  Theatre, Dickens at the, i. 13;
+    Phiz's laughter at the, i. 13;
+    the saloon at Drury Lane, i. 37, 52;
+    scents of a, i. 96;
+    story of a, i. 144;
+    proposal for a national, i. 199;
+    Dickens on the, ii. 271, 438
+
+  Theatrical Fund, the, ii. 35
+
+  Theatrical performances of Charles Dickens:
+    at Montreal, i. 72;
+    at Miss Kelly's Theatre, i. 134;
+    "Fortunio" at Tavistock House, i. 376, 381;
+    "The Lighthouse," i. 377, 394-397;
+    "The Frozen Deep," i. 414;
+    for the Jerrold Memorial Fund, ii. 19, 23;
+    before the Queen, i. 239;
+    and see i. 170, 185, 239, 241, 271, 376, 377, 414; ii. 3;
+    letters concerning the, i. 141, 143, 144, 146, 181, 192, 196,
+        224-228, 231, 232, 234, 244, 268, 398, 433, 453, 454, 457,
+        459, 460; ii. 6, 11, 198
+
+  Thornbury, Walter, ii. 170, 292;
+    letters to, ii. 178, 262, 286
+
+  Tomlin, John, letter to, i. 40
+
+  Toole, J. L., ii. 54, 268;
+    letter to, ii. 300
+
+  Topham, F. W., i. 241, 269
+
+  Townshend, Chauncey Hare, ii. 7, 86, 96, 115, 136, 140, 371, 410
+
+  Trollope, Mrs., letters to, i. 80, 397
+
+
+  "Uncle Tom's Cabin," Dickens on, i. 289
+
+  "Uncommercial Traveller, The," ii. 107
+
+
+  Viardot, Madame, ii. 193;
+    letter to, i. 412
+
+  "Village Coquettes, The," operetta written by Dickens, i. 5;
+    and see i. 93
+
+  Volunteers, Dickens on the, ii. 115
+
+
+  Waistcoat, a wonderful, i. 102;
+    the loan by Dickens of Macready's, i. 146
+
+  Wales, the Prince of, popularity of, ii. 203;
+    Dickens attends levée of, ii. 432
+
+  Wales, the Princess of, her arrival in England, ii. 195;
+    the illuminations in honour of, ii. 198;
+    popularity of, ii. 203
+
+  War, Dickens on the Russian, i. 379
+
+  Ward, E. M., i. 341;
+    letter to, ii. 141
+
+  Ward, Mrs., letter to, ii. 441
+
+  Watkins, John, i. 415;
+    letters to, i. 287; ii. 148
+
+  Watson, Hon. R., i. 147, 280;
+    letter to, i. 159
+
+  Watson, Hon. Mrs., i. 147; ii. 9, 70;
+    and see Letters
+
+  Watson, Sir Thomas, ii. 405, 407
+
+  Watson, Wentworth, ii. 79
+
+  Watts's refuge for poor travellers, ii. 259
+
+  Webster, Benjamin, i. 85, 90, 434; ii. 361
+
+  Webster, a story of the murderer, ii. 333
+
+  Welcome home, a, i. 117
+
+  Westminster Abbey, burial of Dickens in, ii. 448
+
+  Whewell, Dr., i. 372
+
+  White, Clara, ii. 142, 181, 208
+
+  White, Rev. James, i. 149, 413; ii. 209;
+    and see Letters
+
+  White, Mrs., ii. 212;
+    letter to, ii. 94
+
+  White, Miss, ii. 81, 84, 96;
+    letter to, ii. 92
+
+  White, Richard Grant, ii. 85
+
+  Wigan, Alfred, i. 429
+
+  Williams, Mr. and Mrs. Barney, ii. 337, 359
+
+  Wills, W. H., i. 148, 241, 375; ii. 83, 379, 383, 406, 430;
+    and see Letters
+
+  Wills, Mrs., ii. 75, 96, 120
+
+  Wilson, Effingham, letter to, i. 199
+
+  Working men, clubs for, ii. 209, 213;
+    Dickens on the management of such clubs, ii. 356;
+    feeling of, for Dickens, ii. 420
+
+
+  Yates, Edmund, i. 414, 426; ii. 5, 129;
+    and see Letters
+
+  Yates, Mrs., ii. 129;
+    letter to, ii. 48
+
+
+THE END.
+
+CHARLES DICKENS AND EVANS, CRYSTAL PALACE
+PRESS.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Transcriber's Notes:
+
+Page 142, "Leotard" changed to "Léotard" twice (Palace and Léotard) and
+(into seeing Léotard)
+
+Page 181, "shefound" changed to "she found" (she found Marsh)
+
+Page 432, "levee" changed to "levée" (a levée held)
+
+Page 453, "Celeste" changed to "Céleste" (Céleste, Madame)
+
+Page 454-455, entries for "Dickens, Mamie" and "Dickens, Kate" were
+originally not in alphabetically order. This was corrected.
+
+Page 456, "Fitzgreene" changed to "Fitz-Greene" (Halleck, Fitz-Greene)
+
+Page 458, "Fitzgreene" changed to "Fitz-Greene" (Halleck, Fitz-Greene)
+
+Page 460, "Lyttleton" changed to "Lyttelton" (Lyttleton, Hon. Spencer)
+
+Page 462, "Shee" changed to "Shea" (Shea, Mr. Justice)
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's The Letters of Charles Dickens, by Charles Dickens
+
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+<pre>
+
+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. 2 (of 3), 1857-1870
+
+Author: Charles Dickens
+
+Editor: Mamie Dickens
+        Georgina Hogarth
+
+Release Date: June 20, 2008 [EBook #25853]
+
+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_i" id="Page_i">[i]</a></span></p>
+
+
+<h1>THE LETTERS</h1>
+
+<h3>OF</h3>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px;">
+<img src="images/7title_sig.png" width="400" height="172" alt="Signature: Charles Dickens" title="Signature: Charles Dickens" />
+</div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_iii" id="Page_iii">[iii]</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. II.<br />
+
+1857 <span class="smcap">to</span> 1870.<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_iv" id="Page_iv">[iv]</a></span><br />
+</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_v" id="Page_v">[v]</a></span>
+</p>
+
+<h2>ERRATA.</h2>
+
+<h3>VOL. II.</h3>
+
+
+
+
+<div class='center'>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="Errata">
+<tr><td align='left'>Page</td><td align='right'>&nbsp;84,</td><td align='left'>&nbsp;line</td><td align='left'>&nbsp;35.</td><td align='left'>&nbsp;For "South Kensington Museum," <i>read</i> "the South Kensington Museum."</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='center'>"</td><td align='right'>108,</td><td align='left'>&nbsp;line</td><td align='left'>&nbsp;26.</td><td align='left'>&nbsp;For "frequent contributor," <i>read</i> "a frequent contributor."</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='center'>"</td><td align='right'>113,</td><td align='left'>&nbsp;lines</td><td align='left'>&nbsp;6, 7.</td><td align='left'>&nbsp;For "great remonstrance," <i>read</i> "Great Remonstrance."</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='center'>"</td><td align='right'>130,</td><td align='left'>&nbsp;line</td><td align='left'>&nbsp;10.</td><td align='left'>&nbsp;For "after," <i>read</i> "afore."</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='center'>"</td><td align='right'>160,</td><td align='center'>"</td><td align='left'>&nbsp;32.</td><td align='left'>&nbsp;For "a head," <i>read</i> "ahead."</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='center'>"</td><td align='right'>247,</td><td align='center'>"</td><td align='left'>&nbsp;12.</td><td align='left'>&nbsp;For "Shea," <i>read</i> "Shoe."</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='center'>"</td><td align='right'>292,</td><td align='center'>"</td><td align='left'>&nbsp;12.</td><td align='left'>&nbsp;For "Mabel's progress," <i>read</i> "Mabel's Progress."</td></tr>
+</table></div>
+
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_1" id="Page_1">[1]</a></span><br /><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3">[3]</a></span></p>
+<h2>Book II.&mdash;<i>Continued.</i></h2>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>THE<br />
+
+LETTERS OF CHARLES DICKENS.</h2>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>1857.</h2>
+
+<h3>NARRATIVE.</h3>
+
+
+<div class='unindent'><span class='smcap'>This</span> was a very full year in many ways. In February, Charles
+Dickens obtained possession of Gad's Hill, and was able to
+turn workmen into it. In April he stayed, with his wife and
+sister-in-law, for a week or two at Wate's Hotel, Gravesend,
+to be at hand to superintend the beginning of his alterations
+of the house, and from thence we give a letter to Lord
+Carlisle. He removed his family, for a summer residence in
+the house, in June; and he finished "Little Dorrit" there
+early in the summer. One of his first visitors at Gad's Hill
+was the famous writer, Hans Christian Andersen. In January
+"The Frozen Deep" had been played at the Tavistock House
+theatre with such great success, that it was necessary to
+repeat it several times, and the theatre was finally demolished
+at the end of that month. In June Charles Dickens heard,
+with great grief, of the death of his dear friend Douglas
+Jerrold; and as a testimony of admiration for his genius
+and affectionate regard for himself, it was decided to
+organise, under the management of Charles Dickens, a
+series of entertainments, "in memory of the late Douglas
+Jerrold," the fund produced by them (a considerable<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4">[4]</a></span>
+sum) to be presented to Mr. Jerrold's family. The amateur
+company, including many of Mr. Jerrold's colleagues on
+"Punch," gave subscription performances of "The Frozen
+Deep;" the Gallery of Illustration, in Regent Street, being
+engaged for the purpose. Charles Dickens gave two readings
+at St. Martin's Hall of "The Christmas Carol" (to such
+immense audiences and with such success, that the idea of
+giving public readings for his <i>own</i> benefit first occurred to
+him at this time). The professional actors, among them
+the famous veteran actor, Mr. T. P. Cooke, gave a performance
+of Mr. Jerrold's plays of "The Rent Day" and "Black-eyed
+Susan," in which Mr. T. P. Cooke sustained the
+character in which he had originally made such great success
+when the play was written. A lecture was given by Mr.
+Thackeray, and another by Mr. W. H. Russell. Finally,
+the Queen having expressed a desire to see the play, which
+had been much talked of during that season, there was
+another performance before her Majesty and the Prince
+Consort at the Gallery of Illustration in July, and at the
+end of that month Charles Dickens read his "Carol" in the
+Free Trade Hall, at Manchester. And to wind up the
+"Memorial Fund" entertainments, "The Frozen Deep"
+was played again at Manchester, also in the great Free
+Trade Hall, at the end of August. For the business of
+these entertainments he secured the assistance of Mr. Arthur
+Smith, of whom he writes to Mr. Forster, at this time: "I
+have got hold of Arthur Smith, as the best man of business
+I know, and go to work with him to-morrow morning."
+And when he began his own public readings, both in town
+and country, he felt himself most fortunate in having the
+co-operation of this invaluable man of business, and also of
+his zealous friendship and pleasant companionship.</div>
+
+<p>In July, his second son, Walter Landor, went to India
+as a cadet in the "Company's service," from which he was
+afterwards transferred to the 42nd Royal Highlanders. His
+father and his elder brother went to see him off, to Southampton.
+From this place Charles Dickens writes to Mr.
+Edmund Yates, a young man in whom he had been interested<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[5]</a></span>
+from his boyhood, both for the sake of his parents
+and for his own sake, and for whom he had always an
+affectionate regard.</p>
+
+<p>In September he made a short tour in the North of
+England, with Mr. Wilkie Collins, out of which arose the
+"Lazy Tour of Two Idle Apprentices," written by them
+jointly, and published in "Household Words." Some
+letters to his sister-in-law during this expedition are given
+here, parts of which (as is the case with many letters to his
+eldest daughter and his sister-in-law) have been published
+in Mr. Forster's book.</p>
+
+<p>The letters which follow are almost all on the various
+subjects mentioned in our notes, and need little explanation.</p>
+
+<p>His letter to Mr. Procter makes allusion to a legacy lately
+left to that friend.</p>
+
+<p>The letters to Mr. Dilke, the original and much-respected
+editor of "The Athen&aelig;um," and to Mr. Forster, on the subject
+of the "Literary Fund," refer, as the letters indicate,
+to a battle which they were carrying on together with that
+institution.</p>
+
+<p>A letter to Mr. Frank Stone is an instance of his kind,
+patient, and judicious criticism of a young writer, and the
+letter which follows it shows how thoroughly it was understood
+and how perfectly appreciated by the authoress of
+the "Notes" referred to. Another instance of the same
+kind criticism is given in a second letter this year to
+Mr. Edmund Yates.</p>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mr. B. W.
+Procter.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Tavistock House</span>, <i>January 2nd, 1857.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='unindent'><span class='smcap'>My dear Procter</span>,</div>
+
+<p>I have to thank you for a delightful book, which has
+given me unusual pleasure. My delight in it has been a
+little dashed by certain farewell verses, but I have made up
+my mind (and you have no idea of the obstinacy of my
+character) not to believe them.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[6]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Perhaps it is not taking a liberty&mdash;perhaps it is&mdash;to
+congratulate you on Kenyon's remembrance. Either way I
+can't help doing it with all my heart, for I know no man
+in the world (myself excepted) to whom I would rather the
+money went.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Affectionately yours ever.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Sir James
+Emerson
+Tennent.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Tavistock House</span>, <i>January 9th, 1857.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='unindent'><span class='smcap'>My dear Tennent</span>,</div>
+
+<p>I must thank you for your earnest and affectionate
+letter. It has given me the greatest pleasure, mixing the
+play in my mind confusedly and delightfully with Pisa, the
+Valetta, Naples, Herculan&aelig;um&mdash;God knows what not.</p>
+
+<p>As to the play itself; when it is made as good as my
+care can make it, I derive a strange feeling out of it, like
+writing a book in company; a satisfaction of a most
+singular kind, which has no exact parallel in my life; a
+something that I suppose to belong to the life of a labourer
+in art alone, and which has to me a conviction of its being
+actual truth without its pain, that I never could adequately
+state if I were to try never so hard.</p>
+
+<p>You touch so kindly and feelingly on the pleasure such
+little pains give, that I feel quite sorry you have never seen
+this drama in progress during the last ten weeks here.
+Every Monday and Friday evening during that time we
+have been at work upon it. I assure you it has been a
+remarkable lesson to my young people in patience, perseverance,
+punctuality, and order; and, best of all, in that
+kind of humility which is got from the earned knowledge
+that whatever the right hand finds to do must be done with
+the heart in it, and in a desperate earnest.</p>
+
+<p>When I changed my dress last night (though I did it
+very quickly), I was vexed to find you gone. I wanted<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[7]</a></span>
+to have secured you for our green-room supper, which was
+very pleasant. If by any accident you should be free next
+Wednesday night (our last), pray come to that green-room
+supper. It would give me cordial pleasure to have you
+there.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Ever, my dear Tennent, very heartily yours.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">M. de
+Cerjat.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Tavistock House</span>, <i>Monday Night, Jan. 17th, 1857.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='unindent'><span class='smcap'>My dear Cerjat</span>,</div>
+
+<p>So wonderfully do good (epistolary) intentions become
+confounded with bad execution, that I assure you I laboured
+under a perfect and most comfortable conviction that I had
+answered your Christmas Eve letter of 1855. More than
+that, in spite of your assertions to the contrary, I still
+strenuously believe that I did so! I have more than half a
+mind ("Little Dorrit" and my other occupations notwithstanding)
+to charge you with having forgotten my reply!!
+I have even a wild idea that Townshend reproached me,
+when the last old year was new, with writing to you instead
+of to him!!! We will argue it out, as well as we can argue
+anything without poor dear Haldimand, when I come back
+to Elys&eacute;e. In any case, however, don't discontinue your
+annual letter, because it has become an expected and a
+delightful part of the season to me.</p>
+
+<p>With one of the prettiest houses in London, and every
+conceivable (and inconceivable) luxury in it, Townshend is
+voluntarily undergoing his own sentence of transportation in
+Nervi, a beastly little place near Genoa, where you would as
+soon find a herd of wild elephants in any villa as comfort.
+He has a notion that he <i>must</i> be out of England in the
+winter, but I believe him to be altogether wrong (as I have
+just told him in a letter), unless he could just take his
+society with him.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[8]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Workmen are now battering and smashing down my
+theatre here, where we have just been acting a new play of
+great merit, done in what I may call (modestly speaking of
+the getting-up, and not of the acting) an unprecedented
+way. I believe that anything so complete has never been
+seen. We had an act at the North Pole, where the slightest
+and greatest thing the eye beheld were equally taken from
+the books of the Polar voyagers. Out of thirty people,
+there were certainly not two who might not have gone
+straight to the North Pole itself, completely furnished for
+the winter! It has been the talk of all London for these
+three weeks. And now it is a mere chaos of scaffolding,
+ladders, beams, canvases, paint-pots, sawdust, artificial
+snow, gas-pipes, and ghastliness. I have taken such pains
+with it for these ten weeks in all my leisure hours, that I
+feel now shipwrecked&mdash;as if I had never been without a
+play on my hands before. A third topic comes up as this
+ceases.</p>
+
+<p>Down at Gad's Hill, near Rochester, in Kent&mdash;Shakespeare's
+Gad's Hill, where Falstaff engaged in the robbery&mdash;is
+a quaint little country-house of Queen Anne's time. I
+happened to be walking past, a year and a half or so ago,
+with my sub-editor of "Household Words," when I said to
+him: "You see that house? It has always a curious
+interest for me, because when I was a small boy down in
+these parts I thought it the most beautiful house (I suppose
+because of its famous old cedar-trees) ever seen. And my
+poor father used to bring me to look at it, and used to say
+that if I ever grew up to be a clever man perhaps I might
+own that house, or such another house. In remembrance
+of which, I have always in passing looked to see if it was
+to be sold or let, and it has never been to me like any other
+house, and it has never changed at all." We came back to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[9]</a></span>
+town, and my friend went out to dinner. Next morning he
+came to me in great excitement, and said: "It is written
+that you were to have that house at Gad's Hill. The lady
+I had allotted to me to take down to dinner yesterday
+began to speak of that neighbourhood. 'You know it?' I
+said; 'I have been there to-day.' 'O yes,' said she, 'I
+know it very well. I was a child there, in the house they
+call Gad's Hill Place. My father was the rector, and lived
+there many years. He has just died, has left it to me, and
+I want to sell it.' 'So,' says the sub-editor, 'you must buy
+it. Now or never!'" I did, and hope to pass next summer
+there, though I may, perhaps, let it afterwards, furnished,
+from time to time.</p>
+
+<p>All about myself I find, and the little sheet nearly full!
+But I know, my dear Cerjat, the subject will have its
+interest for you, so I give it its swing. Mrs. Watson was
+to have been at the play, but most unfortunately had three
+children sick of gastric fever, and could not leave them.
+She was here some three weeks before, looking extremely
+well in the face, but rather thin. I have not heard of your
+friend Mr. Percival Skelton, but I much misdoubt an
+amateur artist's success in this vast place. I hope you
+detected a remembrance of our happy visit to the Great
+St. Bernard in a certain number of "Little Dorrit"? Tell
+Mrs. Cerjat, with my love, that the opinions I have
+expressed to her on the subject of cows have become
+matured in my mind by experience and venerable age; and
+that I denounce the race as humbugs, who have been
+getting into poetry and all sorts of places without the
+smallest reason. Haldimand's housekeeper is an awful
+woman to consider. Pray give him our kindest regards
+and remembrances, if you ever find him in a mood to
+take it. "Our" means Mrs. Dickens's, Georgie's, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[10]</a></span>
+mine. We often, often talk of our old days at Lausanne,
+and send loving regard to Mrs. Cerjat and all your house.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Adieu, my dear fellow; ever cordially yours.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mr. W. C.
+Macready.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Tavistock House</span>, <i>January 28th, 1857.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='unindent'><span class='smcap'>My dearest Macready</span>,</div>
+
+<p>Your friend and servant is as calm as Pecksniff,
+saving for his knitted brows now turning into cordage over
+Little Dorrit. The theatre has disappeared, the house is
+restored to its usual conditions of order, the family are
+tranquil and domestic, dove-eyed peace is enthroned in this
+study, fire-eyed radicalism in its master's breast.</p>
+
+<p>I am glad to hear that our poetess is at work again,
+and shall be very much pleased to have some more contributions
+from her.</p>
+
+<p>Love from all to your dear sister, and to Katie, and to
+all the house.</p>
+
+<p>We dined yesterday at Frederick Pollock's. I begged
+an amazing photograph of you, and brought it away. It
+strikes me as one of the most ludicrous things I ever saw
+in my life. I think of taking a public-house, and having
+it copied larger, for the size. You may remember it? Very
+square and big&mdash;the Saracen's Head with its hair cut, and
+in modern gear? Staring very hard? As your particular
+friend, I would not part with it on any consideration. I
+will never get such a wooden head again.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Ever affectionately.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Miss Mary
+Boyle.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Tavistock House</span>, <i>February 7th, 1857.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='unindent'><span class='smcap'>My dear Mary</span>,</div>
+
+<p>Half-a-dozen words on this, my birthday, to thank
+you for your kind and welcome remembrance, and to assure
+you that your Joseph is proud of it.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[11]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>For about ten minutes after his death, on each occasion
+of that event occurring, Richard Wardour was in a floored
+condition. And one night, to the great terror of Devonshire,
+the Arctic Regions, and Newfoundland (all of which localities
+were afraid to speak to him, as his ghost sat by the kitchen
+fire in its rags), he very nearly did what he never did, went
+and fainted off, dead, again. But he always plucked up, on
+the turn of ten minutes, and became facetious.</p>
+
+<p>Likewise he chipped great pieces out of all his limbs
+(solely, as I imagine, from moral earnestness and concussion
+of passion, for I never know him to hit himself in any way)
+and terrified Aldersley<a name="FNanchor_1_1" id="FNanchor_1_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_1_1" class="fnanchor">[1]</a> to that degree, by lunging at him to
+carry him into the cave, that the said Aldersley always
+shook like a mould of jelly, and muttered, "By G&mdash;&mdash;, this
+is an awful thing!"</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Ever affectionately.<br />
+</div>
+
+<p>P.S.&mdash;I shall never cease to regret Mrs. Watson's not
+having been there.</p>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Rev.
+James
+White.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Tavistock House</span>, <i>Sunday, Feb. 8th, 1857.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='unindent'><span class='smcap'>My dear White</span>,</div>
+
+<p>I send these lines by Mary and Katey, to report my
+love to all.</p>
+
+<p>Your note about the <i>Golden Mary</i> gave me great pleasure;
+though I don't believe in one part of it; for I
+honestly believe that your story, as really belonging to the
+rest of the narrative, had been generally separated from
+the other stories, and greatly liked. I had not that particular
+shipwreck that you mention in my mind (indeed I
+doubt if I know it), and John Steadiman merely came into
+my head as a staunch sort of name that suited the character.
+The number has done "Household Words" great service,
+and has decidedly told upon its circulation.</p>
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[12]</a></span></p>
+<p>You should have come to the play. I much doubt if
+anything so complete will ever be seen again. An incredible
+amount of pains and ingenuity was expended on it, and the
+result was most remarkable even to me.</p>
+
+<p>When are you going to send something more to
+H. W.? Are you lazy?? Low-spirited??? Pining for
+Paris????</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Ever affectionately.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mr. C. W.
+Dilke.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Office of "Household Words,"</span> <i>Thursday, March 19th, 1857.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='unindent'><span class='smcap'>My dear Mr. Dilke</span>,</div>
+
+<p>Forster has another notion about the Literary Fund.
+Will you name a day next week&mdash;that day being neither
+Thursday nor Saturday&mdash;when we shall hold solemn council
+there at half-past four?</p>
+
+<p>For myself, I beg to report that I have my war-paint on,
+that I have buried the pipe of peace, and am whooping
+for committee scalps.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Ever faithfully yours.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">The Earl of
+Carlisle.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Gravesend, Kent</span>, <i>Wednesday, April 15th, 1857.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='unindent'><span class='smcap'>My dear Lord Carlisle</span>,</div>
+
+<p>I am writing by the river-side for a few days, and
+at the end of last week &mdash;&mdash; appeared here with your note
+of introduction. I was not in the way; but as &mdash;&mdash; had
+come express from London with it, Mrs. Dickens opened it,
+and gave her (in the limited sense which was of no use to
+her) an audience. She did not quite seem to know what
+she wanted of me. But she said she had understood at
+Stafford House that I had a theatre in which she could
+read; with a good deal of modesty and diffidence she at
+last got so far. Now, my little theatre turns my house
+out of window, costs fifty pounds to put up, and is only
+two months taken down; therefore, is quite out of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[13]</a></span>
+question. This Mrs. Dickens explained, and also my profound
+inability to do anything for &mdash;&mdash; readings which
+they could not do for themselves. She appeared fully to
+understand the explanation, and indeed to have anticipated
+for herself how powerless I must be in such a case.</p>
+
+<p>She described herself as being consumptive, and as
+being subject to an effusion of blood from the lungs; about
+the last condition, one would think, poor woman, for the
+exercise of public elocution as an art.</p>
+
+<p>Between ourselves, I think the whole idea a mistake,
+and have thought so from its first announcement. It has a
+fatal appearance of trading upon Uncle Tom, and am I not
+a man and a brother? which you may be by all means, and
+still not have the smallest claim to my attention as a public
+reader. The town is over-read from all the white squares
+on the draught-board; it has been considerably harried
+from all the black squares&mdash;now with the aid of old banjoes,
+and now with the aid of Exeter Hall; and I have a very
+strong impression that it is by no means to be laid hold of
+from this point of address. I myself, for example, am the
+meekest of men, and in abhorrence of slavery yield to no
+human creature, and yet I don't admit the sequence that I
+want Uncle Tom (or Aunt Tomasina) to expound "King
+Lear" to me. And I believe my case to be the case of
+thousands.</p>
+
+<p>I trouble you with this much about it, because I am
+naturally desirous you should understand that if I could
+possibly have been of any service, or have suggested
+anything to this poor lady, I would not have lost the
+opportunity. But I cannot help her, and I assure you
+that I cannot honestly encourage her to hope. I fear her
+enterprise has no hope in it.</p>
+
+<p>In your absence I have always followed you through the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[14]</a></span>
+papers, and felt a personal interest and pleasure in the
+public affection in which you are held over there.<a name="FNanchor_2_2" id="FNanchor_2_2"></a><a href="#Footnote_2_2" class="fnanchor">[2]</a> At the
+same time I must confess that I should prefer to have you
+here, where good public men seem to me to be dismally
+wanted. I have no sympathy with demagogues, but am a
+grievous Radical, and think the political signs of the times
+to be just about as bad as the spirit of the people will admit
+of their being. In all other respects I am as healthy, sound,
+and happy as your kindness can wish. So you will set
+down my political despondency as my only disease.</p>
+
+<p>On the tip-top of Gad's Hill, between this and Rochester,
+on the very spot where Falstaff ran away, I have a pretty
+little old-fashioned house, which I shall live in the hope of
+showing to you one day. Also I have a little story respecting
+the manner in which it became mine, which I hope (on
+the same occasion in the clouds) to tell you. Until then
+and always, I am, dear Lord Carlisle,</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Yours very faithfully and obliged.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mr. John
+Forster.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Tavistock House</span>, <i>May 13th, 1857.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='unindent'><span class='smcap'>My dear Forster</span>,</div>
+
+<p>I have gone over Dilke's memoranda, and I think it
+quite right and necessary that those points should be stated.
+Nor do I see the least difficulty in the way of their introduction
+into the pamphlet. But I do not deem it possible to get
+the pamphlet written and published before the dinner. I
+have so many matters pressing on my attention, that I cannot
+turn to it immediately on my release from my book just
+finished. It shall be done and distributed early next month.</p>
+
+<p>As to anything being lost by its not being in the hands
+of the people who dine (as you seem to think), I have not
+the least misgiving on that score. They would say, if it
+were issued, just what they will say without it.</p>
+
+<p>Lord Granville is committed to taking the chair, and will<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[15]</a></span>
+make the best speech he can in it. The pious &mdash;&mdash; will cram
+him with as many distortions of the truth as his stomach may
+be strong enough to receive. &mdash;&mdash;, with Bardolphian eloquence,
+will cool his nose in the modest merits of the institution.
+&mdash;&mdash; will make a neat and appropriate speech on both
+sides, round the corner and over the way. And all this would
+be done exactly to the same purpose and in just the same
+strain, if twenty thousand copies of the pamphlet had been
+circulated.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Ever affectionately.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Rev.
+James
+White.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Tavistock House</span>, <i>Friday, May 22nd, 1857.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='unindent'><span class='smcap'>My dear White</span>,</div>
+
+<p>My emancipation having been effected on Saturday,
+the ninth of this month, I take some shame to myself for
+not having sooner answered your note. But the host of
+things to be done as soon as I was free, and the tremendous
+number of ingenuities to be wrought out at Gad's Hill, have
+kept me in a whirl of their own ever since.</p>
+
+<p>We purpose going to Gad's Hill for the summer on the
+1st of June; as, apart from the master's eye being a
+necessary ornament to the spot, I clearly see that the workmen
+yet lingering in the yard must be squeezed out by
+bodily pressure, or they will never go. How will this suit
+you and yours? If you will come down, we can take you
+all in, on your way north; that is to say, we shall have that
+ample verge and room enough, until about the eighth;
+when Hans Christian Andersen (who has been "coming"
+for about three years) will come for a fortnight's stay in
+England. I shall like you to see the little old-fashioned
+place. It strikes me as being comfortable.</p>
+
+<p>So let me know your little game. And with love to
+Mrs. White, Lotty, and Clara,</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Believe me, ever affectionately yours.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[16]</a></span></p>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mr. Frank
+Stone,
+A.R.A.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Office of "Household Words,"</span> <i>Monday, June 1st, 1857.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='unindent'><span class='smcap'>My dear Stone</span>,</div>
+
+<p>I know that what I am going to say will not be
+agreeable; but I rely on the authoress's good sense; and
+say it, knowing it to be the truth.</p>
+
+<p>These "Notes" are destroyed by too much smartness.
+It gives the appearance of perpetual effort, stabs to the
+heart the nature that is in them, and wearies by the manner
+and not by the matter. It is the commonest fault in the
+world (as I have constant occasion to observe here), but it
+is a very great one. Just as you couldn't bear to have an
+&eacute;pergne or a candlestick on your table, supported by a
+light figure always on tiptoe and evidently in an impossible
+attitude for the sustainment of its weight, so all readers
+would be more or less oppressed and worried by this presentation
+of everything in one smart point of view, when
+they know it must have other, and weightier, and more
+solid properties. Airiness and good spirits are always delightful,
+and are inseparable from notes of a cheerful trip;
+but they should sympathise with many things as well as see
+them in a lively way. It is but a word or a touch that expresses
+this humanity, but without that little embellishment
+of good nature there is no such thing as humour. In this
+little MS. everything is too much patronised and condescended
+to, whereas the slightest touch of feeling for the
+rustic who is of the earth earthy, or of sisterhood with the
+homely servant who has made her face shine in her desire to
+please, would make a difference that the writer can scarcely
+imagine without trying it. The only relief in the twenty-one
+slips is the little bit about the chimes. It <i>is</i> a relief,
+simply because it is an indication of some kind of sentiment.
+You don't want any sentiment laboriously made out in such
+a thing. You don't want any maudlin show of it. But you<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[17]</a></span>
+do want a pervading suggestion that it is there. It makes
+all the difference between being playful and being cruel.
+Again I must say, above all things&mdash;especially to young
+people writing: For the love of God don't condescend!
+Don't assume the attitude of saying, "See how clever I am,
+and what fun everybody else is!" Take any shape but that.</p>
+
+<p>I observe an excellent quality of observation throughout,
+and think the boy at the shop, and all about him, particularly
+good. I have no doubt whatever that the rest of
+the journal will be much better if the writer chooses to
+make it so. If she considers for a moment within herself,
+she will know that she derived pleasure from everything
+she saw, because she saw it with innumerable lights and
+shades upon it, and bound to humanity by innumerable fine
+links; she cannot possibly communicate anything of that
+pleasure to another by showing it from one little limited
+point only, and that point, observe, the one from which it is
+impossible to detach the exponent as the patroness of a
+whole universe of inferior souls. This is what everybody
+would mean in objecting to these notes (supposing them to
+be published), that they are too smart and too flippant.</p>
+
+<p>As I understand this matter to be altogether between
+us three, and as I think your confidence, and hers, imposes
+a duty of friendship on me, I discharge it to the best of my
+ability. Perhaps I make more of it than you may have
+meant or expected; if so, it is because I am interested and
+wish to express it. If there had been anything in my
+objection not perfectly easy of removal, I might, after all,
+have hesitated to state it; but that is not the case. A very
+little indeed would make all this gaiety as sound and wholesome
+and good-natured in the reader's mind as it is in the
+writer's.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Affectionately always.<br />
+</div>
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[18]</a></span></p>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote"><small>Anonymous.</small></div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Gad's Hill Place, Higham</span>, <i>Thursday, June 4th, 1857.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='unindent'><span class="smcap">My dear &mdash;&mdash;</span></div>
+
+<p>Coming home here last night, from a day's business
+in London, I found your most excellent note awaiting me,
+in which I have had a pleasure to be derived from none but
+good and natural things. I can now honestly assure you
+that I believe you will write <i>well</i>, and that I have a lively
+hope that I may be the means of showing you yourself in
+print one day. Your powers of graceful and light-hearted
+observation need nothing but the little touches on which
+we are both agreed. And I am perfectly sure that they
+will be as pleasant to you as to anyone, for nobody can see
+so well as you do, without feeling kindly too.</p>
+
+<p>To confess the truth to you, I was half sorry, yesterday,
+that I had been so unreserved; but not half as sorry,
+yesterday, as I am glad to-day. You must not mind my
+adding that there is a noble candour and modesty in your
+note, which I shall never be able to separate from you
+henceforth.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Affectionately yours always.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mr. Henry
+Austin.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Gad's Hill</span>, <i>Saturday, June 6th, 1857.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='unindent'><span class='smcap'>My dear Henry</span>,</div>
+
+<p>Here is a very serious business on the great estate
+respecting the water supply. Last night, they had pumped
+the well dry merely in raising the family supply for the
+day; and this morning (very little water having been got
+into the cisterns) it is dry again! It is pretty clear to me
+that we must look the thing in the face, and at once bore
+deeper, dig, or do some beastly thing or other, to secure
+this necessary in abundance. Meanwhile I am in a most
+plaintive and forlorn condition without your presence and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[19]</a></span>
+counsel. I raise my voice in the wilderness and implore the
+same!!!</p>
+
+<p>Wild legends are in circulation among the servants
+how that Captain Goldsmith on the knoll above&mdash;the skipper
+in that crow's-nest of a house&mdash;has millions of gallons of
+water always flowing for him. Can he have damaged my
+well? Can we imitate him, and have our millions of
+gallons? Goldsmith or I must fall, so I conceive.</p>
+
+<p>If you get this, send me a telegraph message informing
+me when I may expect comfort. I am held by four of the
+family while I write this, in case I should do myself a
+mischief&mdash;it certainly won't be taking to drinking water.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Ever affectionately (most despairingly).<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mr. W. C.
+Macready.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Tavistock House</span>, <i>Monday, July 13th, 1857.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='unindent'><span class='smcap'>My dearest Macready</span>,</div>
+
+<p>Many thanks for your Indian information. I shall
+act upon it in the most exact manner. Walter sails next
+Monday. Charley and I go down with him to Southampton
+next Sunday. We are all delighted with the prospect of
+seeing you at Gad's Hill. These are my Jerrold engagements:
+On Friday, the 24th, I have to repeat my reading at
+St. Martin's Hall; on Saturday, the 25th, to repeat "The
+Frozen Deep" at the Gallery of Illustration for the last time.
+On Thursday, the 30th, or Friday, the 31st, I shall probably
+read at Manchester. Deane, the general manager of the
+Exhibition, is going down to-night, and will arrange all the
+preliminaries for me. If you and I went down to Manchester
+together, and were there on a Sunday, he would give us the
+whole Exhibition to ourselves. It is probable, I think (as
+he estimates the receipts of a night at about seven hundred
+pounds), that we may, in about a fortnight or so after the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[20]</a></span>
+reading, play "The Frozen Deep" at Manchester. But of
+this contingent engagement I at present know no more than
+you do.</p>
+
+<p>Now, will you, upon this exposition of affairs, choose your
+own time for coming to us, and, when you have made your
+choice, write to me at Gad's Hill? I am going down this
+afternoon for rest (which means violent cricket with the
+boys) after last Saturday night; which was a teaser, but
+triumphant. The St. Martin's Hall audience was, I must
+confess, a very extraordinary thing. The two thousand and
+odd people were like one, and their enthusiasm was something
+awful.</p>
+
+<p>Yet I have seen that before, too. Your young remembrance
+cannot recall the man; but he flourished in my day&mdash;a
+great actor, sir&mdash;a noble actor&mdash;thorough artist! I
+have seen him do wonders in that way. He retired from
+the stage early in life (having a monomaniacal delusion that
+he was old), and is said to be still living in your county.</p>
+
+<p>All join in kindest love to your dear sister and all the
+rest.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+<span style="margin-right: 2em;">Ever, my dearest Macready,</span><br />
+Most affectionately yours.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mr.
+Edmund
+Yates.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Tavistock House</span>, <i>Sunday, July 19th, 1857.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='unindent'><span class='smcap'>My dear Yates</span>,</div>
+
+<p>Although I date this ashore, I really write it from
+Southampton (don't notice this fact in your reply, for I
+shall be in town on Wednesday). I have come here on
+an errand which will grow familiar to you before you know
+that Time has flapped his wings over your head. Like me,
+you will find those babies grow to be young men before you
+are quite sure they are born. Like me, you will have great
+teeth drawn with a wrench, and will only then know that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[21]</a></span>
+you ever cut them. I am here to send Walter away over
+what they call, in Green Bush melodramas, "the Big Drink,"
+and I don't at all know this day how he comes to be mine,
+or I his.</p>
+
+<p>I don't write to say this&mdash;or to say how seeing Charley,
+and he going aboard the ship before me just now, I
+suddenly came into possession of a photograph of my own
+back at sixteen and twenty, and also into a suspicion that
+I had doubled the last age. I merely write to mention
+that Telbin and his wife are going down to Gad's Hill with
+us, about mid-day next Sunday, and that if you and Mrs.
+Yates will come too, we shall be delighted to have you.
+We can give you a bed, and you can be in town (if you
+have such a savage necessity) by twenty minutes before ten
+on Monday morning.</p>
+
+<p>I was very much pleased (as I had reason to be) with
+your account of the reading in <i>The Daily News</i>. I thank
+you heartily.</p>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mr. T. P.
+Cooke.</div>
+
+<div class='center'><br /><br />
+IN REMEMBRANCE OF THE LATE MR. DOUGLAS JERROLD.<br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br />
+<span style="margin-right: 2em;"><span class="smcap">Committee's Office, Gallery of Illustration</span>,</span><br />
+<span class="smcap">Regent Street</span>, <i>Thursday, July 30th</i>, 1857.<br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='unindent'><span class='smcap'>My dear Mr. Cooke</span>,</div>
+
+<p>I cannot rest satisfied this morning without writing
+to congratulate you on your admirable performance of last
+night. It was so fresh and vigorous, so manly and gallant,
+that I felt as if it splashed against my theatre-heated face
+along with the spray of the breezy sea. What I felt everybody
+felt; I should feel it quite an impertinence to take
+myself out of the crowd, therefore, if I could by any means
+help doing so. But I can't; so I hope you will feel that you
+bring me on yourself, and have only yourself to blame.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Always faithfully yours.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[22]</a></span></p>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mrs.
+Compton.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span style="margin-right: 2em;"><span class="smcap">Gad's Hill Place, Higham by Rochester</span>,</span><br />
+<i>Sunday Night, Aug 2nd, 1857.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='unindent'><span class='smcap'>My dear Mrs. Compton</span>,</div>
+
+<p>We are going to play "The Frozen Deep" (pursuant
+to requisition from town magnates, etc.) at Manchester, at
+the New Free Trade Hall, on the nights of Friday and
+Saturday, the 21st and 22nd August.</p>
+
+<p>The place is out of the question for my girls. Their
+action could not be seen, and their voices could not be
+heard. You and I have played, there and elsewhere, so
+sociably and happily, that I am emboldened to ask you
+whether you would play my sister-in-law Georgina's part
+(Compton and babies permitting).</p>
+
+<p>We shall go down in the old pleasant way, and shall
+have the Art Treasures Exhibition to ourselves on the
+Sunday; when even "he" (as Rogers always called every
+pretty woman's husband) might come and join us.</p>
+
+<p>What do you say? What does he say? and what does
+baby say? When I use the term "baby," I use it in two
+tenses&mdash;present and future.</p>
+
+<p>Answer me at this address, like the Juliet I saw at
+Drury Lane&mdash;when was it?&mdash;yesterday. And whatever
+your answer is, if you will say that you and Compton will
+meet us at the North Kent Station, London Bridge, next
+Sunday at a quarter before one, and will come down here
+for a breath of sweet air and stay all night, you will give
+your old friends great pleasure. Not least among them,</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Yours faithfully.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mr. W. C.
+Macready.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span style="margin-right: 2em;"><span class="smcap">Gad's Hill Place, Higham by Rochester</span>,</span><br />
+<i>Monday, Aug. 3rd, 1857.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='unindent'><span class='smcap'>My dearest Macready</span>,</div>
+
+<p>I write to you in reference to your last note, as soon as
+I positively know our final movements in the Jerrold matter.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[23]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>We are going to wind up by acting at Manchester (on
+solemn requisition) on the evenings of Friday and Saturday,
+the 21st and 22nd (actresses substituted for the girls, of
+course). We shall have to leave here on the morning of
+the 20th. You thought of coming on the 16th; can't
+you make it a day or two earlier, so as to be with us a
+whole week? Decide and pronounce. Again, cannot you
+bring Katey with you? Decide and pronounce thereupon,
+also.</p>
+
+<p>I read at Manchester last Friday. As many thousand
+people were there as you like to name. The collection of
+pictures in the Exhibition is wonderful. And the power
+with which the modern English school asserts itself is a
+very gratifying and delightful thing to behold. The care
+for the common people, in the provision made for their
+comfort and refreshment, is also admirable and worthy of
+all commendation. But they want more amusement, and
+particularly (as it strikes me) <i>something in motion</i>, though
+it were only a twisting fountain. The thing is too still
+after their lives of machinery, and art flies over their heads
+in consequence.</p>
+
+<p>I hope you have seen my tussle with the "Edinburgh."
+I saw the chance last Friday week, as I was going down to
+read the "Carol" in St. Martin's Hall. Instantly turned
+to, then and there, and wrote half the article. Flew out of
+bed early next morning, and finished it by noon. Went
+down to Gallery of Illustration (we acted that night), did
+the day's business, corrected the proofs in Polar costume in
+dressing-room, broke up two numbers of "Household
+Words" to get it out directly, played in "Frozen Deep"
+and "Uncle John," presided at supper of company, made
+no end of speeches, went home and gave in completely for
+four hours, then got sound asleep, and next day was as<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[24]</a></span>
+fresh as you used to be in the far-off days of your lusty
+youth.</p>
+
+<p>All here send kindest love to your dear good sister and
+all the house.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Ever and 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>Sunday Afternoon, Aug. 9th, 1857.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='unindent'><span class='smcap'>My dear Stone</span>,</div>
+
+<p>Now here, without any preface, is a good, confounding,
+stunning question for you&mdash;would you like to play
+"Uncle John" on the two nights at Manchester?</p>
+
+<p>It is not a long part. You could have a full rehearsal
+on the Friday, and I could sit in the wing at night and pull
+you through all the business. Perhaps you might not
+object to being in the thing in your own native place, and
+the relief to me would be enormous.</p>
+
+<p>This is what has come into my head lying in bed to-day
+(I have been in bed all day), and this is just my plain
+reason for writing to you.</p>
+
+<p>It's a capital part, and you are a capital old man. You
+know the play as we play it, and the Manchester people
+don't. Say the word, and I'll send you my own book by
+return of post.</p>
+
+<p>The agitation and exertion of Richard Wardour are so
+great to me, that I cannot rally my spirits in the short space
+of time I get. The strain is so great to make a show of
+doing it, that I want to be helped out of "Uncle John" if
+I can. Think of yourself far more than me; but if you half
+think you are up to the joke, and half doubt your being so,
+then give me the benefit of the doubt and play the part.</p>
+
+<p>Answer me at Gad's Hill.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Ever affectionately.<br />
+</div>
+
+<p>P.S.&mdash;If you play, I shall immediately announce it to all<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[25]</a></span>
+concerned. If you don't, I shall go on as if nothing had
+happened, and shall say nothing to anyone.</p>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mr. Henry
+Austin.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Gad's Hill Place</span>, <i>Saturday, Aug. 15th, 1857.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='unindent'><span class='smcap'>My dear Henry</span>,</div>
+
+<p>At last, I am happy to inform you, we have got at a
+famous spring!! It rushed in this morning, ten foot deep.
+And our friends talk of its supplying "a ton a minute for
+yourself and your family, sir, for nevermore."</p>
+
+<p>They ask leave to bore ten feet lower, to prevent the
+possibility of what they call "a choking with sullage."
+Likewise, they are going to insert "a rose-headed pipe;"
+at the mention of which implement, I am (secretly) well-nigh
+distracted, having no idea of what it means. But I
+have said "Yes," besides instantly standing a bottle of gin.
+Can you come back, and can you get down on Monday
+morning, to advise and endeavour to decide on the
+mechanical force we shall use for raising the water? I
+would return with you, as I shall have to be in town until
+Thursday, and then to go to Manchester until the following
+Tuesday.</p>
+
+<p>I send this by hand to John, to bring to you.</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">Gad's Hill Place</span>, <i>Monday, Aug. 17th, 1857.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='unindent'><span class='smcap'>My dear Stone</span>,</div>
+
+<p>I received your kind note this morning, and write
+this reply here to take to London with me and post in
+town, being bound for that village and three days' drill
+of the professional ladies who are to succeed the Tavistock
+girls.</p>
+
+<p>My book I enclose. There is a slight alteration (which<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[26]</a></span>
+does not affect you) at the end of the first act, in order that
+the piece may be played through without having the drop
+curtain down. You will not find the situations or business
+difficult, with me on the spot to put you right.</p>
+
+<p>Now, as to the dress. You will want a pair of pumps,
+and a pair of white silk socks; these you can get at Manchester.
+The extravagantly and anciently-frilled shirts
+that I have had got up for the part, I will bring you down;
+large white waistcoat, I will bring you down; large white
+hat, I will bring you down; dressing-gown, I will bring
+you down; white gloves and ditto choker you can get at
+Manchester. There then remain only a pair of common
+nankeen tights, to button below the calf, and blue wedding-coat.
+The nankeen tights you had best get made at once;
+my "Uncle John" coat I will send you down in a parcel by
+to-morrow's train, to have altered in Manchester to your
+shape and figure. You will then be quite independent of
+Christian chance and Jewish Nathan, which latter potentate
+is now at Canterbury with the cricket amateurs, and might
+fail.</p>
+
+<p>A Thursday's rehearsal is (unfortunately) now impracticable,
+the passes for the railway being all made out,
+and the company's sailing orders issued. But, as I have
+already suggested, with a careful rehearsal on Friday
+morning, and with me at the wing at night to put you
+right, you will find yourself sliding through it easily. There
+is nothing in the least complicated in the business. As to
+the dance, you have only to knock yourself up for a twelvemonth
+and it will go nobly.</p>
+
+<p>After all, too, if you <i>should</i>, through any unlucky breakdown,
+come to be afraid of it, I am no worse off than I was
+before, if I have to do it at last. Keep your pecker up
+with that.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[27]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>I am heartily obliged to you, my dear old boy, for your
+affectionate and considerate note, and I wouldn't have you
+do it, really and sincerely&mdash;immense as the relief will be to
+me&mdash;unless you are quite comfortable in it, and able to
+enjoy it.</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">Office of "Household Words,"</span> <i>Tuesday, Aug. 18th, 1857.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='unindent'><span class='smcap'>My dear Stone</span>,</div>
+
+<p>I sent you a telegraph message last night, in total
+contradiction of the letter you received from me this
+morning.</p>
+
+<p>The reason was simply this: Arthur Smith and the
+other business men, both in Manchester and here, urged
+upon me, in the strongest manner, that they were afraid of
+the change; that it was well known in Manchester that I
+had done the part in London; that there was a danger of
+its being considered disrespectful in me to give it up; also
+that there was a danger that it might be thought that I did
+so at the last minute, after an immense let, whereas I
+might have done it at first, etc. etc. etc. Having no
+desire but for the success of our object, and a becoming
+recognition on my part of the kind Manchester public's
+cordiality, I gave way, and thought it best to go on.</p>
+
+<p>I do so against the grain, and against every inclination,
+and against the strongest feeling of gratitude to you. My
+people at home will be miserable too when they hear I am
+going to do it. If I could have heard from you sooner, and
+got the bill out sooner, I should have been firmer in considering
+my own necessity of relief. As it is, I sneak
+under; and I hope you will feel the reasons, and approve.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Ever affectionately.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[28]</a></span></p>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mr. Henry
+Austin.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Gad's Hill Place</span>, <i>Wednesday, Sept. 2nd, 1857.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='unindent'><span class='smcap'>My dear Henry</span>,</div>
+
+<p>The second conspirator has been here this morning
+to ask whether you wish the windlass to be left in the yard,
+and whether you will want him and his mate any more, and,
+if so, when? Of course he says (rolling something in the
+form of a fillet in at one broken tooth all the while, and
+rolling it out at another) that they could wish fur to have
+the windlass if it warn't any ways a hill conwenience fur to
+fetch her away. I have told him that if he will come back
+on Friday he shall have your reply. Will you, therefore,
+send it me by return of post? He says he'll "look up"
+(as if he was an astronomer) "a Friday arterdinner."</p>
+
+<p>On Monday I am going away with Collins for ten days
+or a fortnight, on a "tour in search of an article" for
+"Household Words." We have not the least idea where
+we are going; but <i>he</i> says, "Let's look at the Norfolk coast,"
+and <i>I</i> say, "Let's look at the back of the Atlantic." I don't
+quite know what I mean by that; but have a general
+impression that I mean something knowing.</p>
+
+<p>I am horribly used up after the Jerrold business. Low
+spirits, low pulse, low voice, intense reaction. If I were not
+like Mr. Micawber, "falling back for a spring" on Monday,
+I think I should slink into a corner and cry.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Ever affectionately.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Miss
+Hogarth.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Allonby, Cumberland</span>, <i>Wednesday Night, Sept. 9th, 1857.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='unindent'><span class='smcap'>My dear 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>Think of Collins's usual luck with me! We went up a
+Cumberland mountain yesterday&mdash;a huge black hill, fifteen
+hundred feet high. We took for a guide a capital innkeeper<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[29]</a></span>
+hard by. It rained in torrents&mdash;as it only does rain
+in a hill country&mdash;the whole time. At the top, there were
+black mists and the darkness of night. It then came out
+that the innkeeper had not been up for twenty years, and
+he lost his head and himself altogether; and we couldn't
+get down again! What wonders the Inimitable performed
+with his compass until it broke with the heat and
+wet of his pocket no matter; it did break, and then we
+wandered about, until it was clear to the Inimitable that
+the night must be passed there, and the enterprising
+travellers probably die of cold. We took our own way
+about coming down, struck, and declared that the guide
+might wander where he would, but we would follow a watercourse
+we lighted upon, and which must come at last to
+the river. This necessitated amazing gymnastics; in the
+course of which performances, Collins fell into the said
+watercourse with his ankle sprained, and the great
+ligament of the foot and leg swollen I don't know how
+big.</p>
+
+<p>How I enacted Wardour over again in carrying him
+down, and what a business it was to get him down; I may
+say in Gibbs's words: "Vi lascio a giudicare!" But he was
+got down somehow, and we got off the mountain somehow;
+and now I carry him to bed, and into and out of carriages,
+exactly like Wardour in private life. I don't believe he
+will stand for a month to come. He has had a doctor, and
+can wear neither shoe nor stocking, and has his foot
+wrapped up in a flannel waistcoat, and has a breakfast
+saucer of liniment, and a horrible dabbling of lotion incessantly
+in progress. We laugh at it all, but I doubt very
+much whether he can go on to Doncaster. It will be a
+miserable blow to our H. W. scheme, and I say nothing
+about it as yet; but he is really so crippled that I doubt<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[30]</a></span>
+the getting him there. We have resolved to fall to work
+to-morrow morning and begin our writing; and there, for
+the present, that point rests.</p>
+
+<p>This is a little place with fifty houses, five bathing-machines,
+five girls in straw hats, five men in straw hats,
+and no other company. The little houses are all in half-mourning&mdash;yellow
+stone on white stone, and black; and it
+reminds me of what Broadstairs might have been if it had
+not inherited a cliff, and had been an Irishman. But this
+is a capital little homely inn, looking out upon the sea; and
+we are really very comfortably lodged. I can just stand
+upright in my bedroom. Otherwise, it is a good deal like
+one of Ballard's top-rooms. We have a very obliging and
+comfortable landlady; and it is a clean nice place in a rough
+wild country. We came here haphazard, but could not
+have done better.</p>
+
+<p>We lay last night at a place called Wigton&mdash;also in
+half-mourning&mdash;with the wonderful peculiarity that it had
+no population, no business, no streets to speak of; but five
+linendrapers within range of our small windows, one linendraper's
+next door, and five more linendrapers round the
+corner. I ordered a night-light in my bedroom. A queer
+little old woman brought me one of the common Child's
+night-lights, and seeming to think that I looked at it with
+interest, said: "It's joost a vara keeyourious thing, sir, and
+joost new coom oop. It'll burn awt hoors a' end, an no
+gootther, nor no waste, nor ony sike a thing, if you can
+creedit what I say, seein' the airticle."</p>
+
+<p>Of course <i>I</i> shall go to Doncaster, whether or no (please
+God), and my postage directions to you remain unchanged.
+Love to Mamey, Katey, Charley, Harry, and the darling
+Plorn.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Ever affectionately.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[31]</a></span></p>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Miss
+Hogarth.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Lancaster</span>, <i>Saturday Night, Sept. 12th, 1857.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='unindent'><span class='smcap'>My dear Georgy</span>,</div>
+
+<p>I received your letter at Allonby yesterday, and was
+delighted to get it. We came back to Carlisle last night
+(to a capital inn, kept by Breach's brother), and came on
+here to-day. We are on our way to Doncaster; but Sabbath
+observance throws all the trains out; and although
+it is not a hundred miles from here, we shall have, as well as
+I can make out the complicated lists of trains, to sleep at
+Leeds&mdash;which I particularly detest as an odious place&mdash;to-morrow
+night.</p>
+
+<p>Accustomed as you are to the homage which men
+delight to render to the Inimitable, you would be scarcely
+prepared for the proportions it assumes in this northern
+country. Station-masters assist him to alight from carriages,
+deputations await him in hotel entries, innkeepers
+bow down before him and put him into regal rooms, the
+town goes down to the platform to see him off, and
+Collins's ankle goes into the newspapers!!!</p>
+
+<p>It is a great deal better than it was, and he can get into
+new hotels and up the stairs with two thick sticks, like an
+admiral in a farce. His spirits have improved in a corresponding
+degree, and he contemplates cheerfully the keeping
+house at Doncaster. I thought (as I told you) he would
+never have gone there, but he seems quite up to the mark
+now. Of course he can never walk out, or see anything of
+any place. We have done our first paper for H. W., and
+sent it up to the printer's.</p>
+
+<p>The landlady of the little inn at Allonby lived at Greta
+Bridge, in Yorkshire, when I went down there before
+"Nickleby," and was smuggled into the room to see me,
+when I was secretly found out. She is an immensely fat
+woman now. "But I could tuck my arm round her waist<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[32]</a></span>
+then, Mr. Dickens," the landlord said when she told me the
+story as I was going to bed the night before last. "And
+can't you do it now," I said, "you insensible dog? Look
+at me! Here's a picture!" Accordingly, I got round as
+much of her as I could; and this gallant action was the
+most successful I have ever performed, on the whole. I
+think it was the dullest little place I ever entered; and
+what with the monotony of an idle sea, and what with the
+monotony of another sea in the room (occasioned by Collins's
+perpetually holding his ankle over a pail of salt water, and
+laving it with a milk jug), I struck yesterday, and came
+away.</p>
+
+<p>We are in a very remarkable old house here, with
+genuine old rooms and an uncommonly quaint staircase. I
+have a state bedroom, with two enormous red four-posters
+in it, each as big as Charley's room at Gad's Hill. Bellew
+is to preach here to-morrow. "And we know he is a friend
+of yours, sir," said the landlord, when he presided over the
+serving of the dinner (two little salmon trout; a sirloin
+steak; a brace of partridges; seven dishes of sweets; five
+dishes of dessert, led off by a bowl of peaches; and in the
+centre an enormous bride-cake&mdash;"We always have it here,
+sir," said the landlord, "custom of the house.") (Collins
+turned pale, and estimated the dinner at half a guinea
+each.)</p>
+
+<p>This is the stupidest of letters, but all description is
+gone, or going, into "The Lazy Tour of Two Idle
+Apprentices."</p>
+
+<p>Kiss the darling Plorn, who is often in my thoughts.
+Best love to Charley, Mamey, and Katie. I will write to
+you again from Doncaster, where I shall be rejoiced to find
+another letter from you.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Ever affectionately, my dearest Georgy.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[33]</a></span></p>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Miss
+Hogarth.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Angel Hotel, Doncaster</span>, <i>Tuesday, Sept. 15th, 1857.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='unindent'><span class='smcap'>My dear Georgy</span>,</div>
+
+<p>I found your letter here on my arrival yesterday. I
+had hoped that the wall would have been almost finished by
+this time, and the additions to the house almost finished
+too&mdash;but patience, patience!</p>
+
+<p>We have very good, clean, and quiet apartments here,
+on the second floor, looking down into the main street,
+which is full of horse jockeys, bettors, drunkards, and other
+blackguards, from morning to night&mdash;and all night. The
+races begin to-day and last till Friday, which is the Cup Day.
+I am not going to the course this morning, but have engaged
+a carriage (open, and pair) for to-morrow and Friday.</p>
+
+<p>"The Frozen Deep's" author gets on as well as could
+be expected. He can hobble up and down stairs when
+absolutely necessary, and limps to his bedroom on the same
+floor. He talks of going to the theatre to-night in a cab,
+which will be the first occasion of his going out, except to
+travel, since the accident. He sends his kind regards and
+thanks for enquiries and condolence. I am perpetually
+tidying the rooms after him, and carrying all sorts of untidy
+things which belong to him into his bedroom, which is a
+picture of disorder. You will please to imagine mine, airy
+and clean, little dressing-room attached, eight water-jugs (I
+never saw such a supply), capital sponge-bath, perfect
+arrangement, and exquisite neatness. We breakfast at
+half-past eight, and fall to work for H. W. afterwards.
+Then I go out, and&mdash;hem! look for subjects.</p>
+
+<p>The mayor called this morning to do the honours of
+the town, whom it pleased the Inimitable to receive with
+great courtesy and affability. He propounded invitation to
+public <i>d&eacute;je&ucirc;ner</i>, which it did <i>not</i> please the Inimitable to
+receive, and which he graciously rejected.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[34]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>That's all the news. Everything I can describe by hook
+or by crook, I describe for H. W. So there is nothing of
+that sort left for letters.</p>
+
+<p>Best love to dear Mamey and Katey, and to Charley, and
+to Harry. Any number of kisses to the noble Plorn.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Ever affectionately.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mr. Arthur
+Ryland.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Gad's Hill Place</span>, <i>Saturday Evening, Oct. 3rd, 1857.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='unindent'><span class='smcap'>My dear Sir</span>,</div>
+
+<p>I have had the honour and pleasure of receiving your
+letter of the 28th of last month, informing me of the distinction
+that has been conferred upon me by the Council
+of the Birmingham and Midland Institute.</p>
+
+<p>Allow me to assure you with much sincerity, that I am
+highly gratified by having been elected one of the first
+honorary members of that establishment. Nothing could
+have enhanced my interest in so important an undertaking;
+but the compliment is all the more welcome to me on that
+account.</p>
+
+<p>I accept it with a due sense of its worth, with many
+acknowledgments and with all good wishes.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+I am ever, my dear Sir, very faithfully yours.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mr.
+Edmund
+Yates.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Tavistock House</span>, <i>Monday Night, Nov. 16th, 1857.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='unindent'><span class='smcap'>My dear Yates</span>,</div>
+
+<p>I retain the story with pleasure; and I need not tell
+you that you are not mistaken in the last lines of your note.</p>
+
+<p>Excuse me, on that ground, if I say a word or two as
+to what I think (I mention it with a view to the future)
+might be better in the paper. The opening is excellent.
+But it passes too completely into the Irishman's narrative,
+does not light it up with the life about it, or the circumstances<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[35]</a></span>
+under which it is delivered, and does not carry
+through it, as I think it should with a certain indefinable
+subtleness, the thread with which you begin your weaving.
+I will tell Wills to send me the proof, and will try to show
+you what I mean when I shall have gone over it carefully.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Faithfully yours always.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mr. Frank
+Stone,
+A.R.A.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Tavistock House</span>, <i>Wednesday, Dec. 13th, 1857.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='unindent'><span class='smcap'>My dear Stone</span>,</div>
+
+<p>I find on enquiry that the "General Theatrical
+Fund" has relieved non-members in one or two instances;
+but that it is exceedingly unwilling to do so, and would
+certainly not do so again, saving on some very strong and
+exceptional case. As its trustee, I could not represent to it
+that I think it ought to sail into those open waters, for I
+very much doubt the justice of such cruising, with a
+reference to the interests of the patient people who support
+it out of their small earnings.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Affectionately ever.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[37]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[36]</a></span></p>
+<h2>Book III.</h2>
+
+<h3>1858 <small>TO</small> 1870.</h3>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[39]</a></span><br /><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[38]</a></span></p>
+<h2>1858.</h2>
+
+<h3>NARRATIVE.</h3>
+
+
+<div class='unindent'><span class='smcap'>All</span> through this year, Charles Dickens was constantly
+moving about from place to place. After much and careful
+consideration, he had come to the determination of, for the
+future, giving readings for his own benefit. And although in
+the spring of this year he gave one reading of his "Christmas
+Carol" for a charity, all the other readings, beginning from
+the 29th April, and ever after, were for himself. In the
+autumn of this year he made reading tours in England, Scotland,
+and Ireland, always accompanied by his friend and
+secretary, Mr. Arthur Smith. At Newcastle, Charles Dickens
+was joined by his daughters, who accompanied him in his
+Scotch tour. The letters to his sister-in-law, and to his
+eldest daughter, are all given here, and will be given in all
+future reading tours, as they form a complete diary of his
+life and movements at these times. To avoid the constant
+repetition of the two names, the beginning of the
+letters will be dispensed with in all cases where they follow
+each other in unbroken succession. The Mr. Frederick
+Lehmann mentioned in the letter written from Sheffield, had
+married a daughter of Mr. Robert Chambers, and niece of
+Mrs. Wills. Coming to settle in London a short time after
+this date, Mr. and Mrs. Lehmann became intimately known
+to Charles Dickens and his family&mdash;more especially to his
+eldest daughter, to whom they have been, and are, the
+kindest and truest of friends. The "pretty little boy"
+mentioned as being under Mrs. Wills's care, was their eldest
+son.</div>
+
+<p>We give the letter to Mr. Thackeray, not because it is
+one of very great interest, but because, being the only one
+we have, we are glad to have the two names associated
+together in this work.</p>
+
+<p>The "little speech" alluded to in this first letter to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[40]</a></span>
+Mr. Macready was one made by Charles Dickens at a public
+dinner, which was given in aid of the Hospital for Sick
+Children, in Great Ormond Street. He afterwards (early in
+April) gave a reading from his "Christmas Carol" for this
+same charity.</p>
+
+<p>The Christmas number of "Household Words," mentioned
+in a letter to Mr. Wilkie Collins, was called "A House
+to Let," and contained stories written by Charles Dickens,
+Mr. Wilkie Collins, and other contributors to "Household
+Words."</p>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mr. W.
+Wilkie
+Collins.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Tavistock House</span>, <i>Sunday, Jan. 17th, 1858.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='unindent'><span class='smcap'>My dear Wilkie</span>,</div>
+
+<p>I am very sorry to receive so bad an account of the
+foot. But I hope it is all in the past tense now.</p>
+
+<p>I met with an incident the other day, which I think is a
+good deal in your way, for introduction either into a long or
+short story. Dr. Sutherland and Dr. Monro went over
+St. Luke's with me (only last Friday), to show me some
+distinctly and remarkably developed types of insanity.
+Among other patients, we passed a deaf and dumb man,
+now afflicted with incurable madness too, of whom they
+said that it was only when his madness began to develop
+itself in strongly-marked mad actions, that it began to be
+suspected. "Though it had been there, no doubt, some
+time." This led me to consider, suspiciously, what employment
+he had been in, and so to ask the question. "Aye,"
+says Dr. Sutherland, "that is the most remarkable thing of
+all, Mr. Dickens. He was employed in the transmission of
+electric-telegraph messages; and it is impossible to conceive
+what delirious despatches that man may have been sending
+about all over the world!"</p>
+
+<p>Rejoiced to hear such good report of the play.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Ever faithfully.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[41]</a></span></p>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mr.
+Edmund
+Yates.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Tavistock House</span>, <i>Tuesday, Feb. 2nd, 1858.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='unindent'><span class='smcap'>My dear Yates</span>,</div>
+
+<p>Your quotation is, as I supposed, all wrong. The
+text is <i>not</i> "which his 'owls was organs." When Mr.
+Harris went into an empty dog-kennel, to spare his sensitive
+nature the anguish of overhearing Mrs. Harris's exclamations
+on the occasion of the birth of her first child (the
+Princess Royal of the Harris family), "he never took his
+hands away from his ears, or came out once, till he was
+showed the baby." On encountering that spectacle, he was
+(being of a weakly constitution) "took with fits." For
+this distressing complaint he was medically treated; the
+doctor "collared him, and laid him on his back upon the
+airy stones"&mdash;please to observe what follows&mdash;"and she
+was told, to ease her mind, his 'owls was organs."</p>
+
+<p>That is to say, Mrs. Harris, lying exhausted on her bed,
+in the first sweet relief of freedom from pain, merely
+covered with the counterpane, and not yet "put comfortable,"
+hears a noise apparently proceeding from the
+back-yard, and says, in a flushed and hysterical manner:
+"What 'owls are those? Who is a-'owling? Not my
+ugebond?" Upon which the doctor, looking round one of
+the bottom posts of the bed, and taking Mrs. Harris's pulse
+in a reassuring manner, says, with much admirable presence
+of mind: "Howls, my dear madam?&mdash;no, no, no!
+What are we thinking of? Howls, my dear Mrs. Harris?
+Ha, ha, ha! Organs, ma'am, organs. Organs in the streets,
+Mrs. Harris; no howls."</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Yours faithfully.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mr. W. M.
+Thackeray.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Tavistock House</span>, <i>Tuesday, Feb. 2nd, 1858.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='unindent'><span class='smcap'>My dear Thackeray</span>,</div>
+
+<p>The wisdom of Parliament, in that expensive act of
+its greatness which constitutes the Guild, prohibits that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[42]</a></span>
+corporation <i>from doing anything</i> until it shall have existed
+in a perfectly useless condition for seven years. This
+clause (introduced by some private-bill magnate of official
+might) seemed so ridiculous, that nobody could believe it
+to have this meaning; but as I felt clear about it when we
+were on the very verge of granting an excellent literary
+annuity, I referred the point to counsel, and my construction
+was confirmed without a doubt.</p>
+
+<p>It is therefore needless to enquire whether an association
+in the nature of a provident society could address itself to
+such a case as you confide to me. The prohibition has still
+two or three years of life in it.</p>
+
+<p>But, assuming the gentleman's title to be considered as
+an "author" as established, there is no question that it
+comes within the scope of the Literary Fund. They would
+habitually "lend" money if they did what I consider to be
+their duty; as it is they only give money, but they give it
+in such instances.</p>
+
+<p>I have forwarded the envelope to the Society of Arts,
+with a request that they will present it to Prince Albert,
+approaching H.R.H. in the Siamese manner.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Ever faithfully.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mr. John
+Forster.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Tavistock House</span>, <i>Wednesday Night, Feb. 3rd, 1858.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='unindent'><span class='smcap'>My dear Forster</span>,</div>
+
+<p>I beg to report two phenomena:</p>
+
+<p>1. An excellent little play in one act, by Marston, at
+the Lyceum; title, "A Hard Struggle;" as good as "La
+Joie fait Peur," though not at all like it.</p>
+
+<p>2. Capital acting in the same play, by Mr. Dillon. Real
+good acting, in imitation of nobody, and honestly made out
+by himself!!<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[43]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>I went (at Marston's request) last night, and cried till I
+sobbed again. I have not seen a word about it from Oxenford.
+But it is as wholesome and manly a thing altogether
+as I have seen for many a day. (I would have given a
+hundred pounds to have played Mr. Dillon's part).</p>
+
+<p>Love to Mrs. Forster.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Ever affectionately.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Dr.
+Westland
+Marston.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Tavistock House</span>, <i>Wednesday, Feb. 3rd, 1858.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='unindent'><span class='smcap'>My dear Marston</span>,</div>
+
+<p>I most heartily and honestly congratulate you on
+your charming little piece. It moved me more than I could
+easily tell you, if I were to try. Except "La Joie fait
+Peur," I have seen nothing nearly so good, and there is a
+subtlety in the comfortable presentation of the child who
+is to become a devoted woman for Reuben's sake, which
+goes a long way beyond Madame de Girardin. I am at a
+loss to let you know how much I admired it last night, or
+how heartily I cried over it. A touching idea, most delicately
+conceived and wrought out by a true artist and poet,
+in a spirit of noble, manly generosity, that no one should
+be able to study without great emotion.</p>
+
+<p>It is extremely well acted by all concerned; but Mr.
+Dillon's performance is really admirable, and deserving of
+the highest commendation. It is good in these days to see
+an actor taking such pains, and expressing such natural and
+vigorous sentiment. There is only one thing I should have
+liked him to change. I am much mistaken if any man&mdash;least
+of all any such man&mdash;would crush a letter written by
+the hand of the woman he loved. Hold it to his heart
+unconsciously and look about for it the while, he might;
+or he might do any other thing with it that expressed a
+habit of tenderness and affection in association with the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[44]</a></span>
+idea of her; but he would never crush it under any circumstances.
+He would as soon crush her heart.</p>
+
+<p>You will see how closely I went with him, by my
+minding so slight an incident in so fine a performance.
+There is no one who could approach him in it; and I am
+bound to add that he surprised me as much as he pleased me.</p>
+
+<p>I think it might be worth while to try the people at the
+Fran&ccedil;ais with the piece. They are very good in one-act
+plays; such plays take well there, and this seems to me well
+suited to them. If you would like Samson or Regnier to
+read the play (in English), I know them well, and would
+be very glad indeed to tell them that I sent it with your
+sanction because I had been so much struck by 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, W.C.</span>, <i>Thursday, Feb. 11th, 1858.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='unindent'><span class='smcap'>My dear Regnier</span>,</div>
+
+<p>I want you to read the enclosed little play. You
+will see that it is in one act&mdash;about the length of "La Joie
+fait Pour." It is now acting at the Lyceum Theatre here,
+with very great success. The author is Mr. Westland
+Marston, a dramatic writer of reputation, who wrote a very
+well-known tragedy called "The Patrician's Daughter,"
+in which Macready and Miss Faucit acted (under Macready's
+management at Drury Lane) some years ago.</p>
+
+<p>This little piece is so very powerful on the stage, its
+interest is so simple and natural, and the part of Reuben is
+such a very fine one, that I cannot help thinking you might
+make one grand <i>coup</i> with it, if with your skilful hand you
+arranged it for the Fran&ccedil;ais. I have communicated this
+idea of mine to the author, "<i>et l&agrave;-dessus je vous &eacute;cris</i>." I
+am anxious to know your opinion, and shall expect with<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[45]</a></span>
+much interest to receive a little letter from you at your
+convenience.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Dickens, Miss Hogarth, and all the house send a
+thousand kind loves and regards to Madame Regnier and
+the dear little boys. You will bring them to London when
+you come, with all the force of the Fran&ccedil;ais&mdash;will you not?</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Ever, my dear Regnier, faithfully your Friend.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Monsieur
+Regnier.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Tavistock House</span>, <i>Saturday, Feb. 20th, 1858.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='unindent'><span class='smcap'>My dear Regnier</span>,</div>
+
+<p>Let me thank you with all my heart for your most
+patient and kind letter. I made its contents known to
+Mr. Marston, and I enclose you his reply. You will see that
+he cheerfully leaves the matter in your hands, and abides
+by your opinion and discretion.</p>
+
+<p>You need not return his letter, my friend. There is
+great excitement here this morning, in consequence of the
+failure of the Ministry last night to carry the bill they
+brought in to please your Emperor and his troops. <i>I</i>, for
+one, am extremely glad of their defeat.</p>
+
+<p>"Le vieux P&mdash;&mdash;," I have no doubt, will go staggering
+down the Rue de la Paix to-day, with his stick in his hand
+and his hat on one side, predicting the downfall of everything,
+in consequence of this event. His handwriting
+shakes more and more every quarter, and I think he mixes
+a great deal of cognac with his ink. He always gives me
+some astonishing piece of news (which is never true), or some
+suspicious public prophecy (which is never verified), and he
+always tells me he is dying (which he never is).</p>
+
+<p>Adieu, my dear Regnier, accept a thousand thanks from
+me, and believe me, now and always,</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Your affectionate and faithful Friend.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[46]</a></span></p>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mr. W. C.
+Macready.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Tavistock House</span>, <i>March 15th, 1858.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='unindent'><span class='smcap'>My dearest Macready</span>,</div>
+
+<p>I have safely received your cheque this morning, and
+will hand it over forthwith to the honorary secretary of the
+hospital. I hope you have read the little speech in the
+hospital's publication of it. They had it taken by their
+own shorthand-writer, and it is done verbatim.</p>
+
+<p>You may be sure that it is a good and kind charity. It
+is amazing to me that it is not at this day ten times as large
+and rich as it is. But I hope and trust that I have happily
+been able to give it a good thrust onward into a great
+course. We all send our most affectionate love to all the
+house. I am devising all sorts of things in my mind, and
+am in a state of energetic restlessness incomprehensible to
+the calm philosophers of Dorsetshire. What a dream it is,
+this work and strife, and how little we do in the dream
+after all! Only last night, in my sleep, I was bent upon
+getting over a perspective of barriers, with my hands and
+feet bound. Pretty much what we are all about, waking, I
+think?</p>
+
+<p>But, Lord! (as I said before) you smile pityingly, not
+bitterly, at this hubbub, and moralise upon it, in the calm
+evenings when there is no school at Sherborne.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Ever affectionately and truly.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mrs
+Hogge.<a name="FNanchor_3_3" id="FNanchor_3_3"></a><a href="#Footnote_3_3" class="fnanchor">[3]</a></div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span style="margin-right: 2em;"><span class="smcap">Tavistock House, Tavistock Square, London, W.C.</span>,</span><br />
+<i>Wednesday, April 14th, 1858.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='unindent'><span class='smcap'>My dear Mrs. Hogge</span>,</div>
+
+<p>After the profoundest cogitation, I come reluctantly
+to the conclusion that I do not know that orphan. If you
+were the lady in want of him, I should certainly offer <i>myself</i>.
+But as you are not, I will not hear of the situation.</p>
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[47]</a></span></p>
+<p>It is wonderful to think how many charming little
+people there must be, to whom this proposal would be like
+a revelation from Heaven. Why don't I know one, and
+come to Kensington, boy in hand, as if I had walked (I
+wish to God I had) out of a fairy tale! But no, I do <i>not</i>
+know that orphan. He is crying somewhere, by himself, at
+this moment. I can't dry his eyes. He is being neglected
+by some ogress of a nurse. I can't rescue him.</p>
+
+<p>I will make a point of going to the Athen&aelig;um on
+Monday night; and if I had five hundred votes to give,
+Mr. Macdonald should have them all, for your sake.</p>
+
+<p>I grieve to hear that you have been ill, but I hope that
+the spring, when it comes, will find you blooming with the
+rest of the flowers.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Very faithfully yours.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mr.
+Edmund
+Yates.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span style="margin-right: 2em;"><span class="smcap">Tavistock House, Tavistock Square, London, W.C.</span>,</span><br />
+<i>Wednesday, April 28th, 1858.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='unindent'><span class='smcap'>My dear Yates</span>,</div>
+
+<p>For a good many years I have suffered a great deal
+from charities, but never anything like what I suffer now.
+The amount of correspondence they inflict upon me is really
+incredible. But this is nothing. Benevolent men get
+behind the piers of the gates, lying in wait for my going
+out; and when I peep shrinkingly from my study-windows,
+I see their pot-bellied shadows projected on the gravel.
+Benevolent bullies drive up in hansom cabs (with engraved
+portraits of their benevolent institutions hanging over the
+aprons, like banners on their outward walls), and stay long
+at the door. Benevolent area-sneaks get lost in the kitchens
+and are found to impede the circulation of the knife-cleaning
+machine. My man has been heard to say (at The<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[48]</a></span>
+Burton Arms) "that if it was a wicious place, well and
+good&mdash;<i>that</i> an't door work; but that wen all the Christian
+wirtues is always a-shoulderin' and a-helberin' on you in the
+'all, a-tryin' to git past you and cut upstairs into master's
+room, why no wages as you couldn't name wouldn't make it
+up to you."</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Persecuted ever.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mrs Yates.</div>
+
+<div class='center'><br /><br />(<small>THE CHARMING ACTRESS, THE MOTHER OF MR. EDMUND YATES.</small>)</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br />
+<span style="margin-right: 2em;"><span class="smcap">Tavistock House, Tavistock Square, W.C.</span>,</span><br />
+<i>Saturday Evening, May 15th, 1858.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='unindent'><span class='smcap'>My dear Mrs. Yates</span>,</div>
+
+<p>Pray believe that I was sorry with all my heart to
+miss you last Thursday, and to learn the occasion of your
+absence; also that, whenever you can come, your presence
+will give me a new interest in that evening. No one alive
+can have more delightful associations with the lightest
+sound of your voice than I have; and to give you a minute's
+interest and pleasure, in acknowledgment of the uncountable
+hours of happiness you gave me when you were a
+mysterious angel to me, would honestly gratify my heart.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Very faithfully and gratefully yours.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">M. de
+Cerjat.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Gad's Hill</span>, <i>Wednesday, July 7th, 1858.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='unindent'><span class='smcap'>My dear Cerjat</span>,</div>
+
+<p>I should vainly try to tell you&mdash;so I <i>won't</i> try&mdash;how
+affected I have been by your warm-hearted letter, or how
+thoroughly well convinced I always am of the truth and
+earnestness of your friendship. I thank you, my dear, dear
+fellow, with my whole soul. I fervently return that friendship
+and I highly cherish it.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[49]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>You want to know all about me? I am still reading in
+London every Thursday, and the audiences are very great,
+and the success immense. On the 2nd of August I am going
+away on a tour of some four months in England, Ireland,
+and Scotland. I shall read, during that time, not fewer than
+four or five times a week. It will be sharp work; but probably
+a certain musical clinking will come of it, which will
+mitigate the hardship.</p>
+
+<p>At this present moment I am on my little Kentish freehold
+(<i>not</i> in top-boots, and not particularly prejudiced that
+I know of), looking on as pretty a view out of my study
+window as you will find in a long day's English ride. My
+little place is a grave red brick house (time of George the
+First, I suppose), which I have added to and stuck bits upon
+in all manner of ways, so that it is as pleasantly irregular,
+and as violently opposed to all architectural ideas, as the
+most hopeful man could possibly desire. It is on the summit
+of Gad's Hill. The robbery was committed before the door,
+on the man with the treasure, and Falstaff ran away from
+the identical spot of ground now covered by the room in
+which I write. A little rustic alehouse, called The Sir
+John Falstaff, is over the way&mdash;has been over the way,
+ever since, in honour of the event. Cobham Woods and
+Park are behind the house; the distant Thames in front;
+the Medway, with Rochester, and its old castle and cathedral,
+on one side. The whole stupendous property is on the old
+Dover Road, so when you come, come by the North Kent
+Railway (not the South-Eastern) to Strood or Higham, and
+I'll drive over to fetch you.</p>
+
+<p>The blessed woods and fields have done me a world of
+good, and I am quite myself again. The children are all as
+happy as children can be. My eldest daughter, Mary,
+keeps house, with a state and gravity becoming that high<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[50]</a></span>
+position; wherein she is assisted by her sister Katie, and by
+her aunt Georgina, who is, and always has been, like
+another sister. Two big dogs, a bloodhound and a St.
+Bernard, direct from a convent of that name, where I think
+you once were, are their principal attendants in the green
+lanes. These latter instantly untie the neckerchiefs of all
+tramps and prowlers who approach their presence, so that
+they wander about without any escort, and drive big horses
+in basket-phaetons through murderous bye-ways, and never
+come to grief. They are very curious about your daughters,
+and send all kinds of loves to them and to Mrs. Cerjat, in
+which I heartily join.</p>
+
+<p>You will have read in the papers that the Thames in
+London is most horrible. I have to cross Waterloo or
+London Bridge to get to the railroad when I come down
+here, and I can certify that the offensive smells, even in
+that short whiff, have been of a most head-and-stomach-distending
+nature. Nobody knows what is to be done; at
+least everybody knows a plan, and everybody else knows it
+won't do; in the meantime cartloads of chloride of lime
+are shot into the filthy stream, and do something I hope.
+You will know, before you get this, that the American telegraph
+line has parted again, at which most men are sorry,
+but very few surprised. This is all the news, except that
+there is an Italian Opera at Drury Lane, price eighteenpence
+to the pit, where Viardot, by far the greatest artist
+of them all, sings, and which is full when the dear opera
+can't let a box; and except that the weather has been
+exceptionally hot, but is now quite cool. On the top of
+this hill it has been cold, actually cold at night, for more
+than a week past.</p>
+
+<p>I am going over to Rochester to post this letter, and
+must write another to Townshend before I go. My dear<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[51]</a></span>
+Cerjat, I have written lightly enough, because I want you
+to know that I am becoming cheerful and hearty. God
+bless you! I love you, and I know that you love me.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Ever your attached and affectionate.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Miss
+Hogarth.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">West Hoe, Plymouth</span>, <i>Thursday, Aug. 5th, 1858.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='unindent'><span class='smcap'>My dearest Georgy</span>,</div>
+
+<p>I received your letter this morning with the greatest
+pleasure, and read it with the utmost interest in all its
+domestic details.</p>
+
+<p>We had a most wonderful night at Exeter. It is to be
+regretted that we cannot take the place again on our way
+back. It was a prodigious cram, and we turned away no
+end of people. But not only that, I think they were the
+finest audience I have ever read to. I don't think I ever
+read, in some respects, so well; and I never beheld anything
+like the personal affection which they poured out
+upon me at the end. It was really a very remarkable sight,
+and I shall always look back upon it with pleasure.</p>
+
+<p>Last night here was not so bright. There are quarrels
+of the strangest kind between the Plymouth people and the
+Stonehouse people. The room is at Stonehouse (Tracy
+says the wrong room; there being a Plymouth room in this
+hotel, and he being a Plymouthite). We had a fair house,
+but not at all a great one. All the notabilities come this
+morning to "Little Dombey," for which we have let one
+hundred and thirty stalls, which local admiration of local
+greatness considers very large. For "Mrs. Gamp and the
+Boots," to-night, we have also a very promising let. But
+the races are on, and there are two public balls to-night,
+and the yacht squadron are all at Cherbourg to boot.
+Arthur is of opinion that "Two Sixties" will do very well<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[52]</a></span>
+for us. I doubt the "Two Sixties" myself. <i>Mais nous
+verrons.</i></p>
+
+<p>The room is a very handsome one, but it is on the top
+of a windy and muddy hill, leading (literally) to nowhere;
+and it looks (except that it is new and <i>mortary</i>) as if the
+subsidence of the waters after the Deluge might have left
+it where it is. I have to go right through the company to
+get to the platform. Big doors slam and resound when
+anybody comes in; and all the company seem afraid of one
+another. Nevertheless they were a sensible audience last
+night, and much impressed and pleased.</p>
+
+<p>Tracy is in the room (wandering about, and never
+finishing a sentence), and sends all manner of sea-loves to
+you and the dear girls. I send all manner of land-loves to
+you from myself, out of my heart of hearts, and also to my
+dear Plorn and the boys.</p>
+
+<p>Arthur sends his kindest love. He knows only two
+characters. He is either always corresponding, like a
+Secretary of State, or he is transformed into a rout-furniture
+dealer of Rathbone Place, and drags forms about
+with the greatest violence, without his coat.</p>
+
+<p>I have no time to add another word.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Ever, dearest Georgy, your most affectionate.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Miss
+Dickens.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">London</span>, <i>Saturday, Aug. 7th, 1858.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='unindent'><span class='smcap'>My dearest Mamey</span>,</div>
+
+<p>The closing night at Plymouth was a very great
+scene, and the morning there was exceedingly good too.
+You will be glad to hear that at Clifton last night, a torrent
+of five hundred shillings bore Arthur away, pounded him
+against the wall, flowed on to the seats over his body,
+scratched him, and damaged his best dress suit. All to his
+unspeakable joy.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[53]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>This is a very short letter, but I am going to the
+Burlington Arcade, desperately resolved to have all those
+wonderful instruments put into operation on my head, with
+a view to refreshing it.</p>
+
+<p>Kindest love to Georgy and to all.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Ever your affectionate.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Miss
+Dickens.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Shrewsbury</span>, <i>Thursday, Aug. 12th, 1858.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<p>A wonderful audience last night at Wolverhampton.
+If such a thing can be, they were even quicker and more
+intelligent than the audience I had in Edinburgh. They
+were so wonderfully good and were so much on the alert
+this morning by nine o'clock for another reading, that we
+are going back there at about our Bradford time. I never
+saw such people. And the local agent would take no
+money, and charge no expenses of his own.</p>
+
+<p>This place looks what Plorn would call "ortily" dull.
+Local agent predicts, however, "great satisfaction to
+Mr. Dickens, and excellent attendance." I have just been
+to look at the hall, where everything was wrong, and where
+I have left Arthur making a platform for me out of dining-tables.</p>
+
+<p>If he comes back in time, I am not quite sure but that
+he is himself going to write to Gad's Hill. We talk of
+coming up from Chester <i>in the night to-morrow, after the
+reading;</i> and of showing our precious selves at an apparently
+impossibly early hour in the Gad's Hill breakfast-room
+on Saturday morning.</p>
+
+<p>I have not felt the fatigue to any extent worth mentioning;
+though I get, every night, into the most violent
+heats. We are going to dine at three o'clock (it wants a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[54]</a></span>
+quarter now) and have not been here two hours, so I have
+seen nothing of Clement.</p>
+
+<p>Tell Georgy with my love, that I read in the same room
+in which we acted, but at the end opposite to that where
+our stage was. We are not at the inn where the amateur
+company put up, but at The Lion, where the fair Miss
+Mitchell was lodged alone. We have the strangest little
+rooms (sitting-room and two bed-rooms all together), the
+ceilings of which I can touch with my hand. The windows
+bulge out over the street, as if they were little stern-windows
+in a ship. And a door opens out of the sitting-room
+on to a little open gallery with plants in it, where one
+leans over a queer old rail, and looks all downhill and slant-wise
+at the crookedest black and yellow old houses, all
+manner of shapes except straight shapes. To get into this
+room we come through a china closet; and the man in
+laying the cloth has actually knocked down, in that repository,
+two geraniums and Napoleon Bonaparte.</p>
+
+<p>I think that's all I have to say, except that at the
+Wolverhampton theatre they played "Oliver Twist" last
+night (Mr. Toole the Artful Dodger), "in consequence of
+the illustrious author honouring the town with his presence."
+We heard that the device succeeded very well, and that they
+got a good many people.</p>
+
+<p>John's spirits have been equable and good since we
+rejoined him. Berry has always got something the matter
+with his digestion&mdash;seems to me the male gender of Maria
+Jolly, and ought to take nothing but Revalenta Arabica.
+Bottled ale is not to be got in these parts, and Arthur is
+thrown upon draught.</p>
+
+<p>My dearest love to Georgy and to Katey, also to
+Marguerite. Also to all the boys and the noble Plorn.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Ever your affectionate Father.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[55]</a></span></p>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Miss
+Hogarth.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span style="margin-right: 2em;"><span class="smcap">Tavistock House, Tavistock Square, London, W.C.</span>,</span><br />
+<i>Wednesday Morning, Aug. 18th, 1858.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<p>I write this hurried line before starting, to report
+that my cold is decidedly better, thank God (though still
+bad), and that I hope to be able to stagger through to-night.
+After dinner yesterday I began to recover my voice,
+and I think I sang half the Irish Melodies to myself, as I
+walked about to test it. I got home at half-past ten, and
+mustard-poulticed and barley-watered myself tremendously.</p>
+
+<p>Love to the dear girls, and to all.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Ever affectionately.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">The same.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Adelphi Hotel, Liverpool</span>, <i>Friday Night, Aug. 20th, 1858.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<p>I received your welcome and interesting letter to-day,
+and I write you a very hurried and bad reply; but it
+is <i>after the reading</i>, and you will take the will for the deed
+under these trying circumstances, I know.</p>
+
+<p>We have had a tremendous night; the largest house I
+have ever had since I first began&mdash;two thousand three
+hundred people. To-morrow afternoon, at three, I read
+again.</p>
+
+<p>My cold has been oppressive, and is not yet gone. I
+have been very hard to sleep too, and last night I was all
+but sleepless. This morning I was very dull and seedy;
+but I got a good walk, and picked up again. It has been
+blowing all day, and I fear we shall have a sick passage over
+to Dublin to-morrow night.</p>
+
+<p>Tell Mamie (with my dear love to her and Katie) that I
+will write to her from Dublin&mdash;probably on Sunday. Tell
+her too that the stories she told me in her letter were not
+only capital stories in themselves, but <i>excellently told</i> too.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[56]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>What Arthur's state has been to-night&mdash;he, John, Berry,
+and Boylett, all taking money and going mad together&mdash;you
+<i>cannot</i> imagine. They turned away hundreds, sold all
+the books, rolled on the ground of my room knee-deep
+in checks, and made a perfect pantomime of the whole
+thing. He has kept quite well, I am happy to say, and
+sends a hundred loves.</p>
+
+<p>In great haste and fatigue.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Ever affectionately.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Miss
+Dickens.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Morrison's Hotel, Dublin</span>, <i>Monday, Aug. 23rd, 1858.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<p>We had a nasty crossing here. We left Holyhead
+at one in the morning, and got here at six. Arthur was
+incessantly sick the whole way. I was not sick at all, but
+was in as healthy a condition otherwise as humanity need
+be. We are in a beautiful hotel. Our sitting-room is
+exactly like the drawing-room at the Peschiere in all its
+dimensions. I never saw two rooms so exactly resembling
+one another in their proportions. Our bedrooms too are
+excellent, and there are baths and all sorts of comforts.</p>
+
+<p>The Lord Lieutenant is away, and the place looks to me
+as if its professional life were away too. Nevertheless,
+there are numbers of people in the streets. Somehow, I
+hardly seem to think we are going to do enormously here;
+but I have scarcely any reason for supposing so (except
+that a good many houses are shut up); and I <i>know</i> nothing
+about it, for Arthur is now gone to the agent and to the
+room. The men came by boat direct from Liverpool. They
+had a rough passage, were all ill, and did not get here till
+noon yesterday. Donnybrook Fair, or what remains of it,
+is going on, within two or three miles of Dublin. They
+went out there yesterday in a jaunting-car, and John<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[57]</a></span>
+described it to us at dinner-time (with his eyebrows lifted
+up, and his legs well asunder), as "Johnny Brooks's Fair;"
+at which Arthur, who was drinking bitter ale, nearly
+laughed himself to death. Berry is always unfortunate,
+and when I asked what had happened to Berry on board
+the steamboat, it appeared that "an Irish gentleman which
+was drunk, and fancied himself the captain, wanted to
+knock Berry down."</p>
+
+<p>I am surprised by finding this place very much larger
+than I had supposed it to be. Its bye-parts are bad enough,
+but cleaner, too, than I had supposed them to be, and certainly
+very much cleaner than the old town of Edinburgh.
+The man who drove our jaunting-car yesterday hadn't a
+piece in his coat as big as a penny roll, and had had his hat
+on (apparently without brushing it) ever since he was grown
+up. But he was remarkably intelligent and agreeable, with
+something to say about everything. For instance, when I
+asked him what a certain building was, he didn't say "courts
+of law" and nothing else, but: "Av you plase, sir, it's the
+foor coorts o' looyers, where Misther O'Connell stood his
+trial wunst, ye'll remimber, sir, afore I tell ye of it." When
+we got into the Ph&oelig;nix Park, he looked round him as if it
+were his own, and said: "<span class="smcap">That's</span> a park, sir, av yer plase."
+I complimented it, and he said: "Gintlemen tills me as
+they'r bin, sir, over Europe, and never see a park aqualling
+ov it. 'Tis eight mile roond, sir, ten mile and a half long,
+and in the month of May the hawthorn trees are as beautiful
+as brides with their white jewels on. Yonder's the vice-regal
+lodge, sir; in them two corners lives the two sicretirries,
+wishing I was them, sir. There's air here, sir, av
+yer plase! There's scenery here, sir! There's mountains&mdash;thim,
+sir! Yer coonsider it a park, sir? It is that, sir!"</p>
+
+<p>You should have heard John in my bedroom this<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[58]</a></span>
+morning endeavouring to imitate a bath-man, who had resented
+his interference, and had said as to the shower-bath:
+"Yer'll not be touching <i>that</i>, young man. Divil a touch
+yer'll touch o' that insthrument, young man!" It was
+more ridiculously unlike the reality than I can express to
+you, yet he was so delighted with his powers that he went
+off in the absurdest little gingerbeery giggle, backing into
+my portmanteau all the time.</p>
+
+<p>My dear love to Katie and to Georgy, also to the noble
+Plorn and all the boys. I shall write to Katie next, and
+then to Aunty. My cold, I am happy to report, is very
+much better. I lay in the wet all night on deck, on board
+the boat, but am not as yet any the worse for it. Arthur
+was quite insensible when we got to Dublin, and stared at
+our luggage without in the least offering to claim it. He
+left his kindest love for all before he went out. I will keep
+the envelope open until he comes in.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+<span style="margin-right: 4em;">Ever, my dearest Mamie,</span><br />
+Your most affectionate Father.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Miss
+Hogarth.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Morrison's Hotel, Dublin</span>, <i>Wednesday, Aug. 25th, 1858.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<p>I begin my letter to you to-day, though I don't know
+when I may send it off. We had a very good house last
+night, after all, that is to say, a great rush of shillings
+and good half-crowns, though the stalls were comparatively
+few. For "Little Dombey," this morning, we have an
+immense stall let&mdash;already more than two hundred&mdash;and
+people are now fighting in the agent's shop to take more.
+Through some mistake of our printer's, the evening reading
+for this present Wednesday was dropped, in a great part of
+the announcements, and the agent opened no plan for it. I
+have therefore resolved not to have it at all. Arthur Smith<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[59]</a></span>
+has waylaid me in all manner of ways, but I remain obdurate.
+I am frightfully tired, and really relieved by the prospect
+of an evening&mdash;overjoyed.</p>
+
+<p>They were a highly excitable audience last night, but
+they certainly did not comprehend&mdash;internally and intellectually
+comprehend&mdash;"The Chimes" as a London audience
+do. I am quite sure of it. I very much doubt the Irish
+capacity of receiving the pathetic; but of their quickness as
+to the humorous there can be no doubt. I shall see how
+they go along with Little Paul, in his death, presently.</p>
+
+<p>While I was at breakfast this morning, a general officer
+was announced with great state&mdash;having a staff at the door&mdash;and
+came in, booted and plumed, and covered with Crimean
+decorations. It was Cunninghame, whom we knew in Genoa&mdash;then
+a captain. He was very hearty indeed, and came to
+ask me to dinner. Of course I couldn't go. Olliffe has a
+brother at Cork, who has just now (noon) written to me,
+proposing dinners and excursions in that neighbourhood
+which would fill about a week; I being there a day and a
+half, and reading three times. The work will be very severe
+here, and I begin to feel depressed by it. (By "here," I
+mean Ireland generally, please to observe.)</p>
+
+<p>We meant, as I said in a letter to Katie, to go to
+Queenstown yesterday and bask on the seashore. But
+there is always so much to do that we couldn't manage it
+after all. We expect a tremendous house to-morrow night
+as well as to-day; and Arthur is at the present instant up
+to his eyes in business (and seats), and, between his regret
+at losing to-night, and his desire to make the room hold
+twice as many as it <i>will</i> hold, is half distracted. I have
+become a wonderful Irishman&mdash;must play an Irish part
+some day&mdash;and his only relaxation is when I enact "John
+and the Boots," which I consequently do enact all day long.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[60]</a></span>
+The papers are full of remarks upon my white tie, and
+describe it as being of enormous size, which is a wonderful
+delusion, because, as you very well know, it is a small tie.
+Generally, I am happy to report, the Emerald press is in
+favour of my appearance, and likes my eyes. But one
+gentleman comes out with a letter at Cork, wherein he says
+that although only forty-six I look like an old man. <i>He</i> is
+a rum customer, I think.</p>
+
+<p>The Rutherfords are living here, and wanted me to dine
+with them, which, I needn't say, could not be done; all
+manner of people have called, but I have seen only two.
+John has given it up altogether as to rivalry with the
+Boots, and did not come into my room this morning at all.
+Boots appeared triumphant and alone. He was waiting for
+me at the hotel-door last night. "Whaa't sart of a hoose,
+sur?" he asked me. "Capital." "The Lard be praised
+fur the 'onor o' Dooblin!"</p>
+
+<p>Arthur buys bad apples in the streets and brings them
+home and doesn't eat them, and then I am obliged to put
+them in the balcony because they make the room smell
+faint. Also he meets countrymen with honeycomb on their
+heads, and leads them (by the buttonhole when they have
+one) to this gorgeous establishment and requests the bar to
+buy honeycomb for his breakfast; then it stands upon the
+sideboard uncovered and the flies fall into it. He buys
+owls, too, and castles, and other horrible objects, made in
+bog-oak (that material which is not appreciated at Gad's
+Hill); and he is perpetually snipping pieces out of newspapers
+and sending them all over the world. While I am
+reading he conducts the correspondence, and his great
+delight is to show me seventeen or eighteen letters when I
+come, exhausted, into the retiring-place. Berry has not
+got into any particular trouble for forty-eight hours, except<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[61]</a></span>
+that he is all over boils. I have prescribed the yeast, but
+ineffectually. It is indeed a sight to see him and John
+sitting in pay-boxes, and surveying Ireland out of pigeon-holes.</p>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<i>Same Evening before Bed-time.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<p>Everybody was at "Little Dombey" to-day, and
+although I had some little difficulty to work them up
+in consequence of the excessive crowding of the place, and
+the difficulty of shaking the people into their seats, the
+effect was unmistakable and profound. The crying was
+universal, and they were extraordinarily affected. There is
+no doubt we could stay here a week with that one reading,
+and fill the place every night. Hundreds of people have
+been there to-night, under the impression that it would come
+off again. It was a most decided and complete success.</p>
+
+<p>Arthur has been imploring me to stop here on the Friday
+after Limerick, and read "Little Dombey" again. But I
+have positively said "No." The work is too hard. It is
+not like doing it in one easy room, and always the same
+room. With a different place every night, and a different
+audience with its own peculiarity every night, it is a
+tremendous strain. I was sick of it to-day before I began,
+then got myself into wonderful train.</p>
+
+<p>Here follows a dialogue (but it requires imitation), which
+I had yesterday morning with a little boy of the house&mdash;landlord's
+son, I suppose&mdash;about Plorn's age. I am sitting
+on the sofa writing, and find him sitting beside me.</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p><span class="smcap">Inimitable.</span> Holloa, old chap.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Young Ireland.</span> Hal-loo!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Inimitable</span> (<i>in his delightful way</i>). What a nice old fellow you are. I
+am very fond of little boys.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Young Ireland.</span> Air yer? Ye'r right.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[62]</a></span></p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Inimitable.</span> What do you learn, old fellow?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Young Ireland</span> (<i>very intent on Inimitable, and always childish, except in
+his brogue</i>). I lairn wureds of three sillibils, and wureds of two sillibils,
+and wureds of one sillibil.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Inimitable</span> (<i>gaily</i>). Get out, you humbug! You learn only words of
+one syllable.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Young Ireland</span> (<i>laughs heartily</i>). You may say that it is mostly
+wureds of one sillibil.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Inimitable.</span> Can you write?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Young Ireland.</span> Not yet. Things comes by deegrays.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Inimitable.</span> Can you cipher?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Young Ireland</span> (<i>very quickly</i>). Wha'at's that?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Inimitable.</span> Can you make figures?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Young Ireland.</span> I can make a nought, which is not asy, being roond.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Inimitable.</span> I say, old boy, wasn't it you I saw on Sunday morning in
+the hall, in a soldier's cap? You know&mdash;in a soldier's cap?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Young Ireland</span> (<i>cogitating deeply</i>). Was it a very good cap?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Inimitable.</span> Yes.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Young Ireland.</span> Did it fit unkommon?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Inimitable.</span> Yes.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Young Ireland.</span> Dat was me!</p></div>
+
+<p>There are two stupid old louts at the room, to show
+people into their places, whom John calls "them two old
+Paddies," and of whom he says, that he "never see nothing
+like them (snigger) hold idiots" (snigger). They bow and
+walk backwards before the grandees, and our men hustle
+them while they are doing it.</p>
+
+<p>We walked out last night, with the intention of going
+to the theatre; but the Piccolomini establishment (they were
+doing the "Lucia") looked so horribly like a very bad jail,
+and the Queen's looked so blackguardly, that we came back
+again, and went to bed. I seem to be always either in a
+railway carriage, or reading, or going to bed. I get so
+knocked up, whenever I have a minute to remember it, that
+then I go to bed as a matter of course.</p>
+
+<p>I send my love to the noble Plorn, and to all the boys.
+To dear Mamie and Katie, and to yourself of course, in the
+first degree. I am looking forward to the last Irish reading<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[63]</a></span>
+on Thursday, with great impatience. But when we shall
+have turned this week, once knocked off Belfast, I shall see
+land, and shall (like poor Timber in the days of old) "keep
+up a good heart." I get so wonderfully hot every night in
+my dress clothes, that they positively won't dry in the short
+interval they get, and I have been obliged to write to
+Doudney's to make me another suit, that I may have a
+constant change.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Ever, my dearest Georgy, most affectionately.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Miss
+Dickens.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Belfast</span>, <i>Saturday, Aug. 28th, 1858.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<p>When I went down to the Rotunda at Dublin on Thursday
+night, I said to Arthur, who came rushing at me: "You
+needn't tell me. I know all about it." The moment I had
+come out of the door of the hotel (a mile off), I had come
+against the stream of people turned away. I had struggled
+against it to the room. There, the crowd in all the lobbies
+and passages was so great, that I had a difficulty in getting
+in. They had broken all the glass in the pay-boxes. They
+had offered frantic prices for stalls. Eleven bank-notes were
+thrust into that pay-box (Arthur saw them) at one time, for
+eleven stalls. Our men were flattened against walls, and
+squeezed against beams. Ladies stood all night with their
+chins against my platform. Other ladies sat all night upon
+my steps. You never saw such a sight. And the reading
+went tremendously! It is much to be regretted that we
+troubled ourselves to go anywhere else in Ireland. We
+turned away people enough to make immense houses for a
+week.</p>
+
+<p>We arrived here yesterday at two. The room will not
+hold more than from eighty to ninety pounds. The same
+scene was repeated with the additional feature, that the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[64]</a></span>
+people are much rougher here than in Dublin, and that there
+was a very great uproar at the opening of the doors, which,
+the police in attendance being quite inefficient and only looking
+on, it was impossible to check. Arthur was in the
+deepest misery because shillings got into stalls, and half-crowns
+got into shillings, and stalls got nowhere, and there
+was immense confusion. It ceased, however, the moment I
+showed myself; and all went most brilliantly, in spite of a
+great piece of the cornice of the ceiling falling with a great
+crash within four or five inches of the head of a young lady
+on my platform (I was obliged to have people there), and in
+spite of my gas suddenly going out at the time of the game
+of forfeits at Scrooge's nephew's, through some Belfastian
+gentleman accidentally treading on the flexible pipe, and
+needing to be relighted.</p>
+
+<p>We shall not get to Cork before mid-day on Monday; it
+being difficult to get from here on a Sunday. We hope to
+be able to start away to-morrow morning to see the Giant's
+Causeway (some sixteen miles off), and in that case we shall
+sleep at Dublin to-morrow night, leaving here by the train
+at half-past three in the afternoon. Dublin, you must
+understand, is on the way to Cork. This is a fine place,
+surrounded by lofty hills. The streets are very wide, and
+the place is very prosperous. The whole ride from Dublin
+here is through a very picturesque and various country;
+and the amazing thing is, that it is all particularly neat and
+orderly, and that the houses (outside at all events) are all
+brightly whitewashed and remarkably clean. I want to
+climb one of the neighbouring hills before this morning's
+"Dombey." I am now waiting for Arthur, who has gone
+to the bank to remit his last accumulation of treasure to
+London.</p>
+
+<p>Our men are rather indignant with the Irish crowds,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[65]</a></span>
+because in the struggle they don't sell books, and because,
+in the pressure, they can't force a way into the room afterwards
+to sell them. They are deeply interested in the
+success, however, and are as zealous and ardent as possible.
+I shall write to Katie next. Give her my best love, and kiss
+the darling Plorn for me, and give my love to all the boys.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+<span style="margin-right: 6em;">Ever, my dearest Mamie,</span><br />
+Your most affectionate Father.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Miss
+Hogarth.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Morrison's Hotel, Dublin,</span> <i>Sunday Night, Aug. 29th, 1858.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<p>I am so delighted to find your letter here to-night
+(eleven o'clock), and so afraid that, in the wear and tear of
+this strange life, I have written to Gad's Hill in the wrong
+order, and have not written to you, as I should, that I
+resolve to write this before going to bed. You will find it
+a wretchedly stupid letter; but you may imagine, my
+dearest girl, that I am tired.</p>
+
+<p>The success at Belfast has been equal to the success
+here. Enormous! We turned away half the town. I
+think them a better audience, on the whole, than Dublin;
+and the personal affection there was something overwhelming.
+I wish you and the dear girls could have seen the
+people look at me in the street; or heard them ask me, as I
+hurried to the hotel after reading last night, to "do me the
+honour to shake hands, Misther Dickens, and God bless you,
+sir; not ounly for the light you've been to me this night,
+but for the light you've been in mee house, sir (and God
+love your face), this many a year." Every night, by-the-bye,
+since I have been in Ireland, the ladies have beguiled
+John out of the bouquet from my coat. And yesterday
+morning, as I had showered the leaves from my geranium<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[66]</a></span>
+in reading "Little Dombey," they mounted the platform,
+after I was gone, and picked them all up as keepsakes!</p>
+
+<p>I have never seen <i>men</i> go in to cry so undisguisedly as
+they did at that reading yesterday afternoon. They made
+no attempt whatever to hide it, and certainly cried more
+than the women. As to the "Boots" at night, and
+"Mrs. Gamp" too, it was just one roar with me and them;
+for they made me laugh so that sometimes I <i>could not</i>
+compose my face to go on.</p>
+
+<p>You must not let the new idea of poor dear Landor efface
+the former image of the fine old man. I wouldn't blot him
+out, in his tender gallantry, as he sat upon that bed at
+Forster's that night, for a million of wild mistakes at eighty
+years of age.</p>
+
+<p>I hope to be at Tavistock House before five o'clock next
+Saturday morning, and to lie in bed half the day, and
+come home by the 10.50 on Sunday.</p>
+
+<p>Tell the girls that Arthur and I have each ordered at
+Belfast a trim, sparkling, slap-up <i>Irish jaunting-car!!!</i> I
+flatter myself we shall astonish the Kentish people. It is
+the oddest carriage in the world, and you are always falling
+off. But it is gay and bright in the highest degree.
+Wonderfully Neapolitan.</p>
+
+<p>What with a sixteen mile ride before we left Belfast,
+and a sea-beach walk, and a two o'clock dinner, and a seven
+hours' railway ride since, I am&mdash;as we say here&mdash;"a thrifle
+weary." But I really am in wonderful force, considering
+the work. For which I am, as I ought to be, very thankful.</p>
+
+<p>Arthur was exceedingly unwell last night&mdash;could not
+cheer up at all. He was so very unwell that he left the
+hall(!) and became invisible after my five minutes' rest.
+I found him at the hotel in a jacket and slippers, and with
+a hot bath just ready. He was in the last stage of prostration.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[67]</a></span>
+The local agent was with me, and proposed that he
+(the wretched Arthur) should go to his office and balance
+the accounts then and there. He went, in the jacket and
+slippers, and came back in twenty minutes, <i>perfectly well</i>,
+in consequence of the admirable balance. He is now
+sitting opposite to me <span class="smcap">on the bag of silver</span>, forty pounds
+(it must be dreadfully hard), writing to Boulogne.</p>
+
+<p>I suppose it is clear that the next letter I write is
+Katie's. Either from Cork or from Limerick, it shall report
+further. At Limerick I read in the theatre, there being no
+other place.</p>
+
+<p>Best love to Mamie and Katie, and dear Plorn, and all
+the boys left when this comes to Gad's Hill; also to my
+dear good Anne, and her little woman.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Ever affectionately.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mr. W.
+Wilkie
+Collins.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span style="margin-right: 2em;"><span class="smcap">Gad's Hill Place, Higham by Rochester, Kent</span>,</span><br />
+<i>Monday, Sept. 6th, 1858.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='unindent'><span class='smcap'>My dear Wilkie</span>,</div>
+
+<p>First, let me report myself here for something less
+than eight-and-forty hours. I come last (and direct&mdash;a
+pretty hard journey) from Limerick. The success in Ireland
+has been immense.</p>
+
+<p>The work is very hard, sometimes overpowering; but I
+am none the worse for it, and arrived here quite fresh.</p>
+
+<p>Secondly, will you let me recommend the enclosed letter
+from Wigan, as the groundwork of a capital article, in your
+way, for H. W.? There is not the least objection to a plain
+reference to him, or to Phelps, to whom the same thing
+happened a year or two ago, near Islington, in the case of
+a clever and capital little daughter of his. I think it a
+capital opportunity for a discourse on gentility, with a
+glance at those other schools which advertise that the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[68]</a></span>
+"sons of gentlemen only" are admitted, and a just recognition
+of the greater liberality of our public schools. There
+are tradesmen's sons at Eton, and Charles Kean was at
+Eton, and Macready (also an actor's son) was at Rugby.
+Some such title as "Scholastic Flunkeydom," or anything
+infinitely contemptuous, would help out the meaning.
+Surely such a schoolmaster must swallow all the silver forks
+that the pupils are expected to take when they come, and
+are not expected to take away with them when they go.
+And of course he could not exist, unless he had flunkey
+customers by the dozen.</p>
+
+<p>Secondly&mdash;no, this is thirdly now&mdash;about the Christmas
+number. I have arranged so to stop my readings, as to be
+available for it on <i>the 15th of November</i>, which will leave
+me time to write a good article, if I clear my way to one.
+Do you see your way to our making a Christmas number of
+this idea that I am going very briefly to hint? Some disappointed
+person, man or woman, prematurely disgusted
+with the world, for some reason or no reason (the person
+should be young, I think) retires to an old lonely house,
+or an old lonely mill, or anything you like, with one
+attendant, resolved to shut out the world, and hold no
+communion with it. The one attendant sees the absurdity
+of the idea, pretends to humour it, but really thus to
+slaughter it. Everything that happens, everybody that
+comes near, every breath of human interest that floats into
+the old place from the village, or the heath, or the four
+cross-roads near which it stands, and from which belated
+travellers stray into it, shows beyond mistake that you can't
+shut out the world; that you are in it, to be of it; that you
+get into a false position the moment you try to sever yourself
+from it; and that you must mingle with it, and make the
+best of it, and make the best of yourself into the bargain.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[69]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>If we could plot out a way of doing this together, I would
+not be afraid to take my part. If we could not, could we
+plot out a way of doing it, and taking in stories by other
+hands? If we could not do either (but I think we could),
+shall we fall back upon a round of stories again? That I
+would rather not do, if possible. Will you think about it?</p>
+
+<p>And can you come and dine at Tavistock House <i>on
+Monday, the 20th September, at half-past five?</i> I purpose
+being at home there with the girls that day.</p>
+
+<p>Answer this, according to my printed list for the week.
+I am off to Huddersfield on Wednesday morning.</p>
+
+<p>I think I will now leave off; merely adding that I have
+got a splendid brogue (it really is exactly like the people),
+and that I think of coming out as the only legitimate
+successor of poor Power.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Ever, my dear Wilkie, affectionately yours.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Miss Mary
+Boyle.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Station Hotel, York</span>, <i>Friday, Sept. 10th, 1858.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='unindent'><span class='smcap'>Dearest Meery</span>,</div>
+
+<p>First let me tell you that all the magicians and
+spirits in your employ have fulfilled the instructions of their
+wondrous mistress to admiration. Flowers have fallen in
+my path wherever I have trod; and when they rained upon
+me at Cork I was more amazed than you ever saw me.</p>
+
+<p>Secondly, receive my hearty and loving thanks for that
+same. (Excuse a little Irish in the turn of that sentence,
+but I can't help it).</p>
+
+<p>Thirdly, I have written direct to Mr. Boddington, explaining
+that I am bound to be in Edinburgh on the day
+when he courteously proposes to do me honour.</p>
+
+<p>I really cannot tell you how truly and tenderly I feel
+your letter, and how gratified I am by its contents. Your<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[70]</a></span>
+truth and attachment are always so precious to me that I
+can<i>not</i> get my heart out on my sleeve to show it you. It
+is like a child, and, at the sound of some familiar voices,
+"goes and hides."</p>
+
+<p>You know what an affection I have for Mrs. Watson,
+and how happy it made me to see her again&mdash;younger,
+much, than when I first knew her in Switzerland.</p>
+
+<p>God bless you always!</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Ever affectionately yours.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Miss
+Hogarth.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Royal Hotel, Scarborough</span>, <i>Sunday, Sept. 11th, 1858.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='unindent'><span class='smcap'>My dearest Georgy</span>,</div>
+
+<p>We had a very fine house indeed at York. All
+kinds of applications have been made for another reading
+there, and no doubt it would be exceedingly productive;
+but it cannot be done. At Harrogate yesterday; the
+queerest place, with the strangest people in it, leading the
+oddest lives of dancing, newspaper reading, and tables
+d'h&ocirc;te. The piety of York obliging us to leave that place
+for this at six this morning, and there being no night
+train from Harrogate, we had to engage a special engine.
+We got to bed at one, and were up again before five;
+which, after yesterday's fatigues, leaves me a little worn
+out at this present.</p>
+
+<p>I have no accounts of this place as yet, nor have I
+received any letter here. But the post of this morning is
+not yet delivered, I believe. We have a charming room,
+overlooking the sea. Leech is here (living within a few
+doors), with the partner of his bosom, and his young family.
+I write at ten in the morning, having been here two hours;
+and you will readily suppose that I have not seen him.</p>
+
+<p>Of news, I have not the faintest breath. I seem to have<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[71]</a></span>
+been doing nothing all my life but riding in railway-carriages
+and reading. The railway of the morning brought
+us through Castle Howard, and under the woods of
+Easthorpe, and then just below Malton Abbey, where I
+went to poor Smithson's funeral. It was a most lovely
+morning, and, tired as I was, I couldn't sleep for looking
+out of window.</p>
+
+<p>Yesterday, at Harrogate, two circumstances occurred
+which gave Arthur great delight. Firstly, he chafed his
+legs sore with his black bag of silver. Secondly, the landlord
+asked him as a favour, "If he could oblige him with a
+little silver." He obliged him directly with some forty
+pounds' worth; and I suspect the landlord to have repented
+of having approached the subject. After the reading last
+night we walked over the moor to the railway, three miles,
+leaving our men to follow with the luggage in a light cart.
+They passed us just short of the railway, and John was
+making the night hideous and terrifying the sleeping country,
+by <i>playing the horn</i> in prodigiously horrible and unmusical
+blasts.</p>
+
+<p>My dearest love, of course, to the dear girls, and to the
+noble Plorn. Apropos of children, there was one gentleman
+at the "Little Dombey" yesterday morning, who exhibited,
+or rather concealed, the profoundest grief. After crying a
+good deal without hiding it, he covered his face with both
+his hands, and laid it down on the back of the seat before
+him, and really shook with emotion. He was not in mourning,
+but I supposed him to have lost some child in old time.
+There was a remarkably good fellow of thirty or so, too, who
+found something so very ludicrous in "Toots," that he
+<i>could not</i> compose himself at all, but laughed until he sat
+wiping his eyes with his handkerchief. And whenever he
+felt "Toots" coming again he began to laugh and wipe his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[72]</a></span>
+eyes afresh, and when he came he gave a kind of cry, as if
+it were too much for him. It was uncommonly droll, and
+made me laugh heartily.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Ever, dear Georgy, your most affectionate.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Miss
+Dickens.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Scarborough Arms, Leeds</span>, <i>Wednesday, Sept. 15th, 1858.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='unindent'><span class='smcap'>My dearest Mamie</span>,</div>
+
+
+<p>I have added a pound to the cheque. I would
+recommend your seeing the poor railway man again and
+giving him ten shillings, and telling him to let you see him
+again in about a week. If he be then still unable to lift
+weights and handle heavy things, I would then give him
+another ten shillings, and so on.</p>
+
+<p>Since I wrote to Georgy from Scarborough, we have
+had, thank God, nothing but success. The Hull people
+(not generally considered excitable, even on their own showing)
+were so enthusiastic, that we were obliged to promise
+to go back there for two readings. I have positively
+resolved not to lengthen out the time of my tour, so we are
+now arranging to drop some small places, and substitute
+Hull again and York again. But you will perhaps have
+heard this in the main from Arthur. I know he wrote to
+you after the reading last night. This place I have
+always doubted, knowing that we should come here when
+it was recovering from the double excitement of the festival
+and the Queen. But there is a very large hall let indeed,
+and the prospect of to-night consequently looks bright.</p>
+
+<p>Arthur told you, I suppose, that he had his shirt-front
+and waistcoat torn off last night? He was perfectly
+enraptured in consequence. Our men got so knocked
+about that he gave them five shillings apiece on the spot.
+John passed several minutes upside down against a wall,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[73]</a></span>
+with his head amongst the people's boots. He came out of
+the difficulty in an exceedingly touzled condition, and with
+his face much flushed. For all this, and their being packed
+as you may conceive they would be packed, they settled
+down the instant I went in, and never wavered in the
+closest attention for an instant. It was a very high room,
+and required a great effort.</p>
+
+<p>Oddly enough, I slept in this house three days last
+year with Wilkie. Arthur has the bedroom I occupied
+then, and I have one two doors from it, and Gordon
+has the one between. Not only is he still with
+us, but he <i>has</i> talked of going on to Manchester, going
+on to London, and coming back with us to Darlington next
+Tuesday!!!</p>
+
+<p>These streets look like a great circus with the season
+just finished. All sorts of garish triumphal arches were
+put up for the Queen, and they have got smoky, and have
+been looked out of countenance by the sun, and are
+blistered and patchy, and half up and half down, and are
+hideous to behold. Spiritless men (evidently drunk for
+some time in the royal honour) are slowly removing them,
+and on the whole it is more like the clearing away of "The
+Frozen Deep" at Tavistock House than anything within your
+knowledge&mdash;with the exception that we are not in the least
+sorry, as we were then. Vague ideas are in Arthur's head
+that when we come back to Hull, we are to come here, and
+are to have the Town Hall (a beautiful building), and read
+to the million. I can't say yet. That depends. I remember
+that when I was here before (I came from Rockingham
+to make a speech), I thought them a dull and slow audience.
+I hope I may have been mistaken. I never saw better
+audiences than the Yorkshire audiences generally.</p>
+
+<p>I am so perpetually at work or asleep, that I have not a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[74]</a></span>
+scrap of news. I saw the Leech family at Scarboro', both in
+my own house (that is to say, hotel) and in theirs. They
+were not at either reading. Scarboro' is gay and pretty,
+and I think Gordon had an idea that we were always at
+some such place.</p>
+
+<p>Kiss the darling Plorn for me, and give him my love;
+dear Katie too, giving her the same. I feel sorry that I
+cannot get down to Gad's Hill this next time, but I shall
+look forward to our being there with Georgy, after Scotland.
+Tell the servants that I remember them, and hope they will
+live with us many years.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+<span style="margin-right: 6em;">Ever, my dearest Mamie,</span><br />
+Your most affectionate Father.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Miss
+Hogarth.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">King's Head, Sheffield</span>, <i>Friday, Sept. 17th, 1858.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<p>I write you a few lines to Tavistock House, thinking
+you may not be sorry to find a note from me there on your
+arrival from Gad's Hill.</p>
+
+<p>Halifax was too small for us. I never saw such an
+audience though. They were really worth reading to for
+nothing, though I didn't do exactly that. It is as horrible
+a place as I ever saw, I think.</p>
+
+<p>The run upon the tickets here is so immense that Arthur
+is obliged to get great bills out, signifying that no more can
+be sold. It will be by no means easy to get into the place
+the numbers who have already paid. It is the hall we acted
+in. Crammed to the roof and the passages. We must come
+back here towards the end of October, and are again altering
+the list and striking out small places.</p>
+
+<p>The trains are so strange and unintelligible in this part
+of the country that we were obliged to leave Halifax at eight
+this morning, and breakfast on the road&mdash;at Huddersfield<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[75]</a></span>
+again, where we had an hour's wait. Wills was in attendance
+on the platform, and took me (here at Sheffield, I
+mean) out to Frederick Lehmann's house to see Mrs. Wills.
+She looked pretty much the same as ever, I thought, and
+was taking care of a very pretty little boy. The house and
+grounds are as nice as anything <i>can</i> be in this smoke. A
+heavy thunderstorm is passing over the town, and it is raining
+hard too.</p>
+
+<p>This is a stupid letter, my dearest Georgy, but I write
+in a hurry, and in the thunder and lightning, and with the
+crowd of to-night before me.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Ever most affectionately.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Miss
+Hogarth.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span style="margin-right: 2em;"><span class="smcap">Station Hotel, Newcastle-on-Tyne</span>,</span><br />
+<i>Sunday, Sept. 26th, 1858.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='center'><small>EXTRACT.</small></div>
+
+<p>The girls (as I have no doubt they have already told you
+for themselves) arrived here in good time yesterday, and
+in very fresh condition. They persisted in going to the
+room last night, though I had arranged for their remaining
+quiet.</p>
+
+<p>We have done a vast deal here. I suppose you know
+that we are going to Berwick, and that we mean to sleep
+there and go on to Edinburgh on Monday morning, arriving
+there before noon? If it be as fine to-morrow as it is
+to-day, the girls will see the coast piece of railway between
+Berwick and Edinburgh to great advantage. I was anxious
+that they should, because that kind of pleasure is really
+almost the only one they are likely to have in their present
+trip.</p>
+
+<p>Stanfield and Roberts are in Edinburgh, and the Scottish
+Royal Academy gave them a dinner on Wednesday, to which<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[76]</a></span>
+I was very pressingly invited. But, of course, my going was
+impossible. I read twice that day.</p>
+
+<p>Remembering what you do of Sunderland, you will be
+surprised that our profit there was very considerable. I read
+in a beautiful new theatre, and (I thought to myself) quite
+wonderfully. Such an audience I never beheld for rapidity
+and enthusiasm. The room in which we acted (converted
+into a theatre afterwards) was burnt to the ground a year or
+two ago. We found the hotel, so bad in our time, really
+good. I walked from Durham to Sunderland, and from
+Sunderland to Newcastle.</p>
+
+<p>Don't you think, as we shall be at home at eleven in the
+forenoon this day fortnight, that it will be best for you and
+Plornish to come to Tavistock House for that Sunday, and
+for us all to go down to Gad's Hill next day? My best love
+to the noble Plornish. If he is quite reconciled to the postponement
+of his trousers, I should like to behold his first
+appearance in them. But, if not, as he is such a good
+fellow, I think it would be a pity to disappoint and try him.</p>
+
+<p>And now, my dearest Georgy, I think I have said all I
+have to say before I go out for a little air. I had a very hard
+day yesterday, and am tired.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Ever your most affectionate.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mr. John
+Forster.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span style="margin-right: 2em;"><span class="smcap">Tavistock House, Tavistock Square, London</span>,</span><br />
+<i>Sunday, Oct. 10th, 1858.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='unindent'><span class='smcap'>My dear Forster</span>,</div>
+
+<p>As to the truth of the readings, I cannot tell you
+what the demonstrations of personal regard and respect are.
+How the densest and most uncomfortably-packed crowd
+will be hushed in an instant when I show my face. How
+the youth of colleges, and the old men of business in the
+town, seem equally unable to get near enough to me when<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[77]</a></span>
+they cheer me away at night. How common people and
+gentlefolks will stop me in the streets and say: "Mr. Dickens,
+will you let me touch the hand that has filled my home with
+so many friends?" And if you saw the mothers, and fathers,
+and sisters, and brothers in mourning, who invariably come
+to "Little Dombey," and if you studied the wonderful
+expression of comfort and reliance with which they hang
+about me, as if I had been with them, all kindness and
+delicacy, at their own little death-bed, you would think it
+one of the strangest things in the world.</p>
+
+<p>As to the mere effect, of course I don't go on doing the
+thing so often without carefully observing myself and the
+people too in every little thing, and without (in consequence)
+greatly improving in it.</p>
+
+<p>At Aberdeen, we were crammed to the street twice in
+one day. At Perth (where I thought when I arrived there
+literally could be nobody to come), the nobility came posting
+in from thirty miles round, and the whole town came and
+filled an immense hall. As to the effect, if you had seen them
+after Lilian died, in "The Chimes," or when Scrooge woke and
+talked to the boy outside the window, I doubt if you would
+ever have forgotten it. And at the end of "Dombey"
+yesterday afternoon, in the cold light of day, they all got
+up, after a short pause, gentle and simple, and thundered
+and waved their hats with that astonishing heartiness and
+fondness for me, that for the first time in all my public
+career they took me completely off my legs, and I saw the
+whole eighteen hundred of them reel on one side as if a
+shock from without had shaken the hall.</p>
+
+<p>The dear girls have enjoyed themselves immensely, and
+their trip has been a great success. I hope I told you (but
+I forget whether I did or no) how splendidly Newcastle<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[78]</a></span><a name="FNanchor_4_4" id="FNanchor_4_4"></a><a href="#Footnote_4_4" class="fnanchor">[4]</a>
+came out. I am reminded of Newcastle at the moment
+because they joined me there.</p>
+
+<p>I am anxious to get to the end of my readings, and to
+be at home again, and able to sit down and think in my
+own study. But the fatigue, though sometimes very great
+indeed, hardly tells upon me at all. And although all our
+people, from Smith downwards, have given in, more or less,
+at times, I have never been in the least unequal to the
+work, though sometimes sufficiently disinclined for it. My
+kindest and best love to Mrs. Forster.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Ever affectionately.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Miss
+Dickens.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Royal Hotel, Derby,</span> <i>Friday, Oct. 22nd, 1858.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='unindent'><span class='smcap'>My dearest Mamie</span>,</div>
+
+<p>I am writing in a very poor condition; I have a bad
+cold all over me, pains in my back and limbs, and a very
+sensitive and uncomfortable throat. There was a great
+draught up some stone steps near me last night, and I
+daresay that caused it.</p>
+
+<p>The weather on my first two nights at Birmingham was
+so intolerably bad&mdash;it blew hard, and never left off raining
+for one single moment&mdash;that the houses were not what
+they otherwise would have been. On the last night the
+weather cleared, and we had a grand house.</p>
+
+<p>Last night at Nottingham was almost, if not quite, the
+most amazing we have had. It is not a very large place,
+and the room is by no means a very large one, but three
+hundred and twenty stalls were let, and all the other tickets
+were sold.</p>
+
+<p>Here we have two hundred and twenty stalls let for
+to-night, and the other tickets are gone in proportion. It
+is a pretty room, but not large.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[79]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>I have just been saying to Arthur that if there is not a
+large let for York, I would rather give it up, and get
+Monday at Gad's Hill. We have telegraphed to know. If
+the answer comes (as I suppose it will) before post time, I
+will tell you in a postscript what we decide to do. Coming
+to London in the night of to-morrow (Saturday), and having
+to see Mr. Ouvry on Sunday, and having to start for
+York early on Monday, I fear I should not be able to get to
+Gad's Hill at all. You won't expect me till you see me.</p>
+
+<p>Arthur and I have considered Plornish's joke in all the
+immense number of aspects in which it presents itself to
+reflective minds. We have come to the conclusion that it is
+the best joke ever made. Give the dear boy my love, and
+the same to Georgy, and the same to Katey, and take the
+same yourself. Arthur (excessively low and inarticulate)
+mutters that he "unites."</p>
+
+<p>[We knocked up Boylett, Berry, and John so frightfully
+yesterday, by tearing the room to pieces and altogether
+reversing it, as late as four o'clock, that we gave them a
+supper last night. They shine all over to-day, as if it had
+been entirely composed of grease.]</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+<span style="margin-right: 6em;">Ever, my dearest Mamie,</span><br />
+Your most affectionate Father.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Miss
+Hogarth.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Wolverhampton,</span> <i>Wednesday, Nov. 3rd, 1858.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<p>Little Leamington came out in the most amazing
+manner yesterday&mdash;turned away hundreds upon hundreds
+of people. They are represented as the dullest and worst
+of audiences. I found them very good indeed, even in the
+morning.</p>
+
+<p>There awaited me at the hotel, a letter from the
+Rev. Mr. Young, Wentworth Watson's tutor, saying that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[80]</a></span>
+Mrs. Watson wished her boy to shake hands with me, and that
+he would bring him in the evening. I expected him at the
+hotel before the readings. But he did not come. He spoke
+to John about it in the room at night. The crowd and
+confusion, however, were very great, and I saw nothing of
+him. In his letter he said that Mrs. Watson was at Paris on
+her way home, and would be at Brighton at the end of this
+week. I suppose I shall see her there at the end of next
+week.</p>
+
+<p>We find a let of two hundred stalls here, which is very
+large for this place. The evening being fine too, and blue
+being to be seen in the sky beyond the smoke, we expect to
+have a very full hall. Tell Mamey and Katey that if they
+had been with us on the railway to-day between Leamington
+and this place, they would have seen (though it is only an
+hour and ten minutes by the express) fires and smoke
+indeed. We came through a part of the Black Country that
+you know, and it looked at its blackest. All the furnaces
+seemed in full blast, and all the coal-pits to be working.</p>
+
+<p>It is market-day here, and the ironmasters are standing
+out in the street (where they always hold high change),
+making such an iron hum and buzz, that they confuse me
+horribly. In addition, there is a bellman announcing something&mdash;not
+the readings, I beg to say&mdash;and there is an
+excavation being made in the centre of the open place, for
+a statue, or a pump, or a lamp-post, or something or other,
+round which all the Wolverhampton boys are yelling and
+struggling.</p>
+
+<p>And here is Arthur, begging to have dinner at half-past
+three instead of four, because he foresees "a wiry evening"
+in store for him. Under which complication of distractions,
+to which a waitress with a tray at this moment adds herself,
+I sink, and leave off.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[81]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>My best love to the dear girls, and to the noble Plorn,
+and to you. Marguerite and Ellen Stone not forgotten.
+All yesterday and to-day I have been doing everything to
+the tune of:</p>
+
+<div class='center'>
+And the day is dark and dreary.<br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+<span style="margin-right: 6em;">Ever, dearest Georgy,</span><br />
+Your most affectionate and faithful.<br />
+</div>
+
+<p>P.S.&mdash;I hope the brazier is intolerably hot, and half
+stifles all the family. Then, and not otherwise, I shall think
+it in satisfactory work.</p>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Rev.
+James
+White.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span style="margin-right: 2em;"><span class="smcap">Tavistock House, Tavistock Square, London, W. C.,</span></span><br />
+<i>Friday, Nov. 5th, 1858.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='unindent'><span class='smcap'>My dear White</span>,</div>
+
+<p>May I entreat you to thank Mr. Carter very
+earnestly and kindly in my name, for his proffered hospitality;
+and, further, to explain to him that since my readings
+began, I have known them to be incompatible with all
+social enjoyments, and have neither set foot in a friend's
+house nor sat down to a friend's table in any one of all the
+many places I have been to, but have rigidly kept myself to
+my hotels. To this resolution I must hold until the last.
+There is not the least virtue in it. It is a matter of stern
+necessity, and I submit with the worst grace possible.</p>
+
+<p>Will you let me know, either at Southampton or Portsmouth,
+whether any of you, and how many of you, if any,
+are coming over, so that Arthur Smith may reserve good
+seats? Tell Lotty I hope she does not contemplate coming
+to the morning reading; I always hate it so myself.</p>
+
+<p>Mary and Katey are down at Gad's Hill with Georgy
+and Plornish, and they have Marguerite Power and Ellen
+Stone staying there. I am sorry to say that even my<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[82]</a></span>
+benevolence descries no prospect of their being able to
+come to my native place.</p>
+
+<p>On Saturday week, the 13th, my tour, please God, ends.</p>
+
+<p>My best love to Mrs. White, and to Lotty, and to Clara.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Ever, my dear White, affectionately 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">Tavistock House, Tavistock Square, London, W.C.</span>,</span><br />
+<i>Monday, Dec. 13th, 1858.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='unindent'><span class='smcap'>My dear Stone</span>,</div>
+
+<p>Many thanks for these discourses. They are very
+good, I think, as expressing what many men have felt and
+thought; otherwise not specially remarkable. They have
+one fatal mistake, which is a canker at the foot of their
+ever being widely useful. Half the misery and hypocrisy
+of the Christian world arises (as I take it) from a stubborn
+determination to refuse the New Testament as a sufficient
+guide in itself, and to force the Old Testament into alliance
+with it&mdash;whereof comes all manner of camel-swallowing and
+of gnat-straining. But so to resent this miserable error, or
+to (by any implication) depreciate the divine goodness and
+beauty of the New Testament, is to commit even a worse
+error. And to class Jesus Christ with Mahomet is simply
+audacity and folly. I might as well hoist myself on to a
+high platform, to inform my disciples that the lives of King
+George the Fourth and of King Alfred the Great belonged
+to one and the same category.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Ever affectionately.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mr. B. W.
+Procter.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Tavistock House</span>, <i>Sunday, Dec. 18th, 1858.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='unindent'><span class='smcap'>My dear Procter</span>,</div>
+
+<p>A thousand thanks for the little song. I am charmed
+with it, and shall be delighted to brighten "Household<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[83]</a></span>
+Words" with such a wise and genial light. I no more
+believe that your poetical faculty has gone by, than I
+believe that you have yourself passed to the better land.
+You and it will travel thither in company, rely upon it. So
+I still hope to hear more of the trade-songs, and to learn
+that the blacksmith has hammered out no end of iron into
+good fashion of verse, like a cunning workman, as I know
+him of old to be.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Very faithfully yours, my dear Procter.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>1859.</h2>
+
+<h3>NARRATIVE.</h3>
+
+
+<div class='unindent'><span class='smcap'>During</span> the winter, Charles Dickens was living at Tavistock
+House, removing to Gad's Hill for the summer early in
+June, and returning to London in November. At this time
+a change was made in his weekly journal. "Household
+Words" became absolutely his own&mdash;Mr. Wills being his
+partner and editor, as before&mdash;and was "incorporated with
+'All the Year Round,'" under which title it was known
+thenceforth. The office was still in Wellington Street, but
+in a different house. The first number with the new name
+appeared on the 30th April, and it contained the opening
+of "A Tale of Two Cities."</div>
+
+<p>The first letter which follows shows that a proposal for
+a series of readings in America had already been made to
+him. It was carefully considered and abandoned for the
+time. But the proposal was constantly renewed, and the
+idea never wholly relinquished for many years before he
+actually decided on making so distant a "reading tour."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Procter contributed to the early numbers of "All
+the Year Round" some very spirited "Songs of the Trades."
+We give notes from Charles Dickens to the veteran poet,
+both in the last year, and in this year, expressing his strong
+approval of them.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[84]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The letter and two notes to Mr. (afterwards Sir Antonio)
+Panizzi, for which we are indebted to Mr. Louis Fagan, one
+of Sir A. Panizzi's executors, show the warm sympathy and
+interest which he always felt for the cause of Italian liberty,
+and for the sufferings of the State prisoners who at this
+time took refuge in England.</p>
+
+<p>We give a little note to the dear friend and companion of
+Charles Dickens's daughters, "Lotty" White, because it is a
+pretty specimen of his writing, and because the young girl,
+who is playfully "commanded" to get well and strong, died
+early in July of this year. She was, at the time this note was
+written, first attacked with the illness which was fatal to all
+her sisters. Mamie and Kate Dickens went from Gad's Hill
+to Bonchurch to pay a last visit to their friend, and he writes
+to his eldest daughter there. Also we give notes of loving
+sympathy and condolence to the bereaved father and mother.</p>
+
+<p>In the course of this summer Charles Dickens was not
+well, and went for a week to his old favourite, Broadstairs&mdash;where
+Mr. Wilkie Collins and his brother, Mr. Charles
+Allston Collins, were staying&mdash;for sea-air and change, preparatory
+to another reading tour, in England only. His
+letter from Peterborough to Mr. Frank Stone, giving him
+an account of a reading at Manchester (Mr. Stone's native
+town), was one of the last ever addressed to that affectionate
+friend, who died very suddenly, to the great grief of Charles
+Dickens, in November. The letter to Mr. Thomas Longman,
+which closes this year, was one of introduction to that
+gentleman of young Marcus Stone, then just beginning his
+career as an artist, and to whom the premature death of his
+father made it doubly desirable that he should have powerful
+helping hands.</p>
+
+<p>Charles Dickens refers, in a letter to Mrs. Watson, to his
+portrait by Mr. Frith, which was finished at the end of 1858.
+It was painted for Mr. Forster, and is now in the "Forster
+Collection" at South Kensington Museum.</p>
+
+<p>The Christmas number of this year, again written by
+several hands as well as his own, was "The Haunted
+House." In November, his story of "A Tale of Two<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[85]</a></span>
+Cities" was finished in "All the Year Round," and in
+December was published, complete, with dedication to Lord
+John Russell.</p>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mr. Arthur
+Smith.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span style="margin-right: 2em;"><span class="smcap">Tavistock House, Tavistock Square, London, W.C.</span>,</span><br />
+<i>Wednesday, Jan. 26th, 1859.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='unindent'><span class='smcap'>My dear Arthur</span>,</div>
+
+<p>Will you first read the enclosed letters, having previously
+welcomed, with all possible cordiality, the bearer,
+Mr. Thomas C. Evans, from New York?</p>
+
+<p>You having read them, let me explain that Mr. Fields is
+a highly respectable and influential man, one of the heads
+of the most classical and most respected publishing house
+in America; that Mr. Richard Grant White is a man of
+high reputation; and that Felton is the Greek Professor in
+their Cambridge University, perhaps the most distinguished
+scholar in the States.</p>
+
+<p>The address to myself, referred to in one of the letters,
+being on its way, it is quite clear that I must give some
+decided and definite answer to the American proposal.
+Now, will you carefully discuss it with Mr. Evans before I
+enter on it at all? Then, will you dine here with him on
+Sunday&mdash;which I will propose to him&mdash;and arrange to meet
+at half-past four for an hour's discussion?</p>
+
+<p>The points are these:</p>
+
+<p>First. I have a very grave question within myself
+whether I could go to America at all.</p>
+
+<p>Secondly. If I did go, I could not possibly go before
+the autumn.</p>
+
+<p>Thirdly. If I did go, how long must I stay?</p>
+
+<p>Fourthly. If the stay were a short one, could <i>you</i> go?</p>
+
+<p>Fifthly. What is his project? What could I make?
+What occurs to you upon his proposal?<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[86]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>I have told him that the business arrangements of the
+readings have been from the first so entirely in your hands,
+that I enter upon nothing connected with them without
+previous reference to you.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Ever faithfully.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">M. de
+Cerjat.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Tavistock House</span>, <i>Tuesday, Feb. 1st, 1859.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='unindent'><span class='smcap'>My dear Cerjat</span>,</div>
+
+<p>I received your always welcome annual with even
+more interest than usual this year, being (in common with
+my two girls and their aunt) much excited and pleased by
+your account of your daughter's engagement. Apart from
+the high sense I have of the affectionate confidence with
+which you tell me what lies so tenderly on your own heart,
+I have followed the little history with a lively sympathy and
+regard for her. I hope, with you, that it is full of promise,
+and that you will all be happy in it. The separation, even
+in the present condition of travel (and no man can say how
+much the discovery of a day may advance it), is nothing.
+And so God bless her and all of you, and may the rosy
+summer bring her all the fulness of joy that we all wish her.</p>
+
+<p>To pass from the altar to Townshend (which is a long
+way), let me report him severely treated by Bully, who
+rules him with a paw of iron; and complaining, moreover,
+of indigestion. He drives here every Sunday, but at all
+other times is mostly shut up in his beautiful house, where
+I occasionally go and dine with him <i>t&ecirc;te-&agrave;-t&ecirc;te</i>, and where
+we always talk of you and drink to you. That is a rule
+with us from which we never depart. He is "seeing a
+volume of poems through the press;" rather an expensive
+amusement. He has not been out at night (except to this
+house) save last Friday, when he went to hear me read
+"The Poor Traveller," "Mrs. Gamp," and "The Trial"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[87]</a></span>
+from "Pickwick." He came into my room at St. Martin's
+Hall, and I fortified him with weak brandy-and-water.
+You will be glad to hear that the said readings are a
+greater <i>furore</i> than they ever have been, and that every
+night on which they now take place&mdash;once a week&mdash;hundreds
+go away, unable to get in, though the hall
+holds thirteen hundred people. I dine with &mdash;&mdash; to-day,
+by-the-bye, along with his agent; concerning whom I
+observe him to be always divided between an unbounded
+confidence and a little latent suspicion. He always tells me
+that he is a gem of the first water; oh yes, the best of
+business men! and then says that he did not quite like
+his conduct respecting that farm-tenant and those hay-ricks.</p>
+
+<p>There is a general impression here, among the best-informed,
+that war in Italy, to begin with, is inevitable, and
+will break out before April. I know a gentleman at Genoa
+(Swiss by birth), deeply in with the authorities at Turin,
+who is already sending children home.</p>
+
+<p>In England we are quiet enough. There is a world of
+talk, as you know, about Reform bills; but I don't believe
+there is any general strong feeling on the subject. According
+to my perceptions, it is undeniable that the public has
+fallen into a state of indifference about public affairs, mainly
+referable, as I think, to the people who administer them&mdash;and
+there I mean the people of all parties&mdash;which is a very
+bad sign of the times. The general mind seems weary of
+debates and honourable members, and to have taken <i>laissez-aller</i>
+for its motto.</p>
+
+<p>My affairs domestic (which I know are not without their
+interest for you) flow peacefully. My eldest daughter is a
+capital housekeeper, heads the table gracefully, delegates
+certain appropriate duties to her sister and her aunt, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[88]</a></span>
+they are all three devotedly attached. Charley, my eldest
+boy, remains in Barings' house. Your present correspondent
+is more popular than he ever has been. I rather think that
+the readings in the country have opened up a new public
+who were outside before; but however that may be, his
+books have a wider range than they ever had, and his public
+welcomes are prodigious. Said correspondent is at present
+overwhelmed with proposals to go and read in America.
+Will never go, unless a small fortune be first paid down in
+money on this side of the Atlantic. Stated the figure of
+such payment, between ourselves, only yesterday. Expects
+to hear no more of it, and assuredly will never go for less.
+You don't say, my dear Cerjat, when you are coming to
+England! Somehow I feel that this marriage ought to bring
+you over, though I don't know why. You shall have a bed
+here and a bed at Gad's Hill, and we will go and see strange
+sights together. When I was in Ireland, I ordered the
+brightest jaunting-car that ever was seen. It has just this
+minute arrived per steamer from Belfast. Say you are
+coming, and you shall be the first man turned over by it;
+somebody must be (for my daughter Mary drives anything
+that can be harnessed, and I know of no English horse that
+would understand a jaunting-car coming down a Kentish
+hill), and you shall be that somebody if you will. They
+turned the basket-phaeton over, last summer, in a bye-road&mdash;Mary
+and the other two&mdash;and had to get it up again;
+which they did, and came home as if nothing had happened.
+They send their loves to Mrs. Cerjat, and to you, and to
+all, and particularly to the dear <i>fianc&eacute;e</i>. So do I, with all
+my heart, and am ever your attached and affectionate
+friend.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[89]</a></span></p>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mr.
+Antonio
+Panizzi.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Tavistock House</span>, <i>Monday Night, March 14th, 1859.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='unindent'><span class='smcap'>My dear Panizzi</span>,</div>
+
+<p>If you should feel no delicacy in mentioning, or
+should see no objection to mentioning, to Signor Poerio, or
+any of the wronged Neapolitan gentlemen to whom it is
+your happiness and honour to be a friend on their arrival in
+this country, an idea that has occurred to me, I should
+regard it as a great kindness in you if you would be my
+exponent. I think you will have no difficulty in believing
+that I would not, on any consideration, obtrude my name or
+projects upon any one of those noble souls, if there were
+any reason of the slightest kind against it. And if you see
+any such reason, I pray you instantly to banish my letter
+from your thoughts.</p>
+
+<p>It seems to me probable that some narrative of their ten
+years' suffering will, somehow or other, sooner or later, be
+by some of them laid before the English people. The just
+interest and indignation alive here, will (I suppose) elicit it.
+False narratives and garbled stories will, in any case, of a
+certainty get about. If the true history of the matter is to
+be told, I have that sympathy with them and respect for
+them which would, all other considerations apart, render it
+unspeakably gratifying to me to be the means of its diffusion.
+What I desire to lay before them is simply this. If
+for my new successor to "Household Words" a narrative of
+their ten years' trial could be written, I would take any
+conceivable pains to have it rendered into English, and
+presented in the sincerest and best way to a very large and
+comprehensive audience. It should be published exactly as
+you might think best for them, and remunerated in any way
+that you might think generous and right. They want no
+mouthpiece and no introducer, but perhaps they might have
+no objection to be associated with an English writer, who is<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[90]</a></span>
+possibly not unknown to them by some general reputation,
+and who certainly would be animated by a strong public
+and private respect for their honour, spirit, and unmerited
+misfortunes. This is the whole matter; assuming that
+such a thing is to be done, I long for the privilege of helping
+to do it. These gentlemen might consider it an independent
+means of making money, and I should be delighted
+to pay the money.</p>
+
+<p>In my absence from town, my friend and sub-editor,
+Mr. Wills (to whom I had expressed my feeling on the
+subject), has seen, I think, three of the gentlemen together.
+But as I hear, returning home to-night, that they are in
+your good hands, and as nobody can be a better judge than
+you of anything that concerns them, I at once decide to
+write to you and to take no other step whatever. Forgive
+me for the trouble I have occasioned you in the reading of
+this letter, and never think of it again if you think that by
+pursuing it you would cause them an instant's uneasiness.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Believe me, very faithfully yours.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mr.
+Antonio
+Panizzi.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Tavistock House</span>, <i>Tuesday, March 15th, 1859.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='unindent'><span class='smcap'>My dear Panizzi</span>,</div>
+
+<p>Let me thank you heartily for your kind and prompt
+letter. I am really and truly sensible of your friendliness.</p>
+
+<p>I have not heard from Higgins, but of course I am ready
+to serve on the Committee.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Always faithfully yours.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mr. B. W.
+Procter.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Tavistock House</span>, <i>Saturday, March 19th, 1859.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='unindent'><span class='smcap'>My dear Procter</span>,</div>
+
+<p>I think the songs are simply ADMIRABLE! and I
+have no doubt of this being a popular feature in "All the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[91]</a></span>
+Year Round." I would not omit the sexton, and I would
+not omit the spinners and weavers; and I would omit
+the hack-writers, and (I think) the alderman; but I am
+not so clear about the chorister. The pastoral I a little
+doubt finding audience for; but I am not at all sure yet
+that my doubt is well founded.</p>
+
+<p>Had I not better send them all to the printer, and let
+you have proofs kept by you for publishing? I shall not
+have to make up the first number of "All the Year Round"
+until early in April. I don't like to send the manuscript
+back, and I never do like to do so when I get anything that
+I know to be thoroughly, soundly, and unquestionably good.
+I am hard at work upon my story, and expect a magnificent
+start. With hearty thanks,</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Ever yours affectionately.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mr.
+Edmund
+Yates.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span style="margin-right: 2em;"><span class="smcap">Tavistock House, Tavistock Square, London, W.C.</span>,</span><br />
+<i>Tuesday, March 29th, 1859.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='unindent'><span class='smcap'>My dear Edmund</span>,</div>
+
+<p>1. I think that no one seeing the place can well
+doubt that my house at Gad's Hill is the place for the
+letter-box. The wall is accessible by all sorts and conditions
+of men, on the bold high road, and the house
+altogether is the great landmark of the whole neighbourhood.
+Captain Goldsmith's <i>house</i> is up a lane considerably
+off the high road; but he has a garden <i>wall</i> abutting on
+the road itself.</p>
+
+<p>2. "The Pic-Nic Papers" were originally sold to
+Colburn, for the benefit of the widow of Mr. Macrone, of
+St. James's Square, publisher, deceased. Two volumes
+were contributed&mdash;of course gratuitously&mdash;by writers who
+had had transactions with Macrone. Mr. Colburn, wanting
+three volumes in all for trade purposes, added a third,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[92]</a></span>
+consisting of an American reprint. Of that volume I didn't
+know, and don't know, anything. The other two I edited,
+gratuitously as aforesaid, and wrote the Lamplighter's story
+in. It was all done many years ago. There was a preface
+originally, delicately setting forth how the book came to be.</p>
+
+<p>3. I suppose &mdash;&mdash; to be, as Mr. Samuel Weller expresses
+it somewhere in "Pickwick," "ravin' mad with the consciousness
+o' willany." Under their advertisement in <i>The
+Times</i> to-day, you will see, without a word of comment, the
+shorthand writer's verbatim report of the judgment.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Ever faithfully.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mr.
+Antonio
+Panizzi.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">"All the Year Round" Office</span>, <i>Thursday, April 7th, 1859.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='unindent'><span class='smcap'>My dear Panizzi</span>,</div>
+
+<p>If you don't know, I think you should know that a
+number of letters are passing through the post-office,
+purporting to be addressed to the charitable by "Italian
+Exiles in London," asking for aid to raise a fund for a
+tribute to "London's Lord Mayor," in grateful recognition
+of the reception of the Neapolitan exiles. I know this to
+be the case, and have no doubt in my own mind that the
+whole thing is an imposture and a "do." The letters are
+signed "Gratitudine Italiana."</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Ever faithfully yours.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Miss
+White.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span style="margin-right: 2em;"><span class="smcap">Tavistock House, Tavistock Square, London, W.C.</span>,</span><br />
+<i>Monday, April 18th, 1859.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='unindent'><span class='smcap'>My dear Lotty</span>,</div>
+
+<p>This is merely a notice to you that I must positively
+insist on your getting well, strong, and into good spirits,
+with the least possible delay. Also, that I look forward to
+seeing you at Gad's Hill sometime in the summer, staying
+with the girls, and heartlessly putting down the Plorn<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[93]</a></span>.
+You know that there is no appeal from the Plorn's inimitable
+father. What <i>he</i> says must be done. Therefore I send
+you my love (which please take care of), and my commands
+(which please obey).</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Ever your affectionate.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">The Hon.
+Mrs.
+Watson.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span style="margin-right: 2em;"><span class="smcap">Tavistock House, Tavistock Square, London, W.C.</span>,</span><br />
+<i>Tuesday, May 31st, 1859.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='unindent'><span class='smcap'>My dear Mrs. Watson</span>,</div>
+
+<p>You surprise me by supposing that there is ever
+latent a defiant and roused expression in the undersigned
+lamb! Apart from this singular delusion of yours, and
+wholly unaccountable departure from your usual accuracy
+in all things, your satisfaction with the portrait is a great
+pleasure to me. It has received every conceivable pains at
+Frith's hands, and ought on his account to be good. It is
+a little too much (to my thinking) as if my next-door neighbour
+were my deadly foe, uninsured, and I had just received
+tidings of his house being afire; otherwise very good.</p>
+
+<p>I cannot tell you how delighted we shall be if you would
+come to Gad's Hill. You should see some charming woods
+and a rare old castle, and you should have such a snug
+room looking over a Kentish prospect, with every facility
+in it for pondering on the beauties of its master's beard!
+<i>Do</i> come, but you positively <i>must not</i> come and go on the
+same day.</p>
+
+<p>We retreat there on Monday, and shall be there all the
+summer.</p>
+
+<p>My small boy is perfectly happy at Southsea, and likes
+the school very much. I had the finest letter two or three
+days ago, from another of my boys&mdash;Frank Jeffrey&mdash;at
+Hamburg. In this wonderful epistle he says: "Dear papa,
+I write to tell you that I have given up all thoughts of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[94]</a></span>
+being a doctor. My conviction that I shall never get over
+my stammering is the cause; all professions are barred
+against me. The only thing I should like to be is a gentleman
+farmer, either at the Cape, in Canada, or Australia.
+With my passage paid, fifteen pounds, a horse, and a rifle,
+I could go two or three hundred miles up country, sow
+grain, buy cattle, and in time be very comfortable."</p>
+
+<p>Considering the consequences of executing the little
+commission by the next steamer, I perceived that the first
+consequence of the fifteen pounds would be that he would
+be robbed of it&mdash;of the horse, that it would throw him&mdash;and
+of the rifle, that it would blow his head off; which probabilities
+I took the liberty of mentioning, as being against
+the scheme. With best love from all,</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+<span style="margin-right: 2em;">Ever believe me, my dear Mrs. Watson,</span><br />
+Your faithful and affectionate.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mrs.
+White.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Tavistock House</span>, <i>Sunday, June 5th, 1859.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='unindent'><span class='smcap'>My dear Mrs. White</span>,</div>
+
+<p>I do not write to you this morning because I have
+anything to say&mdash;I well know where your consolation is
+set, and to what beneficent figure your thoughts are raised&mdash;but
+simply because you are so much in my mind that it is
+a relief to send you and dear White my love. You are
+always in our hearts and on our lips. May the great God
+comfort you! You know that Mary and Katie are coming
+on Thursday. They will bring dear Lotty what she little
+needs with you by her side&mdash;love; and I hope their company
+will interest and please her. There is nothing that
+they, or any of us, would not do for her. She is a part of
+us all, and has belonged to us, as well as to you, these many
+years.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Ever your affectionate and faithful.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[95]</a></span></p>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Miss
+Dickens.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span style="margin-right: 2em;"><span class="smcap">Gad's Hill, Higham by Rochester, Kent</span>,</span><br />
+<i>Monday, June 11th, 1859.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='unindent'><span class='smcap'>My dearest Mamie</span>,</div>
+
+<p>On Saturday night I found, very much to my surprise
+and pleasure, the photograph on my table at Tavistock
+House. It is not a very pleasant or cheerful presentation
+of my daughters; but it is wonderfully like for all that, and
+in some details remarkably good. When I came home here
+yesterday I tried it in the large Townshend stereoscope, in
+which it shows to great advantage. It is in the little stereoscope
+at present on the drawing-room table. One of the
+balustrades of the destroyed old Rochester bridge has been
+(very nicely) presented to me by the contractor for the
+works, and has been duly stonemasoned and set up on the
+lawn behind the house. I have ordered a sun-dial for the
+top of it, and it will be a very good object indeed. The
+Plorn is highly excited to-day by reason of an institution
+which he tells me (after questioning George) is called the
+"Cobb, or Bodderin," holding a festival at The Falstaff. He
+is possessed of some vague information that they go to
+Higham Church, in pursuance of some old usage, and
+attend service there, and afterwards march round the village.
+It so far looks probable that they certainly started off at
+eleven very spare in numbers, and came back considerably
+recruited, which looks to me like the difference between
+going to church and coming to dinner. They bore no end
+of bright banners and broad sashes, and had a band with a
+terrific drum, and are now (at half-past two) dining at The
+Falstaff, partly in the side room on the ground-floor, and
+partly in a tent improvised this morning. The drum is
+hung up to a tree in The Falstaff garden, and looks like a
+tropical sort of gourd. I have presented the band with five
+shillings, which munificence has been highly appreciated.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[96]</a></span>
+Ices don't seem to be provided for the ladies in the gallery&mdash;I
+mean the garden; they are prowling about there, endeavouring
+to peep in at the beef and mutton through the
+holes in the tent, on the whole, in a debased and degraded
+manner.</p>
+
+<p>Turk somehow cut his foot in Cobham Lanes yesterday,
+and Linda hers. They are both lame, and looking at each
+other. Fancy Mr. Townshend not intending to go for
+another three weeks, and designing to come down here for
+a few days&mdash;with Henri and Bully&mdash;on Wednesday! I wish
+you could have seen him alone with me on Saturday; he
+was so extraordinarily earnest and affectionate on my belongings
+and affairs in general, and not least of all on you
+and Katie, that he cried in a most pathetic manner, and was
+so affected that I was obliged to leave him among the flowerpots
+in the long passage at the end of the dining-room. It
+was a very good piece of truthfulness and sincerity, especially
+in one of his years, able to take life so easily.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. and Mrs. Wills are here now (but I daresay you
+know it from your aunt), and return to town with me to-morrow
+morning. We are now going on to the castle. Mrs.
+Wills was very droll last night, and told me some good
+stories. My dear, I wish particularly to impress upon you
+and dear Katie (to whom I send my other best love) that I
+hope your stay will not be very long. I don't think it very
+good for either of you, though of course I know that Lotty
+will be, and must be, and should be the first consideration
+with you both. I am very anxious to know how you found
+her and how you are yourself.</p>
+
+<p>Best love to dear Lotty and Mrs. White. The same to
+Mr. White and Clara. We are always talking about
+you all.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Ever, dearest Mamie, your affectionate Father.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[97]</a></span></p>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Rev.
+James
+White.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span style="margin-right: 2em;"><span class="smcap">Gad's Hill Place, Higham by Rochester, Kent</span>,</span><br />
+<i>Thursday, July 7th, 1859.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='unindent'><span class='smcap'>My dear White</span>,</div>
+
+<p>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;I send my heartiest and most affectionate love to
+Mrs. White and you, and to Clara. You know all that I
+could add; you have felt it all; let it be unspoken and
+unwritten&mdash;it is expressed within us.</p>
+
+<p>Do you not think that you could all three come here,
+and stay with us? You and Mrs. White should have your
+own large room and your own ways, and should be among
+us when you felt disposed, and never otherwise. I do hope
+you would find peace here. Can it not be done?</p>
+
+<p>We have talked very much about it among ourselves,
+and the girls are strong upon it. Think of it&mdash;do!</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Ever your affectionate.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mr. John
+Forster.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Gad's Hill</span>, <i>Thursday Night, Aug. 25th, 1859.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='unindent'><span class='smcap'>My dear Forster</span>,</div>
+
+<div class='center'>
+Heartily glad to get your letter this morning.<br />
+</div>
+
+<p>I cannot easily tell you how much interested I am by
+what you tell me of our brave and excellent friend the
+Chief Baron, in connection with that ruffian. I followed
+the case with so much interest, and have followed the
+miserable knaves and asses who have perverted it since,
+with so much indignation, that I have often had more than
+half a mind to write and thank the upright judge who tried
+him. I declare to God that I believe such a service one of
+the greatest that a man of intellect and courage can render
+to society. Of course I saw the beast of a prisoner (with
+my mind's eye) delivering his cut-and-dried speech, and
+read in every word of it that no one but the murderer
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[98]</a></span>could have delivered or conceived it. Of course I have
+been driving the girls out of their wits here, by incessantly
+proclaiming that there needed no medical evidence either
+way, and that the case was plain without it. Lastly, of
+course (though a merciful man&mdash;because a merciful man I
+mean), I would hang any Home Secretary (Whig, Tory,
+Radical, or otherwise) who should step in between that
+black scoundrel and the gallows. I can<i>not</i> believe&mdash;and my
+belief in all wrong as to public matters is enormous&mdash;that
+such a thing will be done.</p>
+
+<p>I am reminded of Tennyson, by thinking that King
+Arthur would have made short work of the amiable
+&mdash;&mdash;, whom the newspapers strangely delight to make
+a sort of gentleman of. How fine the "Idylls" are!
+Lord! what a blessed thing it is to read a man who can
+write! I thought nothing could be grander than the
+first poem till I came to the third; but when I had read
+the last, it seemed to be absolutely unapproached and
+unapproachable.</p>
+
+<p>To come to myself. I have written and begged the
+"All the Year Round" publisher to send you directly four
+weeks' proofs beyond the current number, that are in type.
+I hope you will like them. Nothing but the interest of the
+subject, and the pleasure of striving with the difficulty of
+the forms of treatment, nothing in the mere way of money,
+I mean, could also repay the time and trouble of the incessant
+condensation. But I set myself the little task of
+making a <i>picturesque</i> story, rising in every chapter with
+characters true to nature, but whom the story itself should express,
+more than they should express themselves, by dialogue.
+I mean, in other words, that I fancied a story of incident
+might be written, in place of the bestiality that <i>is</i> written
+under that pretence, pounding the characters out in its own
+mortar, and beating their own interests out of them. If<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[99]</a></span>
+you could have read the story all at once, I hope you
+wouldn't have stopped halfway.</p>
+
+<p>As to coming to your retreat, my dear Forster, think
+how helpless I am. I am not well yet. I have an instinctive
+feeling that nothing but the sea will restore me, and I
+am planning to go and work at Ballard's, at Broadstairs,
+from next Wednesday to Monday. I generally go to town
+on Monday afternoon. All Tuesday I am at the office, on
+Wednesday I come back here, and go to work again. I
+don't leave off till Monday comes round once more. I am
+fighting to get my story done by the first week in October.
+On the 10th of October I am going away to read for a fortnight
+at Ipswich, Norwich, Oxford, Cambridge, and a few
+other places. Judge what my spare time is just now!</p>
+
+<p>I am very much surprised and very sorry to find from
+the enclosed that Elliotson has been ill. I never heard a
+word of it.</p>
+
+<p>Georgy sends best love to you and to Mrs. Forster, so
+do I, so does Plorn, so does Frank. The girls are, for five
+days, with the Whites at Ramsgate. It is raining, intensely
+hot, and stormy. Eighteen creatures, like little tortoises,
+have dashed in at the window and fallen on the paper since
+I began this paragraph
+<img src="images/ink.png" width="15" height="14" alt="ink-blot" title="ink-blot" /> (that was one!). I am a
+wretched sort of creature in my way, but it is a way that
+gets on somehow. And all ways have the same fingerpost
+at the head of them, and at every turning in them.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Ever affectionately.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Miss
+Dickens
+and Miss
+Katie
+Dickens.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Albion, Broadstairs</span>, <i>Friday, Sept. 2nd, 1859.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='unindent'><span class='smcap'>My dearest Mamie and Katie</span>,</div>
+
+<p>I have been "moved" here, and am now (Ballard
+having added to the hotel a house we lived in three years)<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[100]</a></span>
+in our old dining-room and sitting-room, and our old
+drawing-room as a bedroom. My cold is so bad, both in
+my throat and in my chest, that I can't bathe in the sea;
+Tom Collin dissuaded me&mdash;thought it "bad"&mdash;but I get a
+heavy shower-bath at Mrs. Crampton's every morning. The
+baths are still hers and her husband's, but they have retired
+and live in "Nuckells"&mdash;are going to give a stained-glass
+window, value three hundred pounds, to St. Peter's Church.
+Tom Collin is of opinion that the Miss Dickenses has
+growed two fine young women&mdash;leastwise, asking pardon,
+ladies. An evangelical family of most disagreeable girls
+prowl about here and trip people up with tracts, which they
+put in the paths with stones upon them to keep them from
+blowing away. Charles Collins and I having seen a bill
+yesterday&mdash;about a mesmeric young lady who did feats, one
+of which was set forth in the bill, in a line by itself, as</p>
+
+<div class='center'>
+<span class="smcap">the rigid legs,</span><br />
+</div>
+
+<p>&mdash;were overpowered with curiosity, and resolved to go. It
+came off in the Assembly Room, now more exquisitely
+desolate than words can describe. Eighteen shillings was
+the "take." Behind a screen among the company, we
+heard mysterious gurglings of water before the entertainment
+began, and then a slippery sound which occasioned
+me to whisper C. C. (who laughed in the most ridiculous
+manner), "Soap." It proved to be the young lady washing
+herself. She must have been wonderfully dirty, for she
+took a world of trouble, and didn't come out clean after all&mdash;in
+a wretched dirty muslin frock, with blue ribbons. She
+was the alleged mesmeriser, and a boy who distributed bills
+the alleged mesmerised. It was a most preposterous imposition,
+but more ludicrous than any poor sight I ever saw.
+The boy is clearly out of pantomime, and when he pretended<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[101]</a></span>
+to be in the mesmeric state, made the company back
+by going in among them head over heels, backwards, half-a-dozen
+times, in a most insupportable way. The pianist
+had struck; and the manner in which the lecturer implored
+"some lady" to play a "polker," and the manner in which
+no lady would; and in which the few ladies who were there
+sat with their hats on, and the elastic under their chins, as if
+it were going to blow, is never to be forgotten. I have
+been writing all the morning, and am going for a walk to
+Ramsgate. This is a beast of a letter, but I am not well,
+and have been addling my head.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Ever, dear Girls, your affectionate Father.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mr. W.
+Wilkie
+Collins.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span style="margin-right: 2em;"><span class="smcap">Gad's Hill Place, Higham by Rochester, Kent</span>,</span><br />
+<i>Friday Night, Sept. 16th, 1859.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='unindent'><span class='smcap'>My dear Wilkie</span>,</div>
+
+<p>Just a word to say that I have received yours, and
+that I look forward to the reunion on Thursday, when I
+hope to have the satisfaction of recounting to you the plot
+of a play that has been laid before me for commending
+advice.</p>
+
+<p>Ditto to what you say respecting the <i>Great Eastern</i>. I
+went right up to London Bridge by the boat that day, on
+purpose that I might pass her. I thought her the ugliest
+and most unshiplike thing these eyes ever beheld. I
+wouldn't go to sea in her, shiver my ould timbers and
+rouse me up with a monkey's tail (man-of-war metaphor),
+not to chuck a biscuit into Davy Jones's weather eye, and
+see double with my own old toplights.</p>
+
+<p>Turk has been so good as to produce from his mouth,
+for the wholesome consternation of the family, eighteen
+feet of worm. When he had brought it up, he seemed to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[102]</a></span>
+think it might be turned to account in the housekeeping
+and was proud. Pony has kicked a shaft off the cart, and
+is to be sold. Why don't you buy her? she'd never kick
+with you.</p>
+
+<p>Barber's opinion is, that them fruit-trees, one and
+all, is touchwood, and not fit for burning at any gentleman's
+fire; also that the stocking of this here garden is
+worth less than nothing, because you wouldn't have to
+grub up nothing, and something takes a man to do it at
+three-and-sixpence a day. Was "left desponding" by
+your reporter.</p>
+
+<p>I have had immense difficulty to find a man for the
+stable-yard here. Barber having at last engaged one this
+morning, I enquired if he had a decent hat for driving in,
+to which Barber returned this answer:</p>
+
+<p>"Why, sir, not to deceive you, that man flatly say that
+he never have wore that article since man he was!"</p>
+
+<p>I am consequently fortified into my room, and am afraid
+to go out to look at him. Love from all.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Ever affectionately.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Monsieur
+Regnier.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span style="margin-right: 2em;"><span class="smcap">Gad's Hill Place, Higham by Rochester, Kent</span>,</span><br />
+<i>Saturday, Oct. 15th, 1859.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='unindent'><span class='smcap'>My dear Regnier</span>,</div>
+
+<p>You will receive by railway parcel the proof-sheets
+of a story of mine, that has been for some time in progress
+in my weekly journal, and that will be published in a complete
+volume about the middle of November. Nobody but
+Forster has yet seen the latter portions of it, or will see
+them until they are published. I want you to read it for
+two reasons. Firstly, because I hope it is the best story
+I have written. Secondly, because it treats of a very
+remarkable time in France; and I should very much like<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[103]</a></span>
+to know what you think of its being dramatised for a
+French theatre. If you should think it likely to be done,
+I should be glad to take some steps towards having it well
+done. The story is an extraordinary success here, and I
+think the end of it is certain to make a still greater
+sensation.</p>
+
+<p>Don't trouble yourself to write to me, <i>mon ami</i>, until
+you shall have had time to read the proofs. Remember,
+they are <i>proofs</i>, and <i>private;</i> the latter chapters will not be
+before the public for five or six weeks to come.</p>
+
+<p>With kind regards to Madame Regnier, in which my
+daughters and their aunt unite,</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Believe me, ever faithfully yours.<br />
+</div>
+
+<p>P.S.&mdash;The story (I daresay you have not seen any of it
+yet) is called "A Tale of Two Cities."</p>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mr. Frank
+Stone,
+A.R.A.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Peterborough</span>, <i>Wednesday Evening, Oct. 19th, 1859.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='unindent'><span class='smcap'>My dear Stone</span>,</div>
+
+<p>We had a splendid rush last night&mdash;exactly as we
+supposed, with the pressure on the two shillings, of whom
+we turned a crowd away. They were a far finer audience
+than on the previous night; I think the finest I have ever
+read to. They took every word of the "Dombey" in quite
+an amazing manner, and after the child's death, paused a
+little, and then set up a shout that it did one good to hear.
+Mrs. Gamp then set in with a roar, which lasted until I
+had done. I think everybody for the time forgot everything
+but the matter in hand. It was as fine an instance of
+thorough absorption in a fiction as any of us are likely to
+see ever again.</p>
+
+<p>&mdash;&mdash; (in an exquisite red mantle), accompanied by her
+sister (in another exquisite red mantle) and by the deaf lady,
+(who leaned a black head-dress, exactly like an old-fashioned<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[104]</a></span>
+tea-urn without the top, against the wall), was charming.
+HE couldn't get at her on account of the pressure. HE
+tried to peep at her from the side door, but she (ha, ha, ha!)
+was unconscious of his presence. I read to her, and goaded
+him to madness. He is just sane enough to send his kindest
+regards.</p>
+
+<p>This is a place which&mdash;except the cathedral, with the
+loveliest front I ever saw&mdash;is like the back door to some
+other place. It is, I should hope, the deadest and most
+utterly inert little town in the British dominions. The
+magnates have taken places, and the bookseller is of
+opinion that "such is the determination to do honour to
+Mr. Dickens, that the doors <i>must</i> be opened half an hour
+before the appointed time." You will picture to yourself
+Arthur's quiet indignation at this, and the manner in which
+he remarked to me at dinner, "that he turned away twice
+Peterborough last night."</p>
+
+<p>A very pretty room&mdash;though a Corn Exchange&mdash;and a
+room we should have been glad of at Cambridge, as it is
+large, bright, and cheerful, and wonderfully well lighted.</p>
+
+<p>The difficulty of getting to Bradford from here to-morrow,
+at any time convenient to us, turned out to be so great,
+that we are all going in for Leeds (only three-quarters of an
+hour from Bradford) to-night after the reading, at a quarter-past
+eleven. We are due at Leeds a quarter before three.</p>
+
+<p>So no more at present from,</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Yours affectionately.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mr. W. R.
+Sculthorpe.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span style="margin-right: 2em;"><span class="smcap">Tavistock House, Tavistock Square, London, W.C.</span>,</span><br />
+<i>Thursday, Nov. 10th, 1859.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='unindent'><span class='smcap'>Dear Sir</span>,</div>
+
+<p>Judgment must go by default. I have not a word
+to plead against Dodson and Fogg. I am without any<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[105]</a></span>
+defence to the action; and therefore, as law goes, ought to
+win it.</p>
+
+<p>Seriously, the date of your hospitable note disturbs my
+soul. But I have been incessantly writing in Kent and
+reading in all sorts of places, and have done nothing in
+my own personal character these many months; and now I
+come to town and our friend<a name="FNanchor_5_5" id="FNanchor_5_5"></a><a href="#Footnote_5_5" class="fnanchor">[5]</a> is away! Let me take that
+defaulting miscreant into council when he comes back.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Faithfully yours.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Monsieur
+Regnier.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span style="margin-right: 2em;"><span class="smcap">Tavistock House, Tavistock Square, London, W.C.</span>,</span><br />
+<i>Wednesday, Nov. 16th, 1859.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='unindent'><span class='smcap'>My dear Regnier</span>,</div>
+
+<p>I send you ten thousand thanks for your kind and
+explicit letter. What I particularly wished to ascertain from
+you was, whether it is likely the Censor would allow such a
+piece to be played in Paris. In the case of its being likely,
+then I wished to have the piece as well done as possible, and
+would even have proposed to come to Paris to see it rehearsed.
+But I very much doubted whether the general
+subject would not be objectionable to the Government, and
+what you write with so much sagacity and with such care
+convinces me at once that its representation would be prohibited.
+Therefore I altogether abandon and relinquish the
+idea. But I am just as heartily and cordially obliged to you
+for your interest and friendship, as if the book had been
+turned into a play five hundred times. I again thank you
+ten thousand times, and am quite sure that you are right.
+I only hope you will forgive my causing you so much trouble,
+after your hard work.</p>
+
+<p>My girls and Georgina send their kindest regards to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[106]</a></span>
+Madame Regnier and to you. My Gad's Hill house (I
+think I omitted to tell you, in reply to your enquiry) is on
+the very scene of Falstaff's robbery. There is a little
+<i>cabaret</i> at the roadside, still called The Sir John Falstaff.
+And the country, in all its general features, is, at this time,
+what it was in Shakespeare's. I hope you will see the
+house before long. It is really a pretty place, and a good
+residence for an English writer, is it not?</p>
+
+<p>Macready, we are all happy to hear from himself, is
+going to leave the dreary tomb in which he lives, at
+Sherborne, and to remove to Cheltenham, a large and
+handsome place, about four or five hours' railway journey
+from London, where his poor girls will at least see and
+hear some life. Madame C&eacute;leste was with me yesterday,
+wishing to dramatise "A Tale of Two Cities" for the
+Lyceum, after bringing out the Christmas pantomime. I
+gave her my permission and the book; but I fear that her
+company (troupe) is a very poor one.</p>
+
+<p>This is all the news I have, except (which is no news at
+all) that I feel as if I had not seen you for fifty years, and
+that</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+I am ever your attached and faithful Friend.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mr. T.
+Longman.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Tavistock House</span>, <i>Monday, Nov. 28th, 1859.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='unindent'><span class='smcap'>My dear Longman</span>,</div>
+
+<p>I am very anxious to present to you, with the earnest
+hope that you will hold him in your remembrance, young
+Mr. Marcus Stone, son of poor Frank Stone, who died
+suddenly but a little week ago. You know, I daresay,
+what a start this young man made in the last exhibition,
+and what a favourable notice his picture attracted. He
+wishes to make an additional opening for himself in the
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[107]</a></span>illustration of books. He is an admirable draughtsman,
+has a most dexterous hand, a charming sense of grace and
+beauty, and a capital power of observation. These qualities
+in him I know well of my own knowledge. He is in all
+things modest, punctual, and right; and I would answer
+for him, if it were needful, with my head.</p>
+
+<p>If you will put anything in his way, you will do it a
+second time, I am certain.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Faithfully yours always.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>1860.</h2>
+
+<h3>NARRATIVE.</h3>
+
+
+<div class='unindent'><span class='smcap'>This</span> winter was the last spent at Tavistock House. Charles
+Dickens had for some time been inclining to the idea of
+making his home altogether at Gad's Hill, giving up his
+London house, and taking a furnished house for the sake of
+his daughters for a few months of the London season. And,
+as his daughter Kate was to be married this summer to
+Mr. Charles Collins, this intention was confirmed and carried
+out. He made arrangements for the sale of Tavistock House
+to Mr. Davis, a Jewish gentleman, and he gave up possession
+of it in September. Up to this time Gad's Hill had been
+furnished merely as a temporary summer residence&mdash;pictures,
+library, and all best furniture being left in the London
+house. He now set about beautifying and making Gad's
+Hill thoroughly comfortable and homelike. And there was
+not a year afterwards, up to the year of his death, that he
+did not make some addition or improvement to it. He also
+furnished, as a private residence, a sitting-room and some
+bedrooms at his office in Wellington Street, to be used, when
+there was no house in London, as occasional town quarters
+by himself, his daughter, and sister-in-law.</div>
+
+<p>He began in this summer his occasional papers for "All
+the Year Round," which he called "The Uncommercial<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[108]</a></span>
+Traveller," and which were continued at intervals in his
+journal until 1869.</p>
+
+<p>In the autumn of this year he began another story, to be
+published weekly in "All the Year Round." The letter to
+Mr. Forster, which we give, tells him of this beginning
+and gives him the name of the book. The first number
+of "Great Expectations" appeared on the 1st December.
+The Christmas number, this time, was written jointly by
+himself and Mr. Wilkie Collins. The scene was laid at
+Clovelly, and they made a journey together into Devonshire
+and Cornwall, for the purpose of this story, in
+November.</p>
+
+<p>The letter to Sir Edward Bulwer Lytton is, unfortunately,
+the only one we have as yet been able to procure. The
+present Lord Lytton, the Viceroy of India, has kindly endeavoured
+to help us even during his absence from England.
+But it was found to be impossible without his own assistance
+to make the necessary search among his father's
+papers. And he has promised us that, on his return, he
+will find and lend to us, many letters from Charles Dickens,
+which are certainly in existence, to his distinguished fellow-writer
+and great friend. We hope, therefore, it may be
+possible for us at some future time to be able to publish
+these letters, as well as those addressed to the present
+Lord Lytton (when he was Mr. Robert Lytton, otherwise
+"Owen Meredith," and frequent contributor to "Household
+Words" and "All the Year Round"). We have the same
+hope with regard to letters addressed to Sir Henry Layard,
+at present Ambassador at Constantinople, which, of course,
+for the same reason, cannot be lent to us at the present time.</p>
+
+<p>We give a letter to Mr. Forster on one of his books
+on the Commonwealth, the "Impeachment of the Five
+Members;" which, as with other letters which we are glad
+to publish on the subject of Mr. Forster's own works, was
+not used by himself for obvious reasons.</p>
+
+<p>A letter to his daughter Mamie (who, after her sister's
+marriage, paid a visit with her dear friends the White family
+to Scotland, where she had a serious illness) introduces a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[109]</a></span>
+recent addition to the family, who became an important
+member of it, and one to whom Charles Dickens was very
+tenderly attached&mdash;her little white Pomeranian dog "Mrs.
+Bouncer" (so called after the celebrated lady of that name
+in "Box and Cox"). It is quite necessary to make this
+formal introduction of the little pet animal (who lived to
+be a very old dog and died in 1874), because future letters
+to his daughter contain constant references and messages
+to "Mrs. Bouncer," which would be quite unintelligible
+without this explanation. "Boy," also referred to in this
+letter, was his daughter's horse. The little dog and the
+horse were gifts to Mamie Dickens from her friends Mr.
+and Mrs. Arthur Smith, and the sister of the latter, Miss
+Craufurd.</p>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mr. W. C.
+Macready.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Tavistock House</span>, <i>Monday, Jan. 2nd, 1860.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='unindent'><span class='smcap'>My dearest Macready</span>,</div>
+
+<p>A happy New Year to you, and many happy years!
+I cannot tell you how delighted I was to receive your
+Christmas letter, or with what pleasure I have received
+Forster's emphatic accounts of your health and spirits.
+But when was I ever wrong? And when did I not tell
+you that you were an impostor in pretending to grow
+older as the rest of us do, and that you had a secret of your
+own for reversing the usual process! It happened that I
+read at Cheltenham a couple of months ago, and that I have
+rarely seen a place that so attracted my fancy. I had
+never seen it before. Also I believe the character of its
+people to have greatly changed for the better. All sorts of
+long-visaged prophets had told me that they were dull,
+stolid, slow, and I don't know what more that is disagreeable.
+I found them exactly the reverse in all respects; and
+I saw an amount of beauty there&mdash;well&mdash;that is not to be
+more specifically mentioned to you young fellows.</p>
+
+<p>Katie dined with us yesterday, looking wonderfully well,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[110]</a></span>
+and singing "Excelsior" with a certain dramatic fire in her,
+whereof I seem to remember having seen sparks afore now.
+Etc. etc. etc.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+<span style="margin-right: 2em;">With kindest love from all at home to all with you,</span><br />
+Ever, my dear Macready, your most affectionate.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mr. W.
+Wilkie
+Collins.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span style="margin-right: 2em;"><span class="smcap">Tavistock House, Tavistock Square, London, W.C.</span>,</span><br />
+<i>Saturday Night, Jan. 7th, 1860.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='unindent'><span class='smcap'>My dear Wilkie</span>,</div>
+
+<p>I have read this book with great care and attention.
+There cannot be a doubt that it is a very great advance on
+all your former writing, and most especially in respect of
+tenderness. In character it is excellent. Mr. Fairlie as
+good as the lawyer, and the lawyer as good as he. Mr.
+Vesey and Miss Halcombe, in their different ways, equally
+meritorious. Sir Percival, also, is most skilfully shown,
+though I doubt (you see what small points I come to) whether
+any man ever showed uneasiness by hand or foot without
+being forced by nature to show it in his face too. The story
+is very interesting, and the writing of it admirable.</p>
+
+<p>I seem to have noticed, here and there, that the great
+pains you take express themselves a trifle too much, and
+you know that I always contest your disposition to give an
+audience credit for nothing, which necessarily involves the
+forcing of points on their attention, and which I have always
+observed them to resent when they find it out&mdash;as they
+always will and do. But on turning to the book again, I
+find it difficult to take out an instance of this. It rather
+belongs to your habit of thought and manner of going about
+the work. Perhaps I express my meaning best when I say
+that the three people who write the narratives in these
+proofs have a <span class="smcap">dissective</span> property in common, which is
+essentially not theirs but yours; and that my own effort<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[111]</a></span>
+would be to strike more of what is got <i>that way</i> out of them
+by collision with one another, and by the working of the
+story.</p>
+
+<p>You know what an interest I have felt in your powers
+from the beginning of our friendship, and how very high I
+rate them? <i>I</i> know that this is an admirable book, and
+that it grips the difficulties of the weekly portion and
+throws them in masterly style. No one else could do it
+half so well. I have stopped in every chapter to notice
+some instance of ingenuity, or some happy turn of writing;
+and I am absolutely certain that you never did half so well
+yourself.</p>
+
+<p>So go on and prosper, and let me see some more, when
+you have enough (for your own satisfaction) to show me. I
+think of coming in to back you up if I can get an idea for
+my series of gossiping papers. One of those days, please
+God, we may do a story together; I have very odd half-formed
+notions, in a mist, of something that might be done
+that way.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Ever affectionately.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mr. John
+Forster.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span style="margin-right: 2em;"><span class="smcap">11, Wellington Street, North Strand, London, W.C.</span>,</span><br />
+<i>Wednesday, May 2nd, 1860.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='unindent'><span class='smcap'>My dear Forster</span>,</div>
+
+<p>It did not occur to me in reading your most excellent,
+interesting, and remarkable book, that it could with any
+reason be called one-sided. If Clarendon had never written
+his "History of the Rebellion," then I can understand that
+it might be. But just as it would be impossible to answer
+an advocate who had misstated the merits of a case for his
+own purpose, without, in the interests of truth, and not of the
+other side merely, re-stating the merits and showing them
+in their real form, so I cannot see the practicability of telling<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[112]</a></span>
+what you had to tell without in some sort championing the
+misrepresented side, and I think that you don't do that as
+an advocate, but as a judge.</p>
+
+<p>The evidence has been suppressed and coloured, and the
+judge goes through it and puts it straight. It is not <i>his</i>
+fault if it all goes one way and tends to one plain conclusion.
+Nor is it his fault that it goes the further when it is laid out
+straight, or seems to do so, because it was so knotted and
+twisted up before.</p>
+
+<p>I can understand any man's, and particularly Carlyle's,
+having a lingering respect that does not like to be disturbed
+for those (in the best sense of the word) loyal gentlemen of
+the country who went with the king and were so true to him.
+But I don't think Carlyle sufficiently considers that the great
+mass of those gentlemen <i>didn't know the truth</i>, that it was a
+part of their loyalty to believe what they were told on the
+king's behalf, and that it is reasonable to suppose that the
+king was too artful to make known to <i>them</i> (especially after
+failure) what were very acceptable designs to the desperate
+soldiers of fortune about Whitehall. And it was to me a
+curious point of adventitious interest arising out of your
+book, to reflect on the probability of their having been as
+ignorant of the real scheme in Charles's head, as their
+descendants and followers down to this time, and to think
+with pity and admiration that they believed the cause to be
+so much better than it was. This is a notion I was anxious
+to have expressed in our account of the book in these
+pages. For I don't suppose Clarendon, or any other such
+man to sit down and tell posterity something that he has
+not "tried on" in his own time. Do you?</p>
+
+<p>In the whole narrative I saw nothing anywhere to which
+I demurred. I admired it all, went with it all, and was
+proud of my friend's having written it all. I felt it to be<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[113]</a></span>
+all square and sound and right, and to be of enormous
+importance in these times. Firstly, to the people who (like
+myself) are so sick of the shortcomings of representative
+government as to have no interest in it. Secondly, to the
+humbugs at Westminster who have come down&mdash;a long,
+long way&mdash;from those men, as you know. When the great
+remonstrance came out, I was in the thick of my story, and
+was always busy with it; but I am very glad I didn't read
+it then, as I shall read it now to much better purpose. All
+the time I was at work on the "Two Cities," I read no
+books but such as had the air of the time in them.</p>
+
+<p>To return for a final word to the Five Members. I
+thought the marginal references overdone. Here and
+there, they had a comical look to me for that reason, and
+reminded me of shows and plays where everything is in
+the bill.</p>
+
+<p>Lastly, I should have written to you&mdash;as I had a strong
+inclination to do, and ought to have done, immediately after
+reading the book&mdash;but for a weak reason; of all things in
+the world I have lost heart in one&mdash;I hope no other&mdash;I
+cannot, times out of calculation, make up my mind to write
+a letter.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Ever, my dear Forster, affectionately yours.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">M. de
+Cerjat.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Tavistock House</span>, <i>Thursday, May 3rd, 1860.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='unindent'><span class='smcap'>My dear Cerjat</span>,</div>
+
+<p>The date of this letter would make me horribly
+ashamed of myself, if I didn't know that <i>you</i> know how
+difficult letter-writing is to one whose trade it is to write.</p>
+
+<p>You asked me on Christmas Eve about my children.
+My second daughter is going to be married in the course
+of the summer to Charles Collins, the brother of Wilkie
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[114]</a></span>Collins, the novelist. The father was one of the most
+famous painters of English green lanes and coast pieces.
+He was bred an artist; is a writer, too, and does "The Eye
+Witness," in "All the Year Round." He is a gentleman,
+accomplished, and amiable. My eldest daughter has not
+yet started any conveyance on the road to matrimony (that
+I know of); but it is likely enough that she will, as she is
+very agreeable and intelligent. They are both very pretty.
+My eldest boy, Charley, has been in Barings' house for
+three or four years, and is now going to Hong Kong,
+strongly backed up by Barings, to buy tea on his own
+account, as a means of forming a connection and seeing
+more of the practical part of a merchant's calling, before
+starting in London for himself. His brother Frank
+(Jeffrey's godson) I have just recalled from France and
+Germany, to come and learn business, and qualify himself
+to join his brother on his return from the Celestial Empire.
+The next boy, Sydney Smith, is designed for the navy, and
+is in training at Portsmouth, awaiting his nomination. He
+is about three foot high, with the biggest eyes ever seen,
+and is known in the Portsmouth parts as "Young Dickens,
+who can do everything."</p>
+
+<p>Another boy is at school in France; the youngest of all
+has a private tutor at home. I have forgotten the second
+in order, who is in India. He went out as ensign of a
+non-existent native regiment, got attached to the 42nd
+Highlanders, one of the finest regiments in the Queen's
+service; has remained with them ever since, and got made
+a lieutenant by the chances of the rebellious campaign,
+before he was eighteen. Miss Hogarth, always Miss
+Hogarth, is the guide, philosopher, and friend of all the
+party, and a very close affection exists between her and the
+girls. I doubt if she will ever marry. I don't know
+whether to be glad of it or sorry for it.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[115]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>I have laid down my pen and taken a long breath after
+writing this family history. I have also considered whether
+there are any more children, and I don't think there are.
+If I should remember two or three others presently, I will
+mention them in a postscript.</p>
+
+<p>We think Townshend looking a little the worse for the
+winter, and we perceive Bully to be decidedly old upon his
+legs, and of a most diabolical turn of mind. When they
+first arrived the weather was very dark and cold, and kept
+them indoors. It has since turned very warm and bright,
+but with a dusty and sharp east wind. They are still kept
+indoors by this change, and I begin to wonder what change
+will let them out. Townshend dines with us every Sunday.
+You may be sure that we always talk of you and yours, and
+drink to you heartily.</p>
+
+<p>Public matters here are thought to be rather improving;
+the deep mistrust of the gentleman in Paris being
+counteracted by the vigorous state of preparation into
+which the nation is getting. You will have observed,
+of course, that we establish a new defaulter in respect
+of some great trust, about once a quarter. The last
+one, the cashier of a City bank, is considered to have
+distinguished himself greatly, a quarter of a million of
+money being high game.</p>
+
+<p>No, my friend, I have not shouldered my rifle yet, but I
+should do so on more pressing occasion. Every other man
+in the row of men I know&mdash;if they were all put in a row&mdash;is
+a volunteer though. There is a tendency rather to
+overdo the wearing of the uniform, but that is natural
+enough in the case of the youngest men. The turn-out is
+generally very creditable indeed. At the ball they had (in
+a perfectly unventilated building), their new leather belts
+and pouches smelt so fearfully that it was, as my eldest<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[116]</a></span>
+daughter said, like shoemaking in a great prison. She,
+consequently, distinguished herself by fainting away in the
+most inaccessible place in the whole structure, and being
+brought out (horizontally) by a file of volunteers, like some
+slain daughter of Albion whom they were carrying into the
+street to rouse the indignant valour of the populace.</p>
+
+<p>Lord, my dear Cerjat, when I turn to that page of your
+letter where you write like an ancient sage in whom the
+fire has paled into a meek-eyed state of coolness and virtue,
+I half laugh and half cry! <i>You</i> old! <i>You</i> a sort of hermit?
+Boh! Get out.</p>
+
+<p>With this comes my love and all our loves, to you and
+Mrs. Cerjat, and your daughter. I add my special and
+particular to the sweet "singing cousin." When shall you
+and I meet, and where? Must I come to see Townshend?
+I begin to think so.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Ever, my dear Cerjat, your affectionate and faithful.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Sir Edward
+Bulwer
+Lytton.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Gad's Hill</span>, <i>Tuesday, June 5th, 1860.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='unindent'><span class='smcap'>My dear Bulwer Lytton</span>,</div>
+
+<p>I am very much interested and gratified by your
+letter concerning "A Tale of Two Cities." I do not quite
+agree with you on two points, but that is no deduction from
+my pleasure.</p>
+
+<p>In the first place, although the surrender of the feudal
+privileges (on a motion seconded by a nobleman of great
+rank) was the occasion of a sentimental scene, I see no
+reason to doubt, but on the contrary, many reasons to believe,
+that some of these privileges had been used to the frightful
+oppression of the peasant, quite as near to the time of the
+Revolution as the doctor's narrative, which, you will remember,
+dates long before the Terror. And surely when<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[117]</a></span>
+the new philosophy was the talk of the salons and the slang
+of the hour, it is not unreasonable or unallowable to suppose
+a nobleman wedded to the old cruel ideas, and representing
+the time going out, as his nephew represents the time coming
+in; as to the condition of the peasant in France generally at
+that day, I take it that if anything be certain on earth it is
+certain that it was intolerable. No <i>ex post facto</i> enquiries
+and provings by figures will hold water, surely, against the
+tremendous testimony of men living at the time.</p>
+
+<p>There is a curious book printed at Amsterdam, written
+to make out no case whatever, and tiresome enough in its
+literal dictionary-like minuteness, scattered up and down
+the pages of which is full authority for my marquis. This
+is "Mercier's Tableau de Paris." Rousseau is the authority
+for the peasant's shutting up his house when he had a bit of
+meat. The tax-taker was the authority for the wretched
+creature's impoverishment.</p>
+
+<p>I am not clear, and I never have been clear, respecting
+that canon of fiction which forbids the interposition of
+accident in such a case as Madame Defarge's death.
+Where the accident is inseparable from the passion and
+emotion of the character, where it is strictly consistent with
+the whole design, and arises out of some culminating proceeding
+on the part of the character which the whole story
+has led up to, it seems to me to become, as it were, an act
+of divine justice. And when I use Miss Pross (though this
+is quite another question) to bring about that catastrophe, I
+have the positive intention of making that half-comic intervention
+a part of the desperate woman's failure, and of
+opposing that mean death&mdash;instead of a desperate one in the
+streets, which she wouldn't have minded&mdash;to the dignity of
+Carton's wrong or right; this <i>was</i> the design, and seemed
+to be in the fitness of things.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">[118]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Now, as to the reading. I am sorry to say that it is out
+of the question this season. I have had an attack of
+rheumatism&mdash;quite a stranger to me&mdash;which remains hovering
+about my left side, after having doubled me up in the
+back, and which would disable me from standing for two
+hours. I have given up all dinners and town engagements,
+and come to my little Falstaff House here, sensible of the
+necessity of country training all through the summer.
+Smith would have proposed any appointment to see you on
+the subject, but he has been dreadfully ill with tic. Whenever
+I read in London, I will gladly put a night aside for
+your purpose, and we will plot to connect your name with
+it, and give it some speciality. But this could not be before
+Christmas time, as I should not be able to read sooner, for
+in the hot weather it would be useless. Let me hear from
+you about this when you have considered it. It would
+greatly diminish the expenses, remember.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Ever affectionately and faithfully.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">The
+Lord John
+Russell.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span style="margin-right: 2em;"><span class="smcap">Gad's Hill Place, Higham by Rochester, Kent</span>,</span><br />
+<i>Sunday, June 17th, 1860.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='unindent'><span class='smcap'>My dear Lord John Russell</span>,</div>
+
+<p>I cannot thank you enough for your kind note and
+its most welcome enclosure. My sailor-boy comes home
+from Portsmouth to-morrow, and will be overjoyed. His
+masters have been as anxious for getting his nomination as
+though it were some distinction for themselves.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Ever your faithful and obliged.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">The Earl of
+Carlisle.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span style="margin-right: 2em;"><span class="smcap">Gad's Hill Place, Higham by Rochester, Kent</span>,</span><br />
+<i>Wednesday, Aug. 8th, 1860.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='unindent'><span class='smcap'>My dear Lord Carlisle</span>,</div>
+
+<p>Coming back here after an absence of three days in
+town, I find your kind and cordial letter lying on my table.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">[119]</a></span>
+I heartily thank you for it, and highly esteem it. I understand
+that the article on the spirits to which you refer was
+written by &mdash;&mdash; (he played an Irish porter in one scene of
+Bulwer's comedy at Devonshire House). Between ourselves,
+I think it must be taken with a few grains of salt,
+imperial measure. The experiences referred to "came off"
+at &mdash;&mdash;, where the spirit of &mdash;&mdash; (among an extensive and
+miscellaneous bodiless circle) <i>dines</i> sometimes! Mr. &mdash;&mdash;,
+the high priest of the mysteries, I have some considerable
+reason&mdash;derived from two honourable men&mdash;for mistrusting.
+And that some of the disciples are very easy of belief
+I know.</p>
+
+<p>This is Falstaff's own Gad's Hill, and I live on the top
+of it. All goes well with me, thank God! I should be
+thoroughly delighted to see you again, and to show you
+where the robbery was done. My eldest daughter keeps
+my house, and it is one I was extraordinarily fond of when
+a child.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+My dear Lord Carlisle, ever affectionately yours.<br />
+</div>
+
+<p>P.S.&mdash;I am prowling about, meditating a new book.</p>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mr. W. H.
+Wills.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span style="margin-right: 2em;"><span class="smcap">Office of "All the Year Round</span>,"</span><br />
+<i>Tuesday, Sept. 4th, 1860.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='unindent'><span class='smcap'>My dear Wills</span>,</div>
+
+<p>Your description of your sea-castle makes your room
+here look uncommonly dusty. Likewise the costermongers
+in the street outside, and the one customer (drunk, with his
+head on the table) in the Crown Coffee House over the way,
+in York Street, have an earthy, and, as I may say, a land-lubberly
+aspect. Cape Horn, to the best of <i>my</i> belief, is a
+tremendous way off, and there are more bricks and cabbage-leaves
+between this office and that dismal point of land than
+<i>you</i> can possibly imagine.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">[120]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Coming here from the station this morning, I met,
+coming from the execution of the Wentworth murderer,
+such a tide of ruffians as never could have flowed from any
+point but the gallows. Without any figure of speech it
+turned one white and sick to behold them.</p>
+
+<p>Tavistock House is cleared to-day, and possession delivered
+up. I must say that in all things the purchaser has
+behaved thoroughly well, and that I cannot call to mind
+any occasion when I have had money dealings with a
+Christian that have been so satisfactory, considerate, and
+trusting.</p>
+
+<p>I am ornamented at present with one of my most
+intensely preposterous and utterly indescribable colds. If
+you were to make a voyage from Cape Horn to Wellington
+Street, you would scarcely recognise in the bowed form,
+weeping eyes, rasped nose, and snivelling wretch whom you
+would encounter here, the once gay and sparkling, etc. etc.</p>
+
+<p>Everything else here is as quiet as possible. Business
+reports you receive from Holsworth. Wilkie looked in
+to-day, going to Gloucestershire for a week. The office is
+full of discarded curtains and coverings from Tavistock
+House, which Georgina is coming up this evening to select
+from and banish. Mary is in raptures with the beauties of
+Dunkeld, but is not very well in health. The Admiral
+(Sydney) goes up for his examination to-morrow. If he
+fails to pass with credit, I will never believe in anybody
+again, so in that case look out for your own reputation
+with me.</p>
+
+<p>This is really all the news I have, except that I am lazy,
+and that Wilkie dines here next Tuesday, in order that we
+may have a talk about the Christmas number.</p>
+
+<p>I beg to send my kind regard to Mrs. Wills, and to
+enquire how she likes wearing a hat, which of course she<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[121]</a></span>
+does. I also want to know from her in confidence whether
+<i>Crwllm festidiniog llymthll y wodd?</i></p>
+
+<p>Yesterday I burnt, in the field at Gad's Hill, the accumulated
+letters and papers of twenty years. They sent up
+a smoke like the genie when he got out of the casket on the
+seashore; and as it was an exquisite day when I began, and
+rained very heavily when I finished, I suspect my correspondence
+of having overcast the face of the heavens.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Ever faithfully.<br />
+</div>
+
+<p>P.S.&mdash;Kind regard to Mr. and Mrs. Novelli.<a name="FNanchor_6_6" id="FNanchor_6_6"></a><a href="#Footnote_6_6" class="fnanchor">[6]</a></p>
+
+<p>I have just sent out for <i>The Globe</i>. No news.</p>
+
+<p>Hullah's daughter (an artist) tells me that certain female
+students have addressed the Royal Academy, entreating
+them to find a place for their education. I think it a
+capital move, for which I can do something popular and
+telling in <i>The Register</i>. Adelaide Procter is active in the
+business, and has a copy of their letter. Will you write to
+her for that, and anything else she may have about it,
+telling her that I strongly approve, and want to help them
+myself?</p>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">The Hon.
+Mrs.
+Watson.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span style="margin-right: 2em;"><span class="smcap">Gad's Hill Place, Higham by Rochester, Kent</span>,</span><br />
+<i>Friday Night, Sept. 14th, 1860.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='unindent'><span class='smcap'>My dear Mrs. Watson</span>,</div>
+
+<p>I lose no time in answering your letter; and first as
+to business, the school in the High Town at Boulogne was
+excellent. The boys all English, the two proprietors an old
+Eton master and one of the Protestant clergymen of the
+town. The teaching unusually sound and good. The
+manner and conduct developed in the boys quite admirable.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">[122]</a></span>
+But I have never seen a gentleman so perfectly acquainted
+with boy-nature as the Eton master. There was a perfect
+understanding between him and his charges; nothing
+pedantic on his part, nothing slavish on their parts. The
+result was, that either with him or away from him, the boys
+combined an ease and frankness with a modesty and sense
+of responsibility that was really above all praise. Alfred
+went from there to a great school at Wimbledon, where they
+train for India and the artillery and engineers. Sydney
+went from there to Mr. Barrow, at Southsea. In both
+instances the new masters wrote to me of their own accord,
+bearing quite unsolicited testimony to the merits of the old,
+and expressing their high recognition of what they had
+done. These things speak for themselves.</p>
+
+<p>Sydney has just passed his examination as a naval cadet
+and come home, all eyes and gold buttons. He has twelve
+days' leave before going on board the training-ship. Katie
+and her husband are in France, and seem likely to remain
+there for an indefinite period. Mary is on a month's visit
+in Scotland; Georgina, Frank, and Plorn are at home here;
+and we all want Mary and her little dog back again. I
+have sold Tavistock House, am making this rather complete
+in its way, and am on the restless eve of beginning a new
+big book; but mean to have a furnished house in town
+(in some accessible quarter) from February or so to June.
+May we meet there.</p>
+
+<p>Your handwriting is always so full of pleasant memories
+to me, that when I took it out of the post-office at Rochester
+this afternoon it quite stirred my heart. But we must not
+think of old times as sad times, or regard them as anything
+but the fathers and mothers of the present. We must all
+climb steadily up the mountain after the talking bird, the
+singing tree, and the yellow water, and must all bear in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">[123]</a></span>
+mind that the previous climbers who were scared into
+looking back got turned into black stone.</p>
+
+<p>Mary Boyle was here a little while ago, as affectionate at
+heart as ever, as young, and as pleasant. Of course we
+talked often of you. So let me know when you are established
+in Halfmoon Street, and I shall be truly delighted
+to come and see you.</p>
+
+<p>For my attachments are strong attachments and never
+weaken. In right of bygones, I feel as if "all Northamptonshire"
+belonged to me, as all Northumberland did to Lord
+Bateman in the ballad. In memory of your warming your
+feet at the fire in that waste of a waiting-room when I read
+at Brighton, I have ever since taken that watering-place to
+my bosom as I never did before. And you and Switzerland
+are always one to me, and always inseparable.</p>
+
+<p>Charley was heard of yesterday, from Shanghai, going
+to Japan, intending to meet his brother Walter at Calcutta,
+and having an idea of beguiling the time between whiles by
+asking to be taken as an amateur with the English Chinese
+forces. Everybody caressed him and asked him everywhere,
+and he seemed to go. With kind regards, my dear
+Mrs. Watson,</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Ever affectionately yours.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mr.
+Edmund
+Yates.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span style="margin-right: 2em;"><span class="smcap">Gad's Hill Place, Higham by Rochester, Kent</span>,</span><br />
+<i>Sunday, Sept. 23rd, 1860.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='center'>
+<small>ON THE DEATH OF HIS MOTHER.</small><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='unindent'><span class='smcap'>My dear E. Y.</span>,</div>
+
+<p>I did not write to you in your bereavement, because
+I knew that the girls had written to you, and because I
+instinctively shrunk from making a form of what was so
+real. <i>You</i> knew what a loving and faithful remembrance<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">[124]</a></span>
+I always had of your mother as a part of my youth&mdash;no
+more capable of restoration than my youth itself. All the
+womanly goodness, grace, and beauty of my drama went
+out with her. To the last I never could hear her voice
+without emotion. I think of her as of a beautiful part of
+my own youth, and this dream that we are all dreaming
+seems to darken.</p>
+
+<p>But it is not to say this that I write now. It comes to
+the point of my pen in spite of me.</p>
+
+<p>"Holding up the Mirror" is in next week's number. I
+have taken out all this funeral part of it. Not because I
+disliked it (for, indeed, I thought it the best part of the
+paper), but because it rather grated on me, going over the
+proof at that time, as a remembrance that would be better
+reserved a little while. Also because it made rather a
+mixture of yourself as an individual, with something that
+does not belong or attach to you as an individual. You
+can have the MS.; and as a part of a paper describing your
+own juvenile remembrances of a theatre, there it is, needing
+no change or adaption.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Ever faithfully.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Miss
+Dickens.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span style="margin-right: 2em;"><span class="smcap">Gad's Hill Place, Higham by Rochester, Kent</span>,</span><br />
+<i>Sunday, Sept. 23rd, 1860.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='unindent'><span class='smcap'>My dearest Mamie</span>,</div>
+
+<p>If you had been away from us and ill with anybody
+in the world but our dear Mrs. White, I should have been
+in a state of the greatest anxiety and uneasiness about you.
+But as I know it to be impossible that you could be in
+kinder or better hands, I was not in the least restless about
+you, otherwise than as it grieved me to hear of my poor
+dear girl's suffering such pain. I hope it is over now for<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">[125]</a></span>
+many a long day, and that you will come back to us a
+thousand times better in health than you left us.</p>
+
+<p>Don't come back too soon. Take time and get well
+restored. There is no hurry, the house is not near to-rights
+yet, and though we all want you, and though Boy wants
+you, we all (including Boy) deprecate a fatiguing journey
+being taken too soon.</p>
+
+<p>As to the carpenters, they are absolutely maddening.
+They are always at work, yet never seem to do anything.
+Lillie was down on Friday, and said (his eye fixed on
+Maidstone, and rubbing his hand to conciliate his moody
+employer) that "he didn't think there would be very much
+left to do after Saturday, the 29th."</p>
+
+<p>I didn't throw him out of the window. Your aunt tells
+you all the news, and leaves me no chance of distinguishing
+myself, I know. You have been told all about my brackets
+in the drawing-room, all about the glass rescued from the
+famous stage-wreck of Tavistock House, all about everything
+here and at the office. The office is really a success.
+As comfortable, cheerful, and private as anything of the
+kind can possibly be.</p>
+
+<p>I took the Admiral (but this you know too, no doubt)
+to Dollond's, the mathematical instrument maker's, last
+Monday, to buy that part of his outfit. His sextant (which
+is about the size and shape of a cocked hat), on being applied
+to his eye, entirely concealed him. Not the faintest vestige
+of the distinguished officer behind it was perceptible to the
+human vision. All through the City, people turned round
+and stared at him with the sort of pleasure people take in a
+little model. We went on to Chatham this day week, in
+search of some big man-of-war's-man who should be under
+obligation to salute him&mdash;unfortunately found none. But
+this no doubt you know too, and all my news falls flat.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">[126]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>I am driven out of my room by paint, and am writing in
+the best spare room. The whole prospect is excessively wet;
+it does not rain now, but yesterday it did tremendously, and
+it rained very heavily in the night. We are even muddy;
+and that is saying a great deal in this dry country of chalk
+and sand. Everywhere the corn is lying out and saturated
+with wet. The hops (nearly everywhere) look as if they had
+been burnt.</p>
+
+<p>In my mind's eye I behold Mrs. Bouncer, still with
+some traces of her late anxiety on her faithful countenance,
+balancing herself a little unequally on her bow fore-legs,
+pricking up her ears, with her head on one side, and slightly
+opening her intellectual nostrils. I send my loving and
+respectful duty to her.</p>
+
+<p>To dear Mrs. White, and to White, and to Clara, say
+anything from me that is loving and grateful.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+<span style="margin-right: 8em;">My dearest Mamie,</span><br />
+Ever and ever your most affectionate Father.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Miss
+Hogarth.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span style="margin-right: 2em;"><span class="smcap">Office of "All the Year Round</span>,"</span><br />
+<i>Monday Night, Sept. 24th, 1860.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='unindent'><span class='smcap'>My dearest Georgy</span>,</div>
+
+<p>At the Waterloo station we were saluted with
+"Hallo! here's Dickens!" from divers naval cadets, and
+Sir Richard Bromley introduced himself to me, who had his
+cadet son with him, a friend of Sydney's. We went down
+together, and the boys were in the closest alliance. Bromley
+being Accountant-General of the Navy, and having influence
+on board, got their hammocks changed so that they would
+be serving side by side, at which they were greatly pleased.
+The moment we stepped on board, the "Hul-lo! here's
+Dickens!" was repeated on all sides, and the Admiral
+(evidently highly popular) shook hands with about fifty of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">[127]</a></span>
+his messmates. Taking Bromley for my model (with whom
+I fraternised in the most pathetic manner), I gave Sydney a
+sovereign before stepping over the side. He was as little
+overcome as it was possible for a boy to be, and stood
+waving the gold-banded cap as we came ashore in a boat.</p>
+
+<p>There is no denying that he looks very small aboard a
+great ship, and that a boy must have a strong and decided
+speciality for the sea to take to such a life. Captain Harris
+was not on board, but the other chief officers were, and were
+highly obliging. We went over the ship. I should say
+that there can be little or no individuality of address to any
+particular boy, but that they all tumble through their education
+in a crowded way. The Admiral's servant (I mean our
+Admiral's) had an idiotic appearance, but perhaps it did him
+injustice (a mahogany-faced marine by station). The Admiral's
+washing apparatus is about the size of a muffin-plate, and he
+could easily live in his chest. The meeting with Bromley
+was a piece of great good fortune, and the dear old chap
+could not have been left more happily.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Ever, my dearest Georgy, your most affectionate.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Miss
+Power.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span style="margin-right: 2em;"><span class="smcap">Office of "All the Year Round</span>,"</span><br />
+<i>Tuesday, Sept. 25th, 1860.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='unindent'><span class='smcap'>My dear Marguerite</span>,</div>
+
+<p>I like the article exceedingly, and think the translations
+<i>admirable</i>&mdash;spirited, fresh, bold, and evidently faithful.
+I will get the paper into the next number I make up,
+No. 78. I will send a proof to you for your correction,
+either next Monday or this day week. Or would you like
+to come here next Monday and dine with us at five, and
+go over to Madame C&eacute;leste's opening? Then you could<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">[128]</a></span>
+correct your paper on the premises, as they drink their beer
+at the beer-shops.</p>
+
+<p>Some of the introductory remarks on French literature
+I propose to strike out, as a little too essayical for this
+purpose, and likely to throw out a large portion of the large
+audience at starting, as suggesting some very different kind
+of article. My daring pen shall have imbued its murderous
+heart with ink before you see the proof.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+<span style="margin-right: 4em;">With kind regards,</span><br />
+Ever affectionately.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mr. John
+Forster.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span style="margin-right: 2em;"><span class="smcap">Gad's Hill Place, Higham by Rochester, Kent</span>,</span><br />
+<i>Thursday, Oct. 4th, 1860.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='unindent'><span class='smcap'>My dear Forster</span>,</div>
+
+<p>It would be a great pleasure to me to come to you,
+an immense pleasure, and to sniff the sea I love (from the
+shore); but I fear I must come down one morning and come
+back at night. I will tell you why.</p>
+
+<p>Last week, I got to work on a new story. I called a
+council of war at the office on Tuesday. It was perfectly
+clear that the one thing to be done was, for me to strike
+in. I have therefore decided to begin a story, the length
+of the "Tale of Two Cities," on the 1st of December&mdash;begin
+publishing, that is. I must make the most I can out
+of the book. When I come down, I will bring you the
+first two or three weekly parts. The name is, "<span class="smcap">Great
+Expectations</span>." I think a good name?</p>
+
+<p>Now the preparations to get ahead, combined with the
+absolute necessity of my giving a good deal of time to the
+Christmas number, will tie me to the grindstone pretty
+tightly. It will be just as much as I can hope to do. Therefore,
+what I had hoped would be a few days at Eastbourne
+diminish to a few hours.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">[129]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>I took the Admiral down to Portsmouth. Every maritime
+person in the town knew him. He seemed to know
+every boy on board the <i>Britannia</i>, and was a tremendous
+favourite evidently. It was very characteristic of him that
+they good-naturedly helped him, he being so very small,
+into his hammock at night. But he couldn't rest in it on
+these terms, and got out again to learn the right way of
+getting in independently. Official report stated that "after
+a few spills, he succeeded perfectly, and went to sleep."
+He is perfectly happy on board, takes tea with the captain,
+leads choruses on Saturday nights, and has an immense
+marine for a servant.</p>
+
+<p>I saw Edmund Yates at the office, and he told me that
+during all his mother's wanderings of mind, which were
+almost incessant at last, she never once went back to the
+old Adelphi days until she was just dying, when he heard
+her say, in great perplexity: "I can <i>not</i> get the words."</p>
+
+<p>Best love to Mrs. Forster.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Ever, my dear Forster, affectionately.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mr. W.
+Wilkie
+Collins.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span style="margin-right: 2em;"><span class="smcap">Office of "All the Year Round</span>,"</span><br />
+<i>Wednesday, Oct. 24th, 1860.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='unindent'><span class='smcap'>My dear Wilkie</span>,</div>
+
+<p>I have been down to Brighton to see Forster, and
+found your letter there on arriving by express this morning.
+I also found a letter from Georgina, describing that Mary's
+horse went down suddenly on a stone, and how Mary was
+thrown, and had her riding-habit torn to pieces, and has a
+deep cut just above the knee&mdash;fortunately not in the knee
+itself, which is doing exceedingly well, but which will
+probably incapacitate her from walking for days and days
+to come. It is well it was no worse. The accident occurred<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">[130]</a></span>
+at Milton, near Gravesend, and they found Mary in a
+public-house there, wonderfully taken care of and looked
+after.</p>
+
+<p>I propose that we start on Thursday morning, the
+1st of November. The train for Penzance leaves the Great
+Western terminus at a quarter-past nine in the morning.
+It is a twelve hours' journey. Shall we meet at the
+terminus at nine? I shall be here all the previous day,
+and shall dine here.</p>
+
+<p>Your account of your passage goes to my heart through
+my stomach. What a pity I was not there on board to
+present that green-visaged, but sweet-tempered and uncomplaining
+spectacle of imbecility, at which I am so
+expert under stormy circumstances, in the poet's phrase:</p>
+
+<div class='poem'>
+As I sweep<br />
+Through the deep,<br />
+When the stormy winds do blow.<br />
+</div>
+
+<p>What a pity I am not there, at Meurice's, to sleep the
+sleep of infancy through the long plays where the gentlemen
+stand with their backs to the mantelpieces. What a
+pity I am not with you to make a third at the Trois Fr&egrave;res,
+and drink no end of bottles of Bordeaux, without ever
+getting a touch of redness in my (poet's phrase again)
+"innocent nose." But I must go down to Gad's to-night,
+and get to work again. Four weekly numbers have been
+ground off the wheel, and at least another must be turned
+before we meet. They shall be yours in the slumberous
+railway-carriage.</p>
+
+<p>I don't think Forster is at all in good health. He was
+tremendously hospitable and hearty. I walked six hours
+and a half on the downs yesterday, and never stopped or
+sat. Early in the morning, before breakfast, I went to the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">[131]</a></span>
+nearest baths to get a shower-bath. They kept me waiting
+longer than I thought reasonable, and seeing a man in a
+cap in the passage, I went to him and said: "I really must
+request that you'll be good enough to see about this shower-bath;"
+and it was Hullah! waiting for another bath.</p>
+
+<p>Rumours were brought into the house on Saturday
+night, that there was a "ghost" up at Larkins's monument.
+Plorn was frightened to death, and I was apprehensive of
+the ghost's spreading and coming there, and causing
+"warning" and desertion among the servants. Frank was
+at home, and Andrew Gordon was with us. Time, nine
+o'clock. Village talk and credulity, amazing. I armed the
+two boys with a short stick apiece, and shouldered my
+double-barrelled gun, well loaded with shot. "Now
+observe," says I to the domestics, "if anybody is playing
+tricks and has got a head, I'll blow it off." Immense
+impression. New groom evidently convinced that he has
+entered the service of a bloodthirsty demon. We ascend
+to the monument. Stop at the gate. Moon is rising.
+Heavy shadows. "Now, look out!" (from the bloodthirsty
+demon, in a loud, distinct voice). "If the ghost is
+here and I see him, so help me God I'll fire at him!"
+Suddenly, as we enter the field, a most extraordinary noise
+responds&mdash;terrific noise&mdash;human noise&mdash;and yet superhuman
+noise. B. T. D. brings piece to shoulder. "Did
+you hear that, pa?" says Frank. "I did," says I. Noise
+repeated&mdash;portentous, derisive, dull, dismal, damnable. We
+advance towards the sound. Something white comes
+lumbering through the darkness. An asthmatic sheep!
+Dead, as I judge, by this time. Leaving Frank to guard
+him, I took Andrew with me, and went all round the
+monument, and down into the ditch, and examined the field
+well, thinking it likely that somebody might be taking<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">[132]</a></span>
+advantage of the sheep to frighten the village. Drama
+ends with discovery of no one, and triumphant return to
+rum-and-water.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Ever affectionately.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Miss
+Hogarth.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Bideford, North Devon</span>, <i>Thursday Night, Nov. 1st, 1860.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='unindent'><span class='smcap'>My dearest Georgy</span>,</div>
+
+<p>I write (with the most impracticable iron pen on
+earth) to report our safe arrival here, in a beastly hotel.
+We start to-morrow morning at nine on a two days' posting
+between this and Liskeard in Cornwall. We are due in
+Liskeard (but nobody seems to know anything about the
+roads) on Saturday afternoon, and we purpose making an
+excursion in that neighbourhood on Sunday, and coming
+up from Liskeard on Monday by Great Western fast train,
+which will get us to London, please God, in good time on
+Monday evening. There I shall hear from you, and know
+whether dear Mamie will move to London too.</p>
+
+<p>We had a pleasant journey down here, and a beautiful
+day. No adventures whatever. Nothing has happened to
+Wilkie, and he sends love.</p>
+
+<p>We had stinking fish for dinner, and have been able to
+drink nothing, though we have ordered wine, beer, and
+brandy-and-water. There is nothing in the house but two
+tarts and a pair of snuffers. The landlady is playing cribbage
+with the landlord in the next room (behind a thin
+partition), and they seem quite comfortable.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Ever, my dearest Georgy, your most affectionate.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Miss Mary
+Boyle.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span style="margin-right: 2em;"><span class="smcap">Office of "All the Year Round</span>,"</span><br />
+<i>Friday, Dec. 28th, 1860.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='unindent'><span class='smcap'>My dear Mary</span>,</div>
+
+<p>I cannot tell you how much I thank you for the beautiful
+cigar-case, and how seasonable, and friendly, and good,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">[133]</a></span>
+and warm-hearted it looked when I opened it at Gad's Hill.
+Besides which, it is a cigar-case, and will hold cigars; two
+crowning merits that I never yet knew to be possessed by
+any article claiming the same name. For all of these
+reasons, but more than all because it comes from you, I love
+it, and send you eighteen hundred and sixty kisses, with one
+in for the new year.</p>
+
+<p>Both excellent stories and perfectly new. Your Joe
+swears that he never heard either&mdash;never a word or
+syllable of either&mdash;after he laughed at 'em this blessed
+day.</p>
+
+<p>I have no news, except that I am not quite well, and am
+being doctored. Pray read "Great Expectations." I think
+it is very droll. It is a very great success, and seems
+universally liked. I suppose because it opens funnily, and
+with an interest too.</p>
+
+<p>I pass my time here (I am staying here alone) in working,
+taking physic, and taking a stall at a theatre every
+night. On Boxing Night I was at Covent Garden. A dull
+pantomime was "worked" (as we say) better than I ever saw
+a heavy piece worked on a first night, until suddenly and
+without a moment's warning, every scene on that immense
+stage fell over on its face, and disclosed chaos by gaslight
+behind! There never was such a business; about sixty people
+who were on the stage being extinguished in the most remarkable
+manner. Not a soul was hurt. In the uproar, some
+moon-calf rescued a porter pot, six feet high (out of which
+the clown had been drinking when the accident happened),
+and stood it on the cushion of the lowest proscenium box,
+P.S., beside a lady and gentleman, who were dreadfully
+ashamed of it. The moment the house knew that nobody
+was injured, they directed their whole attention to this
+gigantic porter pot in its genteel position (the lady and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">[134]</a></span>
+gentleman trying to hide behind it), and roared with
+laughter. When a modest footman came from behind the
+curtain to clear it, and took it up in his arms like a Brobdingnagian
+baby, we all laughed more than ever we had
+laughed in our lives. I don't know why.</p>
+
+<p>We have had a fire here, but our people put it out
+before the parish-engine arrived, like a drivelling perambulator,
+with <i>the beadle in it</i>, like an imbecile baby.
+Popular opinion, disappointed in the fire having been put
+out, snowballed the beadle. God bless it!</p>
+
+<p>Over the way at the Lyceum, there is a very fair Christmas
+piece, with one or two uncommonly well-done nigger
+songs&mdash;one remarkably gay and mad, done in the finale to
+a scene. Also a very nice transformation, though I don't
+know what it means.</p>
+
+<p>The poor actors waylay me in Bow Street, to represent
+their necessities; and I often see one cut down a court
+when he beholds me coming, cut round Drury Lane to
+face me, and come up towards me near this door in the
+freshest and most accidental way, as if I was the last
+person he expected to see on the surface of this globe. The
+other day, there thus appeared before me (simultaneously
+with a scent of rum in the air) one aged and greasy man,
+with a pair of pumps under his arm. He said he thought if
+he could get down to somewhere (I think it was Newcastle),
+he would get "taken on" as Pantaloon, the existing Pantaloon
+being "a stick, sir&mdash;a mere muff." I observed that I
+was sorry times were so bad with him. "Mr. Dickens, you
+know our profession, sir&mdash;no one knows it better, sir&mdash;there
+is no right feeling in it. I was Harlequin on your own
+circuit, sir, for five-and-thirty years, and was displaced by
+a boy, sir!&mdash;a boy!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">[135]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>So no more at present, except love to Mrs. Watson and
+Bedgey Prig and all, from my dear Mary.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+<span style="margin-right: 2em;">Your ever affectionate</span><br />
+<span class="smcap">Joe</span>.<br />
+</div>
+
+<p>P.S.&mdash;DON'T I pine neither?</p>
+
+<p>P.P.S.&mdash;I did my best to arouse Forster's worst feelings;
+but he had got into a Christmas habit of mind, and wouldn't
+respond.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h3>NARRATIVE.</h3>
+
+<h2>1861.</h2>
+
+
+<div class='unindent'><span class='smcap'>This</span>, as far as his movements were concerned, was again
+a very unsettled year with Charles Dickens. He hired a
+furnished house in the Regent's Park, which he, with his
+household, occupied for some months. During the season
+he gave several readings at St. James's Hall. After a short
+summer holiday at Gad's Hill, he started, in the autumn, on
+a reading tour in the English provinces. Mr. Arthur Smith,
+being seriously ill, could not accompany him in this tour;
+and Mr. Headland, who was formerly in office at the
+St. Martin's Hall, was engaged as business-manager of
+these readings. Mr. Arthur Smith died in October, and
+Charles Dickens's distress at the loss of this loved friend
+and companion is touchingly expressed in many of his letters
+of this year.</div>
+
+<p>There are also sorrowful allusions to the death of his
+brother-in-law, Mr. Henry Austin, which sad event likewise
+happened in October. And the letter we give to Mrs. Austin
+("Letitia") has reference to her sad affliction.</p>
+
+<p>In June of this year he paid a short visit to Sir E. B.
+Lytton at Knebworth, accompanied by his daughter and
+sister-in-law, who also during his autumn tour joined him in
+Edinburgh. But this course of readings was brought rather<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">[136]</a></span>
+suddenly to an end on account of the death of the Prince
+Consort.</p>
+
+<p>Besides being constantly occupied with the business of
+these readings, Charles Dickens was still at work on his
+story of "Great Expectations," which was appearing
+weekly in "All the Year Round." The story closed on
+the 3rd of August, when it was published as a whole in
+three volumes, and inscribed to Mr. Chauncey Hare Townshend.
+The Christmas number of "All the Year Round"
+was called "Tom Tiddler's Ground," to which Charles
+Dickens contributed three stories.</p>
+
+<p>Our second letter in this year is given more as a specimen
+of the claims which were constantly being made upon Charles
+Dickens's time and patience, than because we consider the
+letter itself to contain much public interest; excepting,
+indeed, as showing his always considerate and courteous
+replies to such constant applications.</p>
+
+<p>"The fire" mentioned in the letter to Mr. Forster was
+the great fire in Tooley Street. The "Morgan" was an
+American sea-captain, well known in those days, and greatly
+liked and respected. It may interest our readers to know
+that the character of Captain Jorgan, in the Christmas
+number of the previous year, was suggested by this pleasant
+sailor, for whom Charles Dickens had a hearty liking.
+Young Mr. Morgan was, during the years he passed in
+England, a constant visitor at Gad's Hill. The "Elwin"
+mentioned in the letter written from Bury St. Edmunds,
+was the Rev. Whitwell Elwin, a Norfolk gentleman, well
+known in the literary world, and who was for many years
+editor of "The Quarterly Review."</p>
+
+<p>The explanation of the letter to Mr. John Agate, of
+Dover, we give in that gentleman's own words:</p>
+
+<p>"There are few public men with the strain upon their
+time and energies which he had particularly (and which I
+know better now that I have read his life), who would have
+spared the time to have written such a long courteous letter.</p>
+
+<p>"I wrote to him rather in anger, and left the letter
+myself at The Lord Warden, as I and my family were very<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">[137]</a></span>
+much disappointed, after having purchased our tickets so
+long before, to find we could not got into the room, as money
+was being received, but his kind letter explained all."</p>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Miss
+Hogarth.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span style="margin-right: 2em;"><span class="smcap">Office of "All the Year Round</span>,"</span><br />
+<i>Wednesday, Jan. 9th, 1861.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='unindent'><span class='smcap'>My dearest Georgy</span>,</div>
+
+<p>"We" are in the full swing of stopping managers
+from playing "A Message from the Sea." I privately
+doubt the strength of our position in the Court of Chancery,
+if we try it; but it is worth trying.</p>
+
+<p>I am aware that Mr. Lane of the Britannia sent an
+emissary to Gad's Hill yesterday. It unfortunately happens
+that the first man "we" have to assert the principle against
+is a very good man, whom I really respect.</p>
+
+<p>I have no news, except that I really hope and believe I
+am gradually getting well. If I have no check, I hope to
+be soon discharged by the medico.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Ever affectionately.<br />
+</div>
+
+<p>P.S.&mdash;Best love to Mamie, also to the boys and Miss
+Craufurd.</p>
+
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span style="margin-right: 2em;"><span class="smcap">Office of "All the Year Round," 26, Wellington Street, W.C.,</span></span><br />
+<i>Tuesday Evening, Jan. 9th, 1861.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='unindent'><span class='smcap'>Dear Sir</span>,</div>
+
+<p>I feel it quite hopeless to endeavour to present
+my position before you, in reference to such a letter as
+yours, in its plain and true light. When you suppose it
+would have cost Mr. Thackeray "but a word" to use his
+influence to obtain you some curatorship or the like, you fill
+me with the sense of impossibility of leading you to a more
+charitable judgment of Mr. Dickens.</p>
+
+<p>Nevertheless, I will put the truth before you. Scarcely
+a day of my life passes, or has passed for many years,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">[138]</a></span>
+without bringing me some letters similar to yours. Often
+they will come by dozens&mdash;scores&mdash;hundreds. My time and
+attention would be pretty well occupied without them, and
+the claims upon me (some very near home), for all the
+influence and means of help that I do and do not possess,
+are not commonly heavy. I have no power to aid you
+towards the attainment of your object. It is the simple
+exact truth, and nothing can alter it. So great is the disquietude
+I constantly undergo from having to write to some
+new correspondent in this strain, that, God knows, I would
+resort to another relief if I could.</p>
+
+<p>Your studies from nature appear to me to express an
+excellent observation of nature, in a loving and healthy
+spirit. But what then? The dealers and dealers' prices of
+which you complain will not be influenced by that honest
+opinion. Nor will it have the least effect upon the President
+of the Royal Academy, or the Directors of the School of
+Design. Assuming your supposition to be correct that
+these authorities are adverse to you, I have no more
+power than you have to render them favourable. And
+assuming them to be quite disinterested and dispassionate
+towards you, I have no voice or weight in any appointment
+that any of them make.</p>
+
+<p>I will retain your packet over to-morrow, and will then
+cause it to be sent to your house. I write under the
+pressure of occupation and business, and therefore write
+briefly.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Faithfully yours.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">M. de
+Cerjat.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Office of "All the Year Round</span>," <i>Friday, Feb. 1st, 1861.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='unindent'><span class='smcap'>My dear Cerjat</span>,</div>
+
+<p>You have read in the papers of our heavy English
+frost. At Gad's Hill it was so intensely cold, that in our<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">[139]</a></span>
+warm dining-room on Christmas Day we could hardly sit at
+the table. In my study on that morning, long after a great
+fire of coal and wood had been lighted, the thermometer
+was I don't know where below freezing. The bath froze,
+and all the pipes froze, and remained in a stony state for
+five or six weeks. The water in the bedroom-jugs froze,
+and blew up the crockery. The snow on the top of the
+house froze, and was imperfectly removed with axes. My
+beard froze as I walked about, and I couldn't detach my
+cravat and coat from it until I was thawed at the fire. My
+boys and half the officers stationed at Chatham skated
+away without a check to Gravesend&mdash;five miles off&mdash;and
+repeated the performance for three or four weeks. At last
+the thaw came, and then everything split, blew up, dripped,
+poured, perspired, and got spoilt. Since then we have had
+a small visitation of the plague of servants; the cook (in a
+riding-habit) and the groom (in a dress-coat and jewels)
+having mounted Mary's horse and mine, in our absence,
+and scoured the neighbouring country at a rattling pace.
+And when I went home last Saturday, I innocently wondered
+how the horses came to be out of condition, and gravely
+consulted the said groom on the subject, who gave it as his
+opinion "which they wanted reg'lar work." We are now
+coming to town until midsummer. Having sold my own
+house, to be more free and independent, I have taken a very
+pretty furnished house, No. 3, Hanover Terrace, Regent's
+Park. This, of course, on my daughter's account. For I
+have very good and cheerful bachelor rooms here, with an
+old servant in charge, who is the cleverest man of his kind
+in the world, and can do anything, from excellent carpentery
+to excellent cookery, and has been with me three-and-twenty
+years.</p>
+
+<p>The American business is the greatest English sensation<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">[140]</a></span>
+at present. I venture to predict that the struggle of violence
+will be a very short one, and will be soon succeeded by some
+new compact between the Northern and Southern States.
+Meantime the Lancashire mill-owners are getting very
+uneasy.</p>
+
+<p>The Italian state of things is not regarded as looking
+very cheerful. What from one's natural sympathies with a
+people so oppressed as the Italians, and one's natural antagonism
+to a pope and a Bourbon (both of which superstitions
+I do suppose the world to have had more than enough of), I
+agree with you concerning Victor Emmanuel, and greatly
+fear that the Southern Italians are much degraded. Still,
+an united Italy would be of vast importance to the peace of
+the world, and would be a rock in Louis Napoleon's way, as
+he very well knows. Therefore the idea must be championed,
+however much against hope.</p>
+
+<p>My eldest boy, just home from China, was descried by
+Townshend's Henri the moment he landed at Marseilles,
+and was by him borne in triumph to Townshend's rooms.
+The weather was snowy, slushy, beastly; and Marseilles
+was, as it usually is to my thinking, well-nigh intolerable.
+My boy could not stay with Townshend, as he was coming on
+by express train; but he says: "I sat with him and saw
+him dine. He had a leg of lamb, and a tremendous cold."
+That is the whole description I have been able to extract
+from him.</p>
+
+<p>This journal is doing gloriously, and "Great Expectations"
+is a great success. I have taken my third boy, Frank
+(Jeffrey's godson), into this office. If I am not mistaken,
+he has a natural literary taste and capacity, and may do
+very well with a chance so congenial to his mind, and being
+also entered at the Bar.</p>
+
+<p>Dear me, when I have to show you about London, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">[141]</a></span>
+we dine <i>en gar&ccedil;on</i> at odd places, I shall scarcely know
+where to begin. Only yesterday I walked out from here in
+the afternoon, and thought I would go down by the Houses
+of Parliament. When I got there, the day was so beautifully
+bright and warm, that I thought I would walk on by
+Millbank, to see the river. I walked straight on <i>for three
+miles</i> on a splendid broad esplanade overhanging the
+Thames, with immense factories, railway works, and what-not
+erected on it, and with the strangest beginnings and
+ends of wealthy streets pushing themselves into the very
+Thames. When I was a rower on that river, it was all
+broken ground and ditch, with here and there a public-house
+or two, an old mill, and a tall chimney. I had never
+seen it in any state of transition, though I suppose myself to
+know this rather large city as well as anyone in it.</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. E. M.
+Ward, R.A.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span style="margin-right: 2em;">3, <span class="smcap">Hanover Terrace, Regent's Park</span>,</span><br />
+<i>Saturday Night, March 9th, 1861.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='unindent'><span class='smcap'>My dear Ward</span>,</div>
+
+<p>I cannot tell you how gratified I have been by your
+letter, and what a splendid recompense it is for any pleasure
+I am giving you. Such generous and earnest sympathy
+from such a brother-artist gives me true delight. I am
+proud of it, believe me, and moved by it to do all the
+better.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Ever faithfully yours.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mr. W. C.
+Macready.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">"All the Year Round" Office</span>, <i>Tuesday, June 11th, 1861.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='unindent'><span class='smcap'>My dearest Macready</span>,</div>
+
+<p>There is little doubt, I think, of my reading at
+Cheltenham somewhere about November. I submit myself
+so entirely to Arthur Smith's arrangements for me, that I<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">[142]</a></span>
+express my sentiments on this head with modesty. But I
+think there is scarcely a doubt of my seeing you then.</p>
+
+<p>I have just finished my book of "Great Expectations,"
+and am the worse for wear. Neuralgic pains in the face
+have troubled me a good deal, and the work has been
+pretty close. But I hope that the book is a good book, and
+I have no doubt of very soon throwing off the little damage
+it has done me.</p>
+
+<p>What with Blondin at the Crystal Palace and <ins title="Transcriber's Note: original reads 'Leotard'">L&eacute;otard</ins>
+at Leicester Square, we seem to be going back to barbaric
+excitements. I have not seen, and don't intend to see, the
+Hero of Niagara (as the posters call him), but I have been
+beguiled into seeing <ins title="Transcriber's Note: original reads 'Leotard'">L&eacute;otard</ins>, and it is at once the most
+fearful and most graceful thing I have ever seen done.</p>
+
+<p>Clara White (grown pretty) has been staying with us.</p>
+
+<p>I am sore afraid that <i>The Times</i>, by playing fast and
+loose with the American question, has very seriously compromised
+this country. The Americans northward are
+perfectly furious on the subject; and Motley the historian
+(a very sensible man, strongly English in his sympathies)
+assured me the other day that he thought the harm done
+very serious indeed, and the dangerous nature of the daily
+widening breach scarcely calculable.</p>
+
+<p>Kindest and best love to all. Wilkie Collins has just
+come in, and sends best regard.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Ever most affectionately, my dearest Macready.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mr. John
+Forster.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Gad's Hill</span>, <i>Monday, July 1st, 1861.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='unindent'><span class='smcap'>My dear Forster</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>You will be surprised to hear that I have changed the
+end of "Great Expectations" from and after Pip's return to
+Joe's, and finding his little likeness there.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">[143]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Bulwer (who has been, as I think I told you, extraordinarily
+taken by the book), so strongly urged it upon me,
+after reading the proofs, and supported his views with such
+good reasons, that I resolved to make the change. You
+shall have it when you come back to town. I have put in a
+very pretty piece of writing, and I have no doubt the story
+will be more acceptable through the alteration.</p>
+
+<p>I have not seen Bulwer's changed story. I brought back
+the first month with me, and I know the nature of his changes
+throughout; but I have not yet had the revised proofs. He
+was in a better state at Knebworth than I have ever seen
+him in all these years, a little weird occasionally regarding
+magic and spirits, but perfectly fair and frank under opposition.
+He was talkative, anecdotical, and droll; looked
+young and well, laughed heartily, and enjoyed some games
+we played with great zest. In his artist character and talk
+he was full of interest and matter, but that he always is.
+Socially, he seemed to me almost a new man. I thoroughly
+enjoyed myself, and so did Georgina and Mary.</p>
+
+<p>The fire I did not see until the Monday morning, but it
+was blazing fiercely then, and was blazing hardly less
+furiously when I came down here again last Friday. I was
+here on the night of its breaking out. If I had been in
+London I should have been on the scene, pretty surely.</p>
+
+<p>You will be perhaps surprised to hear that it is Morgan's
+conviction (his son was here yesterday), that the North will
+put down the South, and that speedily. In his management
+of his large business, he is proceeding steadily on that
+conviction. He says that the South has no money and no
+credit, and that it is impossible for it to make a successful
+stand. He may be all wrong, but he is certainly a very
+shrewd man, and he has never been, as to the United States,
+an enthusiast of any class.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">[144]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Poor Lord Campbell's seems to me as easy and good a
+death as one could desire. There must be a sweep of these
+men very soon, and one feels as if it must fall out like the
+breaking of an arch&mdash;one stone goes from a prominent
+place, and then the rest begin to drop. So one looks
+towards Brougham, and Lyndhurst, and Pollock.</p>
+
+<p>I will add no more to this, or I know I shall not send it;
+for I am in the first desperate laziness of having done my
+book, and think of offering myself to the village school as a
+live example of that vice for the edification of youth.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Ever, my dear Forster, affectionately.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">The Hon.
+Mrs.
+Watson.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span style="margin-right: 2em;"><span class="smcap">Gad's Hill Place, Higham by Rochester, Kent</span>,</span><br />
+<i>Monday, July 8th, 1861.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='unindent'><span class='smcap'>My dear Mrs. Watson</span>,</div>
+
+<p>I have owed you a letter for so long a time that I fear
+you may sometimes have misconstrued my silence. But I
+hope that the sight of the handwriting of your old friend
+will undeceive you, if you have, and will put that right.</p>
+
+<p>During the progress of my last story, I have been working
+so hard that very, very little correspondence&mdash;except enforced
+correspondence on business&mdash;has passed this pen. And now
+that I am free again, I devote a few of my first leisure
+moments to this note.</p>
+
+<p>You seemed in your last to think that I had forgotten
+you in respect of the Christmas number. Not so at all. I
+discussed with them here where you were, how you were to
+be addressed, and the like; finally left the number in a
+blank envelope, and did not add the address to it until it
+would have been absurd to send you such stale bread. This
+was my fault, but this was all. And I should be so pained
+at heart if you supposed me capable of failing in my truth
+and cordiality, or in the warm remembrance of the time we<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">[145]</a></span>
+have passed together, that perhaps I make more of it than
+you meant to do.</p>
+
+<p>My sailor-boy is at home&mdash;I was going to write, for the
+holidays, but I suppose I must substitute "on leave."
+Under the new regulations, he must not pass out of the
+<i>Britannia</i> before December. The younger boys are all at
+school, and coming home this week for the holidays. Mary
+keeps house, of course, and Katie and her husband surprised
+us yesterday, and are here now. Charley is holiday-making
+at Guernsey and Jersey. He has been for some time seeking
+a partnership in business, and has not yet found one. The
+matter is in the hands of Mr. Bates, the managing partner
+in Barings' house, and seems as slow a matter to adjust
+itself as ever I looked on at. Georgina is, as usual, the
+general friend and confidante and factotum of the whole
+party.</p>
+
+<p>Your present correspondent read at St. James's Hall
+in the beginning of the season, to perfectly astounding
+audiences; but finding that fatigue and excitement very difficult
+to manage in conjunction with a story, deemed it prudent
+to leave off reading in high tide and mid-career, the rather
+by reason of something like neuralgia in the face. At the
+end of October I begin again; and if you are at Brighton
+in November, I shall try to see you there. I deliver myself
+up to Mr. Arthur Smith, and I know it is one of the places
+for which he has put me down.</p>
+
+<p>This is all about me and mine, and next I want to know
+why you never come to Gad's Hill, and whether you are
+never coming. The stress I lay on these questions you will
+infer from the size of the following note of interrogation
+<img src="images/questionmark.png" width="10" height="17" alt="Handwritten: ?" title="Handwritten: ?" /></p>
+
+
+<p>I am in the constant receipt of news from Lausanne.
+Of Mary Boyle, I daresay you have seen and heard more
+than I have lately. Rumours occasionally reach me of her<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">[146]</a></span>
+acting in every English shire incessantly, and getting in a
+harvest of laurels all the year round. Cavendish I have not
+seen for a long time, but when I did see him last, it was at
+Tavistock House, and we dined together jovially. Mention
+of that locality reminds me that when you <span class="smcap">do</span> come here,
+you will see the pictures looking wonderfully better, and
+more precious than they ever did in town. Brought together
+in country light and air, they really are quite a baby
+collection and very pretty.</p>
+
+<p>I direct this to Rockingham, supposing you to be there
+in this summer time. If you are as leafy in Northamptonshire
+as we are in Kent, you are greener than you have been
+for some years. I hope you may have seen a large-headed
+photograph with little legs, representing the undersigned,
+pen in hand, tapping his forehead to knock an idea out. It
+has just sprung up so abundantly in all the shops, that I
+am ashamed to go about town looking in at the picture-windows,
+which is my delight. It seems to me extraordinarily
+ludicrous, and much more like than the grave
+portrait done in earnest. It made me laugh when I first
+came upon it, until I shook again, in open sunlighted
+Piccadilly.</p>
+
+<p>Pray be a good Christian to me, and don't be retributive
+in measuring out the time that shall pass before you write
+to me. And believe me ever,</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Your affectionate and faithful.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mr. W.
+Wilkie
+Collins.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span style="margin-right: 2em;"><span class="smcap">Office of "All the Year Round</span>,"</span><br />
+<i>Wednesday, Aug. 28th, 1861.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='unindent'><span class='smcap'>My dear Wilkie</span>,</div>
+
+<p>I have been going to write to you ever since I
+received your letter from Whitby, and now I hear from
+Charley that you are coming home, and must be addressed<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">[147]</a></span>
+in the Rue Harley. Let me know whether you will dine
+here this day week at the usual five. I am at present so
+addle-headed (having hard Wednesday work in Wills's
+absence) that I can't write much.</p>
+
+<p>I have got the "Copperfield" reading ready for delivery,
+and am now going to blaze away at "Nickleby,"
+which I don't like half as well. Every morning I "go in"
+at these marks for two or three hours, and then collapse
+and do nothing whatever (counting as nothing much cricket
+and rounders).</p>
+
+<p>In my time that curious railroad by the Whitby Moor
+was so much the more curious, that you were balanced
+against a counter-weight of water, and that you did it like
+Blondin. But in these remote days the one inn of Whitby
+was up a back-yard, and oyster-shell grottoes were the only
+view from the best private room. Likewise, sir, I have
+posted to Whitby. "Pity the sorrows of a poor old man."</p>
+
+<p>The sun is glaring in at these windows with an amount
+of ferocity insupportable by one of the landed interest, who
+lies upon his back with an imbecile hold on grass, from
+lunch to dinner. Feebleness of mind and head are the result.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Ever affectionately.<br />
+</div>
+
+<p>P.S.&mdash;The boys have multiplied themselves by fifty
+daily, and have seemed to appear in hosts (especially in the
+hottest days) round all the corners at Gad's Hill. I call
+them the prowlers, and each has a distinguishing name
+attached, derived from his style of prowling.</p>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mr. Arthur
+Smith.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span style="margin-right: 2em;"><span class="smcap">Gad's Hill Place, Higham by Rochester, Kent</span>,</span><br />
+<i>Tuesday, Sept. 3rd, 1861.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='unindent'><span class='smcap'>My dear Arthur</span>,</div>
+
+<p>I cannot tell you how sorry I am to receive your bad
+account of your health, or how anxious I shall be to receive
+a better one as soon as you can possibly give it.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">[148]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>If you go away, don't you think in the main you would
+be better here than anywhere? You know how well you
+would be nursed, what care we should take of you, and how
+perfectly quiet and at home you would be, until you become
+strong enough to take to the Medway. Moreover, I think
+you would be less anxious about the tour, here, than away
+from such association. I would come to Worthing to fetch
+you, I needn't say, and would take the most careful charge
+of you. I will write no more about this, because I wish to
+avoid giving you more to read than can be helped; but I
+do sincerely believe it would be at once your wisest and
+least anxious course. As to a long journey into Wales, or
+any long journey, it would never do. Nice is not to be
+thought of. Its dust, and its sharp winds (I know it well),
+towards October are very bad indeed.</p>
+
+<p>I send you the enclosed letters, firstly, because I have
+no circular to answer them with, and, secondly, because I
+fear I might confuse your arrangements by interfering with
+the correspondence. I shall hope to have a word from you
+very soon. I am at work for the tour every day, except my
+town Wednesdays.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Ever faithfully.<br />
+</div>
+
+<p>P.S.&mdash;Kindest regards from all.</p>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mr. John
+Watkins.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span style="margin-right: 2em;"><span class="smcap">Gad's Hill Place, Higham by Rochester, Kent</span>,</span><br />
+<i>Saturday Night, Sept. 28th, 1861.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='unindent'><span class='smcap'>Dear Mr. Watkins</span>,</div>
+
+<p>In reply to your kind letter I must explain that I
+have not yet brought down any of your large photographs
+of myself, and therefore cannot report upon their effect
+here. I think the "cartes" are all liked.</p>
+
+<p>A general howl of horror greeted the appearance of
+No. 18, and a riotous attempt was made to throw it out<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">[149]</a></span>
+of window. I calmed the popular fury by promising that
+it should never again be beheld within these walls. I think
+I mentioned to you when you showed it to me, that I felt
+persuaded it would not be liked. It has a grim and wasted
+aspect, and perhaps might be made useful as a portrait of
+the Ancient Mariner.</p>
+
+<p>I feel that I owe you an apology for being (innocently)
+a difficult subject. When I once excused myself to Ary
+Scheffer while sitting to him, he received the apology as
+strictly his due, and said with a vexed air: "At this moment,
+<i>mon cher</i> Dickens, you look more like an energetic Dutch
+admiral than anything else;" for which I apologised again.</p>
+
+<p>In the hope that the pains you have bestowed upon me
+will not be thrown away, but that your success will prove
+of some use to you, believe me,</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Faithfully yours.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mr.
+Edmund
+Yates.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span style="margin-right: 2em;"><span class="smcap">Gad's Hill Place, Higham by Rochester, Kent</span>,</span><br />
+<i>Sunday, Oct. 6th, 1861.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='center'>
+<small>AFTER THE DEATH OF MR. ARTHUR SMITH.</small><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='unindent'><span class='smcap'>My dear Edmund</span>,</div>
+
+<p>Coming back here to-day, I find your letter.</p>
+
+<p>I was so very much distressed last night in thinking of
+it all, and I find it so very difficult to preserve my composure
+when I dwell in my mind on the many times fast
+approaching when I shall sorely miss the familiar face, that
+I am hardly steady enough yet to refer to the readings like
+a man. But your kind reference to them makes me desirous
+to tell you that I took Headland (formerly of St. Martin's
+Hall, who has always been with us in London) to conduct
+the business, when I knew that our poor dear fellow could
+never do it, even if he had recovered strength to go; and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">[150]</a></span>
+that I consulted with himself about it when I saw him for
+the last time on earth, and that it seemed to please him,
+and he said: "We couldn't do better."</p>
+
+<p>Write to me before you come; and remember that I go
+to town Wednesday mornings.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Ever faithfully.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Miss
+Dickens.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span style="margin-right: 2em;"><span class="smcap">Office of "All the Year Round</span>,"</span><br />
+<i>Thursday, Oct. 10th, 1861.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='unindent'><span class='smcap'>My dearest Mamie</span>,</div>
+
+<p>I received your affectionate little letter here this
+morning, and was very glad to get it. Poor dear Arthur is
+a sad loss to me, and indeed I was very fond of him. But
+the readings must be fought out, like all the rest of life.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Ever your affectionate.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mr. W. C.
+Macready.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span style="margin-right: 2em;"><span class="smcap">Gad's Hill Place, Higham by Rochester, Kent</span>,</span><br />
+<i>Sunday, Oct. 13th, 1861.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='unindent'><span class='smcap'>My dearest Macready</span>,</div>
+
+<p>This is a short note. But the moment I know for
+certain what is designed for me at Cheltenham, I write to
+you in order that you may know it from me and not by
+chance from anyone else.</p>
+
+<p>I am to read there on the evening of Friday, the 3rd of
+January, and on the morning of Saturday, the 4th; as I
+have nothing to do on Thursday, the 2nd, but come from
+Leamington, I shall come to you, please God, for a quiet
+dinner that day.</p>
+
+<p>The death of Arthur Smith has caused me great distress
+and anxiety. I had a great regard for him, and he made
+the reading part of my life as light and pleasant as it <i>could</i>
+be made. I had hoped to bring him to see you, and had
+pictured to myself how amused and interested you would<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">[151]</a></span>
+have been with his wonderful tact and consummate mastery
+of arrangement. But it's all over.</p>
+
+<p>I begin at Norwich on the 28th, and am going north in the
+middle of November. I am going to do "Copperfield," and
+shall be curious to test its effect on the Edinburgh people.
+It has been quite a job so to piece portions of the long book
+together as to make something continuous out of it; but I
+hope I have got something varied and dramatic. I am also
+(not to slight <i>your</i> book) going to do "Nickleby at Mr.
+Squeers's." It is clear that both must be trotted out at
+Cheltenham.</p>
+
+<p>With kindest love and regard to all your house,</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Ever, my dearest Macready, your most affectionate.<br />
+</div>
+
+<p>P.S.&mdash;Fourth edition of "Great Expectations" almost
+gone!</p>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Miss
+Hogarth.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span style="margin-right: 2em;"><span class="smcap">Angel Hotel, Bury St. Edmunds</span>,</span><br />
+<i>Wednesday, Oct. 13th, 1861.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='unindent'><span class='smcap'>My dearest Georgy</span>,</div>
+
+<p>I have just now received your welcome letter, and I
+hasten to report (having very little time) that we had a
+splendid hall last night, and that I think "Nickleby" tops
+all the readings. Somehow it seems to have got in it, by
+accident, exactly the qualities best suited to the purpose,
+and it went last night not only with roars, but with a
+general hilarity and pleasure that I have never seen
+surpassed.</p>
+
+<p>We are full here for to-night.</p>
+
+<p>Fancy this: last night at about six, who should walk in
+but Elwin! He was exactly in his usual state, only more
+demonstrative than ever, and had been driven in by some
+neighbours who were coming to the reading. I had tea up<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">[152]</a></span>
+for him, and he went down at seven with me to the dismal
+den where I dressed, and sat by the fire while I dressed, and
+was childishly happy in that great privilege! During the
+reading he sat on a corner of the platform and roared incessantly.
+He brought in a lady and gentleman to introduce
+while I was undressing, and went away in a perfect and
+absolute rapture.</p>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Miss
+Hogarth.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Royal Hotel, Norwich</span>, <i>Tuesday, Oct. 29th, 1861.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<p>I cannot say that we began well last night. We had
+not a good hall, and they were a very lumpish audience
+indeed. This did not tend to cheer the strangeness I felt
+in being without Arthur, and I was not at all myself. We
+have a large let for to-night, I think two hundred and fifty
+stalls, which is very large, and I hope that both they and I
+will go better. I could have done perfectly last night, if
+the audience had been bright, but they were an intent and
+staring audience. They laughed though very well, and the
+storm made them shake themselves again. But they were
+not magnetic, and the great big place was out of sorts
+somehow.</p>
+
+<p>To-morrow I will write you another short note, however
+short. It is "Nickleby" and the "Trial" to-night;
+"Copperfield" again to-morrow. A wet day here, with
+glimpses of blue. I shall not forget Katey's health at
+dinner. A pleasant journey down.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Ever, my dearest Georgy, your most affectionate.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">The same.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">The Great White Horse, Ipswich</span>, <i>Friday, Nov. 1st, 1861.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<p>I cannot quite remember in the whirl of travelling
+and reading, whether or no I wrote you a line from Bury<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">[153]</a></span>
+St. Edmunds. But I think (and hope) I did. We had a
+fine room there, and "Copperfield" made a great impression.
+At mid-day we go on to Colchester, where I shall expect
+the young Morgans. I sent a telegram on yesterday, after
+receiving your note, to secure places for them. The answer
+returned by telegraph was: "No box-seats left but on the
+fourth row." If they prefer to sit on the stage (for I read
+in the theatre, there being no other large public room),
+they shall. Meantime I have told John, who went forward
+this morning with the other men, to let the people at the
+inn know that if three travellers answering that description
+appear before my dinner-time, they are to dine
+with me.</p>
+
+<p>Plorn's admission that he likes the school very much
+indeed, is the great social triumph of modern times.</p>
+
+<p>I am looking forward to Sunday's rest at Gad's, and
+shall be down by the ten o'clock train from town. I miss
+poor Arthur dreadfully. It is scarcely possible to imagine
+how much. It is not only that his loss to me socially is quite
+irreparable, but that the sense I used to have of compactness
+and comfort about me while I was reading is quite
+gone. And when I come out for the ten minutes, when
+I used to find him always ready for me with something
+cheerful to say, it is forlorn. I cannot but fancy, too, that
+the audience must miss the old speciality of a pervading
+gentleman.</p>
+
+<p>Nobody I know has turned up yet except Elwin. I
+have had many invitations to all sorts of houses in all sorts
+of places, and have of course accepted them every one.</p>
+
+<p>Love to Mamie, if she has come home, and to Bouncer,
+if <i>she</i> has come; also Marguerite, who I hope is by this
+time much better.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Ever, my dear Georgy, your most affectionate.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">[154]</a></span></p>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mrs.
+Henry
+Austin.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Gad's Hill</span>, <i>Sunday, Nov. 3rd, 1861.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='center'><small>EXTRACT.</small></div>
+
+<p>I am heartily glad to hear that you have been out in
+the air, and I hope you will go again very soon and make a
+point of continuing to go. There is a soothing influence in
+the sight of the earth and sky, which God put into them for
+our relief when He made the world in which we are all to
+suffer, and strive, and die.</p>
+
+<p>I will not fail to write to you from many points of my
+tour, and if you ever want to write to me you may be
+sure of a quick response, and may be certain that I am
+sympathetic and true.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Ever affectionately.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Miss
+Dickens.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Fountain Hotel, Canterbury</span>, <i>Windy Night, Nov. 4th, 1861.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='unindent'><span class='smcap'>My dearest Mamie</span>,</div>
+
+<p>A word of report before I go to bed. An excellent
+house to-night, and an audience positively perfect. The
+greatest part of it stalls, and an intelligent and delightful
+response in them, like the touch of a beautiful instrument.
+"Copperfield" wound up in a real burst of feeling and
+delight.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Ever affectionately.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mr. John
+Agate.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Lord Warden Hotel, Dover</span>, <i>Wednesday, Nov. 6th, 1861.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='unindent'><span class='smcap'>Sir</span>,</div>
+
+<p>I am exceedingly sorry to find, from the letter you
+have addressed to me, that you had just cause of complaint
+in being excluded from my reading here last night. It
+will now and then unfortunately happen when the place of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">[155]</a></span>
+reading is small (as in this case), that some confusion and
+inconvenience arise from the local agents over-estimating, in
+perfect good faith and sincerity, the capacity of the room.
+Such a mistake, I am assured, was made last night; and
+thus all the available space was filled before the people in
+charge were at all prepared for that circumstance.</p>
+
+<p>You may readily suppose that I can have no personal
+knowledge of the proceedings of the people in my employment
+at such a time. But I wish to assure you very
+earnestly, that they are all old servants, well acquainted
+with my principles and wishes, and that they are under the
+strongest injunction to avoid any approach to mercenary
+dealing; and to behave to all comers equally with as much
+consideration and politeness as they know I should myself
+display. The recent death of a much-regretted friend of
+mine, who managed this business for me, and on whom
+these men were accustomed to rely in any little difficulty,
+caused them (I have no doubt) to feel rather at a loss in
+your case. Do me the favour to understand that under any
+other circumstances you would, as a matter of course, have
+been provided with any places whatever that could be
+found, without the smallest reference to what you had
+originally paid. This is scanty satisfaction to you, but it is
+so strictly the truth, that yours is the first complaint of the
+kind I have ever received.</p>
+
+<p>I hope to read in Dover again, but it is quite impossible
+that I can make any present arrangement for that purpose.
+Whenever I may return here, you may be sure I shall not
+fail to remember that I owe you a recompense for a disappointment.
+In the meanwhile I very sincerely regret it.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Faithfully yours.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">[156]</a></span></p>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Miss
+Hogarth.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Bedford Hotel, Brighton</span>, <i>Thursday, Nov. 7th, 1861.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='unindent'><span class='smcap'>My dear 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>The Duchess of Cambridge comes to-night to "Copperfield."
+The bad weather has not in the least touched
+us, and beyond all doubt a great deal of money has been
+left untaken at each place.</p>
+
+<p>The storm was most magnificent at Dover. All the
+great side of The Lord Warden next the sea had to be
+emptied, the break of the sea was so prodigious, and the
+noise was so utterly confounding. The sea came in like
+a great sky of immense clouds, for ever breaking suddenly
+into furious rain. All kinds of wreck were washed in.
+Miss Birmingham and I saw, among other things, a very
+pretty brass-bound chest being thrown about like a feather.
+On Tuesday night, the unhappy Ostend packet could not
+get in, neither could she go back, and she beat about the
+Channel until noon yesterday. I saw her come in then,
+<i>with five men at the wheel;</i> such a picture of misery, as to
+the crew (of passengers there were no signs), as you can
+scarcely imagine.</p>
+
+<p>The effect at Hastings and at Dover really seems to have
+outdone the best usual impression, and at Dover they
+wouldn't go, but sat applauding like mad. The most delicate
+audience I have seen in any provincial place is Canterbury.
+The audience with the greatest sense of humour
+certainly is Dover. The people in the stalls set the example
+of laughing, in the most curiously unreserved way; and
+they really laughed when Squeers read the boys' letters,
+with such cordial enjoyment, that the contagion extended
+to me, for one couldn't hear them without laughing too.</p>
+
+<p>So, thank God, all goes well, and the recompense for the
+trouble is in every way great. There is rather an alarming<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">[157]</a></span>
+breakdown at Newcastle, in respect of all the bills having
+been, in some inscrutable way, lost on the road. I have
+resolved to send Berry there, with full powers to do all
+manner of things, early next week.</p>
+
+<p>The amended route-list is not printed yet, because I
+am trying to get off Manchester and Liverpool; both of
+which I strongly doubt, in the present state of American
+affairs. Therefore I can't send it for Marguerite; but I
+can, and do, send her my love and God-speed. This is
+addressed to the office because I suppose you will be there
+to-morrow.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Ever affectionately.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">The Earl of
+Carlisle.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span style="margin-right: 2em;"><span class="smcap">Gad's Hill Place, Higham by Rochester, Kent</span>,</span><br />
+<i>November 15th, 1861.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='unindent'><span class='smcap'>My dear Lord Carlisle</span>,</div>
+
+<p>You know poor Austin, and what his work was, and
+how he did it. If you have no private objection to signing
+the enclosed memorial (which will receive the right signatures
+before being presented), I think you will have no
+public objection. I shall be heartily glad if you can put
+your name to it, and shall esteem your doing so as a
+very kind service. Will you return the memorial under
+cover to Mr. Tom Taylor, at the Local Government Act
+Office, Whitehall? He is generously exerting himself in
+furtherance of it, and so delay will be avoided.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+My dear Lord Carlisle, faithfully yours always.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Miss Mary
+Boyle.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span style="margin-right: 2em;"><span class="smcap">Gad's Hill Place, Higham by Rochester, Kent</span>,</span><br />
+<i>Sunday, Nov. 17th, 1861.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='unindent'><span class='smcap'>My dear Mary</span>,</div>
+
+<p>I am perfectly enraptured with the quilt. It is one
+of the most tasteful, lively, elegant things I have ever seen;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">[158]</a></span>
+and I need not tell you that while it is valuable to me for
+its own ornamental sake, it is precious to me as a rainbow-hint
+of your friendship and affectionate remembrance.</p>
+
+<p>Please God you shall see it next summer occupying its
+allotted place of state in my brand-new bedroom here. You
+shall behold it then, with all cheerful surroundings, the
+envy of mankind.</p>
+
+<p>My readings have been doing absolute wonders. Your
+Duchess and Princess came to hear first "Nickleby" and
+the "Pickwick Trial," then "Copperfield," at Brighton. I
+think they were pleased with me, and I am sure I was with
+them; for they are the very best audience one could possibly
+desire. I shall always have a pleasant remembrance
+of them.</p>
+
+<p>On Wednesday I am away again for the longest part of
+my trip.</p>
+
+<p>Yes, Mary dear, I must say that I like my Carton, and I
+have a faint idea sometimes that if I had acted him, I could
+have done something with his life and death.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+<span style="margin-right: 2em;">Believe me, ever your affectionate and faithful</span><br />
+<span class="smcap">Joe</span>.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Miss
+Hogarth.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Queen's Head, Newcastle</span>, <i>Friday, Nov. 22nd, 1861.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<p>I received your letter this morning, and grieve to report
+that the unlucky Headland has broken down most awfully!</p>
+
+<p>First, as perhaps you remember, this is the place where
+the bills were "lost" for a week or two. The consequence
+has been that the agent could not announce all through the
+"Jenny Lind" time (the most important for announcing),
+and could but stand still and stare when people came to ask
+what I was going to read. Last night I read "Copperfield"
+to the most enthusiastic and appreciative audience<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">[159]</a></span>
+imaginable, but in numbers about half what they might have
+been. To-night we shall have a famous house; but we
+might have had it last night too. To-morrow (knowing by
+this time what can, of a certainty, be done with "Copperfield"),
+I had, of course, given out "Copperfield" to be
+read again. Conceive my amazement and dismay when I
+find the printer to have announced "Little Dombey"!!!
+This, I declare, I had no more intention of reading than I
+had of reading an account of the solar system. And this,
+after a sensation last night, of a really extraordinary nature
+in its intensity and delight!</p>
+
+<p>Says the unlucky Headland to this first head of misery:
+"Johnson's mistake" (Johnson being the printer).</p>
+
+<p>Second, I read at Edinburgh for the first time&mdash;observe
+the day&mdash;<i>next Wednesday</i>. Jenny Lind's concert at Edinburgh
+is to-night. This morning comes a frantic letter
+from the Edinburgh agent. "I have no bills, no tickets;
+I lose all the announcement I would have made to hundreds
+upon hundreds of people to-night, all of the most desirable
+class to be well informed beforehand. I can't announce
+what Mr. Dickens is going to read; I can answer no question;
+I have, upon my responsibility, put a dreary advertisement
+into the papers announcing that he <i>is</i> going to
+read so many times, and that particulars will shortly be
+ready; and I stand bound hand and foot." "Johnson's
+mistake," says the unlucky Headland.</p>
+
+<p>Of course, I know that the man who never made a mistake
+in poor Arthur's time is not likely to be always making
+mistakes now. But I have written by this post to Wills, to
+go to him and investigate. I have also detached Berry
+from here, and have sent him on by train at a few minutes'
+notice to Edinburgh, and then to Glasgow (where I have no
+doubt everything is wrong too). Glasgow we may save;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">[160]</a></span>
+Edinburgh I hold to be irretrievably damaged. If it can
+be picked up at all, it can only be at the loss of the two
+first nights, and by the expenditure of no end of spirits
+and force. And this is the harder, because it is impossible
+not to see that the last readings polished and prepared the
+audiences in general, and that I have not to work them
+up in any place where I have been before, but that they
+start with a London intelligence, and with a respect and
+preparation for what they are going to hear.</p>
+
+<p>I hope by the time you and Mamie come to me, we shall
+have got into some good method. I must take the thing
+more into my own hands and look after it from hour to
+hour. If such a thing as this Edinburgh business could
+have happened under poor Arthur, I really believe he
+would have fallen into a fit, or gone distracted. No one
+can ever know what he was but I who have been with him
+and without him. Headland is so anxious and so good-tempered
+that I cannot be very stormy with him; but it
+is the simple fact that he has no notion of the requirements
+of such work as this. Without him, and with a
+larger salary to Berry (though there are objections to the
+latter as <i>first</i> man), I could have done a hundred times
+better.</p>
+
+<p>As Forster will have a strong interest in knowing all
+about the proceedings, perhaps you will send him this letter
+to read. There is no very tremendous harm, indeed, done
+as yet. At Edinburgh I <span class="smcap">know</span> what I can do with
+"Copperfield." I think it is not too much to say that for
+every one who does come to hear it on the first night, I can
+get back fifty on the second. And whatever can be worked
+up there will tell on Glasgow. Berry I shall continue to
+send on ahead, and I shall take nothing on trust and more
+as being done.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161">[161]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>On Sunday morning at six, I have to start for Berwick.
+From Berwick, in the course of that day, I will write again;
+to Mamie next time.</p>
+
+<p>With best love to her and Mrs. B.</p>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Miss Dickens.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span style="margin-right: 2em;"><span class="smcap">Queen's Head, Newcastle-on-Tyne</span>,</span><br />
+<i>Saturday, Nov. 23rd, 1861.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<p>A most tremendous hall here last night; something
+almost terrible in the cram. A fearful thing might have
+happened. Suddenly, when they were all very still over
+Smike, my gas batten came down, and it looked as if the
+room was falling. There were three great galleries crammed
+to the roof, and a high steep flight of stairs, and a panic
+must have destroyed numbers of people. A lady in the
+front row of stalls screamed, and ran out wildly towards
+me, and for one instant there was a terrible wave in the
+crowd. I addressed that lady laughing (for I knew she
+was in sight of everybody there), and called out as if it
+happened every night, "There's nothing the matter, I assure
+you; don't be alarmed; pray sit down;" and she sat down
+directly, and there was a thunder of applause. It took
+some few minutes to mend, and I looked on with my hands
+in my pockets; for I think if I had turned my back for a
+moment there might still have been a move. My people
+were dreadfully alarmed, Boylett in particular, who I
+suppose had some notion that the whole place might have
+taken fire.</p>
+
+<p>"But there stood the master," he did me the honour to
+say afterwards, in addressing the rest, "as cool as ever I
+see him a-lounging at a railway station."</p>
+
+<p>A telegram from Berry at Edinburgh yesterday evening,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162">[162]</a></span>
+to say that he had got the bills, and that they would all be
+up and dispersed yesterday evening under his own eyes.
+So no time was lost in setting things as right as they can
+be set. He has now gone on to Glasgow.</p>
+
+<p>P.S.&mdash;Duty to Mrs. Bouncer.</p>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Miss
+Hogarth.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Berwick-on-Tweed</span>, <i>Monday, Nov. 25th, 1861.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<p>I write (in a gale of wind, with a high sea running), to
+let you know that we go on to Edinburgh at half-past
+eight to-morrow morning.</p>
+
+<p>A most ridiculous room was designed for me in this odd
+out-of-the-way place. An immense Corn Exchange made
+of glass and iron, round, dome-topped, lofty, utterly absurd
+for any such purpose, and full of thundering echoes, with a
+little lofty crow's-nest of a stone gallery breast high, deep
+in the wall, into which it was designed to put <i>me!</i> I instantly
+struck, of course, and said I would either read in a
+room attached to this house (a very snug one, capable of
+holding five hundred people) or not at all. Terrified local
+agents glowered, but fell prostrate.</p>
+
+<p>Berry has this moment come back from Edinburgh and
+Glasgow with hopeful accounts. He seems to have done
+the business extremely well, and he says that it was quite
+curious and cheering to see how the Glasgow people
+assembled round the bills the instant they were posted, and
+evidently with a great interest in them.</p>
+
+<p>We left Newcastle yesterday morning in the dark, when
+it was intensely cold and froze very hard. So it did here.
+But towards night the wind went round to the S.W., and
+all night it has been blowing very hard indeed. So it is
+now.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163">[163]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Tell Mamie that I have the same sitting-room as we
+had when we came here with poor Arthur, and that my
+bedroom is the room out of it which she and Katie had.
+Surely it is the oddest town to read in! But it is taken on
+poor Arthur's principle that a place in the way pays the
+expenses of a through journey; and the people would seem
+to be coming up to the scratch gallantly. It was a dull
+Sunday, though; O it <i>was</i> a dull Sunday, without a book!
+For I had forgotten to buy one at Newcastle, until it was
+too late. So after dark I made a jug of whisky-punch,
+and drowned the unlucky Headland's remembrance of his
+failures.</p>
+
+<p>I shall hope to hear very soon that the workmen have
+"broken through," and that you have been in the state
+apartments, and that upholstery measurements have come
+off.</p>
+
+<p>There has been a horrible accident in Edinburgh. One
+of the seven-storey old houses in the High Street fell when
+it was full of people. Berry was at the bill-poster's house,
+a few doors off, waiting for him to come home, when he
+heard what seemed like thunder, and then the air was
+darkened with dust, "as if an immense quantity of steam
+had been blown off," and then all that dismal quarter set
+up shrieks, which he says were most dreadful.</p>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Miss
+Dickens.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Waterloo Hotel, Edinburgh</span>, <i>Wednesday, Nov. 27th, 1861.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<p>Mrs. Bouncer must decidedly come with you to Carlisle.
+She shall be received with open arms. Apropos of Carlisle,
+let me know <i>when</i> you purpose coming there. We shall be
+there, please God, on the Saturday in good time, as I finish
+at Glasgow on the Friday night.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164">[164]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>I have very little notion of the state of affairs here, as
+Headland brought no more decisive information from the
+agents yesterday (he never <i>can</i> get decisive information
+from any agents), than "the teeckets air joost moving
+reecht and left." I hope this may be taken as satisfactory.
+Jenny Lind carried off a world of money from here. Miss
+Glyn, or Mrs. Dallas, is playing Lady Macbeth at the theatre,
+and Mr. Shirley Brooks is giving two lectures at the Philosophical
+Society on the House of Commons and Horace
+Walpole. Grisi's farewell benefits are (I think) on my last
+two nights here.</p>
+
+<p>Gordon dined with me yesterday. He is, if anything,
+rather better, I think, than when we last saw him in town.
+He was immensely pleased to be with me. I went with him
+(as his office goes anywhere) right into and among the ruins
+of the fallen building yesterday. They were still at work
+trying to find two men (brothers), a young girl, and an old
+woman, known to be all lying there. On the walls two or
+three common clocks are still hanging; one of them, judging
+from the time at which it stopped, would seem to have gone
+for an hour or so after the fall. Great interest had been
+taken in a poor linnet in a cage, hanging in the wind and
+rain high up against the broken wall. A fireman got it
+down alive, and great exultation had been raised over it.
+One woman, who was dug out unhurt, staggered into the
+street, stared all round her, instantly ran away, and has
+never been heard of since. It is a most extraordinary sight,
+and of course makes a great sensation.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165">[165]</a></span></p>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Miss
+Dickens.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Waterloo Hotel, Edinburgh</span>, <i>Friday, Nov. 29th, 1861.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<p>I think it is my turn to write to you, and I therefore
+send a brief despatch, like a telegram, to let you know that
+in a gale of wind and a fierce rain, last night, we turned
+away a thousand people. There was no getting into the
+hall, no getting near the hall, no stirring among the people,
+no getting out, no possibility of getting rid of them. And
+yet, in spite of all that, and of their being steaming wet,
+they never flagged for an instant, never made a complaint,
+and took up the trial upon their very shoulders, to the last
+word, in a triumphant roar.</p>
+
+<p>The talk about "Copperfield" rings through the whole
+place. It is done again to-morrow night. To-morrow
+morning I read "Dombey." To-morrow morning is Grisi's
+"farewell" morning concert, and last night was her "farewell"
+evening concert. Neither she, nor Jenny Lind, nor
+anything, nor anybody seems to make the least effect on
+the draw of the readings.</p>
+
+<p>I lunch with Blackwood to-day. He was at the reading
+last night; a capital audience. Young Blackwood has also
+called here. A very good young fellow, I think.</p>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Miss
+Hogarth.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Carrick's Royal Hotel, Glasgow</span>, <i>Tuesday, Dec. 3rd, 1861.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<p>I send you by this post another <i>Scotsman</i>. From a
+paragraph in it, a letter, and an advertisement, you may be
+able to form some dim guess of the scene at Edinburgh last
+night. Such a pouring of hundreds into a place already
+full to the throat, such indescribable confusion, such a
+rending and tearing of dresses, and yet such a scene of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166">[166]</a></span>
+good humour on the whole. I never saw the faintest
+approach to it. While I addressed the crowd in the room,
+Gordon addressed the crowd in the street. Fifty frantic
+men got up in all parts of the hall and addressed me all at
+once. Other frantic men made speeches to the walls. The
+whole Blackwood family were borne in on the top of a wave,
+and landed with their faces against the front of the platform.
+I read with the platform crammed with people. I got them
+to lie down upon it, and it was like some impossible tableau
+or gigantic picnic; one pretty girl in full dress lying on
+her side all night, holding on to one of the legs of my table.
+It was the most extraordinary sight. And yet from the
+moment I began to the moment of my leaving off, they
+never missed a point, and they ended with a burst of cheers.</p>
+
+<p>The confusion was decidedly owing to the local agents.
+But I think it may have been a little heightened by Headland's
+way of sending them the tickets to sell in the first
+instance.</p>
+
+<p>Now, as I must read again in Edinburgh on Saturday
+night, your travelling arrangements are affected. So observe
+carefully (you and Mamie) all that I am going to say. It
+appears to me that the best course will be for you to come
+to <i>Edinburgh</i> on Saturday; taking the fast train from the
+Great Northern station at nine in the morning. This would
+bring you to the Waterloo at Edinburgh, at about nine or
+so at night, and I should be home at ten. We could then
+have a quiet Sunday in Edinburgh, and go over to Carlisle
+on the Monday morning.</p>
+
+<p>The expenditure of lungs and spirits was (as you may
+suppose) rather great last night, and to sleep well was out
+of the question; I am therefore rather fagged to-day. And
+as the hall in which I read to-night is a large one, I must
+make my letter a short one.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167">[167]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>My people were torn to ribbons last night. They have
+not a hat among them, and scarcely a coat.</p>
+
+<p>Give my love to Mamie. To her question, "Will there
+be war with America?" I answer, "Yes;" I fear the North
+to be utterly mad, and war to be unavoidable.</p>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mr. W. H.
+Wills.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Victoria Hotel, Preston</span>, <i>Friday, Dec. 13th, 1861.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='unindent'><span class='smcap'>My dear Wills</span>,</div>
+
+<p>The news of the Christmas number is indeed glorious,
+and nothing can look brighter or better than the prospects
+of the illustrious publication.</p>
+
+<p>Both Carlisle and Lancaster have come out admirably,
+though I doubted both, as you did. But, unlike you, I
+always doubted this place. I do so still. It is a poor place
+at the best (you remember?), and the mills are working half
+time, and trade is very bad. The expenses, however, will
+be a mere nothing. The accounts from Manchester for
+to-morrow, and from Liverpool for the readings generally,
+are very cheering indeed.</p>
+
+<p>The young lady who sells the papers at the station is just
+the same as ever. Has orders for to-night, and is coming
+"with a person." "<i>The</i> person?" said I. "Never <i>you</i>
+mind," said she.</p>
+
+<p>I was so charmed with Robert Chambers's "Traditions
+of Edinburgh" (which I read <i>in</i> Edinburgh), that I was
+obliged to write to him and say so.</p>
+
+<p>Glasgow finished nobly, and the last night in Edinburgh
+was signally successful and positively splendid.</p>
+
+<p>Will you give my small Admiral, on his personal application,
+one sovereign? I have told him to come to you for
+that recognition of his meritorious services.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Ever faithfully.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168">[168]</a></span></p>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mr. W. H.
+Wills.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Adelphi Hotel, Liverpool</span>, <i>Sunday, Dec. 15th, 1861.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='unindent'><span class='smcap'>My dear Wills</span>,</div>
+
+<p>I sent you a telegram to-day, and I write before the
+answer has come to hand.</p>
+
+<p>I have been very doubtful what to do here. We have a
+great let for to-morrow night. The Mayor recommends
+closing to-morrow, and going on on Tuesday and Wednesday,
+so does the town clerk, so do the agents. But I have
+a misgiving that they hardly understand what the public
+general sympathy with the Queen will be. Further, I feel
+personally that the Queen has always been very considerate
+and gracious to me, and I would on no account do anything
+that might seem unfeeling or disrespectful. I shall
+attach great weight, in this state of indecision, to your
+telegram.</p>
+
+<p>A capital audience at Preston. Not a capacious room,
+but full. Great appreciation.</p>
+
+<p>The scene at Manchester last night was really magnificent.
+I had had the platform carried forward to our
+"Frozen Deep" point, and my table and screen built in
+with a proscenium and room scenery. When I went in
+(there was a very fine hall), they applauded in the most
+tremendous manner; and the extent to which they were
+taken aback and taken by storm by "Copperfield" was
+really a thing to see.</p>
+
+<p>The post closes early here on a Sunday, and I shall close
+this also without further reference to "a message from
+the" W. H. W. being probably on the road.</p>
+
+<p>Radley is ill, and supposed to be fast declining, poor
+fellow. The house is crammed, the assizes on, and troops
+perpetually embarking for Canada, and their officers passing
+through the hotel.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Kindest regards, ever faithfully.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169">[169]</a></span></p>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Miss Mary
+Boyle.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span style="margin-right: 2em;"><span class="smcap">Gad's Hill, Higham by Rochester, Kent</span>,</span><br />
+<i>Saturday, Dec. 28th, 1861.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='unindent'><span class='smcap'>My dear Mary</span>,</div>
+
+<p>On Monday (as you know) I am away again, but
+I am not sorry to see land and a little rest before me;
+albeit, these are great experiences of the public heart.</p>
+
+<p>The little Admiral has gone to visit America in the
+<i>Orlando</i>, supposed to be one of the foremost ships in the
+Service, and the best found, best manned, and best officered
+that ever sailed from England. He went away much gamer
+than any giant, attended by a chest in which he could easily
+have stowed himself and a wife and family of his own
+proportions.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+<span style="margin-right: 2em;">Ever and always, your affectionate</span><br />
+<span class="smcap">Joe</span>.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>1862.</h2>
+
+<h3>NARRATIVE.</h3>
+
+
+<div class='unindent'><span class='smcap'>At</span> the beginning of this year, Charles Dickens resumed the
+reading tour which he had commenced at the close of the
+previous year and continued up to Christmas. The first
+letter which follows, to Mr. Wills, a New Year's greeting, is
+written from a railway station between one town and
+another on this journey. Mr. Macready, who had married
+for the second time not very long before this, was now
+settled at Cheltenham. Charles Dickens had arranged to
+give readings there, chiefly for the pleasure of visiting him,
+and of having him as one of his audience.</div>
+
+<p>This reading tour went on until the beginning of
+February. One of the last of the series was in his favourite
+"beautiful room," the St. George's Hall at Liverpool. In<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_170" id="Page_170">[170]</a></span>
+February, he made an exchange of houses with his friends
+Mr. and Mrs. Hogge, they going to Gad's Hill, and he and
+his family to Mr. Hogge's house in Hyde Park Gate South.
+In March he commenced a series of readings at St. James's
+Hall, which went on until the middle of June, when he,
+very gladly, returned to his country home.</p>
+
+<p>A letter beginning "My dear Girls," addressed to some
+American ladies who happened to be at Colchester, in the
+same inn with him when he was reading there, was
+published by one of them under the name of "Our Letter,"
+in the "St. Nicholas Magazine," New York, in 1877. We
+think it best to explain it in the young lady's own words,
+which are, therefore, appended to the letter.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Walter Thornbury was one of Charles Dickens's
+most valuable contributors to "All the Year Round." His
+letters to him about the subjects of his articles for that
+journal, are specimens of the minute and careful attention
+and personal supervision, never neglected or distracted by
+any other work on which he might be engaged, were it ever
+so hard or engrossing.</p>
+
+<p>The letter addressed to Mr. Baylis we give chiefly
+because it has, since Mr. Baylis's death, been added to the
+collection of MSS. in the British Museum. He was a very
+intimate and confidential friend of the late Lord Lytton,
+and accompanied him on a visit to Gad's Hill in that year.</p>
+
+<p>We give an extract from another letter from Charles
+Dickens to his sister, as a beautiful specimen of a letter
+of condolence and encouragement to one who was striving,
+very bravely, but by very slow degrees, to recover
+from the overwhelming grief of her bereavement. Mr.
+Wilkie Collins was at this time engaged on his novel
+of "No Name," which appeared in "All the Year
+Round," and was threatened with a very serious breakdown
+in health. Charles Dickens wrote the letter which
+we give, to relieve Mr. Collins's mind as to his work.
+Happily he recovered sufficiently to make an end to his
+own story without any help; but the true friendship
+and kindness which suggested the offer were none the less<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_171" id="Page_171">[171]</a></span>
+appreciated, and may, very likely, by lessening his anxiety,
+have helped to restore his health. At the end of October in
+this year, Charles Dickens, accompanied by his daughter and
+sister-in-law, went to reside for a couple of months in Paris,
+taking an apartment in the Rue du Faubourg St. Honor&eacute;.
+From thence he writes to M. Charles Fechter. He had
+been greatly interested in this fine artist from the time of
+his first appearance in England, and was always one of his
+warmest friends and supporters during his stay in this
+country. M. Fechter was, at this time, preparing for the
+opening of the Lyceum Theatre, under his own management,
+at the beginning of the following year.</p>
+
+<p>Just before Christmas, Charles Dickens returned to
+Gad's Hill. The Christmas number for this year was
+"Somebody's Luggage."</p>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mr. W. H.
+Wills.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">At the Birmingham Station</span>, <i>Thursday, Jan. 2nd, 1862.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='unindent'><span class='smcap'>My dear Wills</span>,</div>
+
+<p>Being stationed here for an hour, on my way from
+Leamington to Cheltenham, I write to you.</p>
+
+<p>Firstly, to reciprocate all your cordial and affectionate
+wishes for the New Year, and to express my earnest hope
+that we may go on through many years to come, as we have
+gone on through many years that are gone. And I think
+we can say that we doubt whether any two men can have
+gone on more happily and smoothly, or with greater trust
+and confidence in one another.</p>
+
+<p>A little packet will come to you from Hunt and Roskell's,
+almost at the same time, I think, as this note.</p>
+
+<p>The packet will contain a claret-jug. I hope it is a
+pretty thing in itself for your table, and I know that you
+and Mrs. Wills will like it none the worse because it comes
+from me.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_172" id="Page_172">[172]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>It is not made of a perishable material, and is so far
+expressive of our friendship. I have had your name and
+mine set upon it, in token of our many years of mutual
+reliance and trustfulness. It will never be so full of wine
+as it is to-day of affectionate regard.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Ever faithfully yours.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Miss
+Hogarth.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Cheltenham</span>, <i>Friday, Jan. 3rd, 1862.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='unindent'><span class='smcap'>My dearest Georgy</span>,</div>
+
+<p>Mrs. Macready in voice is very like poor Mrs.
+Macready dead and gone; not in the least like her otherwise.
+She is perfectly satisfactory, and exceedingly winning.
+Quite perfect in her manner with him and in her ease with
+his children, sensible, gay, pleasant, sweet-tempered; not
+in the faintest degree stiff or pedantic; accessible instantly.
+I have very rarely seen a more agreeable woman. The house
+is (on a smaller scale) any house we have known them in.
+Furnished with the old furniture, pictures, engravings,
+mirrors, tables, and chairs. Butty is too tall for strength,
+I am afraid, but handsome, with a face of great power
+and character, and a very nice girl. Katie you know
+all about. Macready, decidedly much older and infirm.
+Very much changed. His old force has gone out of
+him strangely. I don't think I left off talking a minute
+from the time of my entering the house to my going to
+bed last night, and he was as much amused and interested
+as ever I saw him; still he was, and is, unquestionably
+aged.</p>
+
+<p>And even now I am obliged to cut this letter short by
+having to go and look after Headland. It would never do
+to be away from the rest of them. I have no idea what we<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173">[173]</a></span>
+are doing here; no notion whether things are right or wrong;
+no conception where the room is; no hold of the business
+at all. For which reason I cannot rest without going and
+looking after the worthy man.</p>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Miss
+Hogarth.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Torquay</span>, <i>Wednesday, Jan. 8th, 1862.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<p>You know, I think, that I was very averse to going to
+Plymouth, and would not have gone there again but for poor
+Arthur. But on the last night I read "Copperfield," and
+positively enthralled the people. It was a most overpowering
+effect, and poor Andrew<a name="FNanchor_7_7" id="FNanchor_7_7"></a><a href="#Footnote_7_7" class="fnanchor">[7]</a> came behind the screen, after the
+storm, and cried in the best and manliest manner. Also
+there were two or three lines of his shipmates and other
+sailors, and they were extraordinarily affected. But its
+culminating effect was on Macready at Cheltenham. When
+I got home after "Copperfield," I found him quite unable
+to speak, and able to do nothing but square his dear old jaw
+all on one side, and roll his eyes (half closed), like Jackson's
+picture of him. And when I said something light about it,
+he returned: "No&mdash;er&mdash;Dickens! I swear to Heaven that,
+as a piece of passion and playfulness&mdash;er&mdash;indescribably mixed
+up together, it does&mdash;er&mdash;no, really, Dickens!&mdash;amaze me as
+profoundly as it moves me. But as a piece of art&mdash;and you
+know&mdash;er&mdash;that I&mdash;no, Dickens! By &mdash;&mdash;! have seen the
+best art in a great time&mdash;it is incomprehensible to me.
+How is it got at&mdash;er&mdash;how is it done&mdash;er&mdash;how one man can&mdash;well?
+It lays me on my&mdash;er&mdash;back, and it is of no use
+talking about it!" With which he put his hand upon my
+breast and pulled out his pocket-handkerchief, and I felt as<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_174" id="Page_174">[174]</a></span>
+if I were doing somebody to his Werner. Katie, by-the-bye,
+is a wonderful audience, and has a great fund of wild feeling
+in her. Johnny not at all unlike Plorn.</p>
+
+<p>I have not yet seen the room here, but imagine it to be
+very small. Exeter I know, and that is small also. I am
+very much used up, on the whole, for I cannot bear this
+moist warm climate. It would kill me very soon. And I
+have now got to the point of taking so much out of
+myself with "Copperfield," that I might as well do
+Richard Wardour.</p>
+
+<p>You have now, my dearest Georgy, the fullest extent of
+my tidings. This is a very pretty place&mdash;a compound of
+Hastings, Tunbridge Wells, and little bits of the hills about
+Naples; but I met four respirators as I came up from the
+station, and three pale curates without them, who seemed in
+a bad way.</p>
+
+<p>Frightful intelligence has just been brought in by
+Boylett, concerning the small size of the room. I have terrified
+Headland by sending him to look at it, and swearing
+that if it's too small I will go away to Exeter.</p>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Miss
+Hogarth.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Adelphi Hotel, Liverpool</span>, <i>Tuesday, Jan. 28th, 1862.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<p>The beautiful room was crammed to excess last night,
+and numbers were turned away. Its beauty and completeness
+when it is lighted up are most brilliant to behold, and
+for a reading it is simply perfect. You remember that a
+Liverpool audience is usually dull, but they put me on my
+mettle last night, for I never saw such an audience&mdash;no, not
+even in Edinburgh!</p>
+
+<p>I slept horribly last night, and have been over to
+Birkenhead for a little change of air to-day. My head is<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_175" id="Page_175">[175]</a></span>
+dazed and worn by gas and heat, and I fear that "Copperfield"
+and "Bob" together to-night won't mend it.</p>
+
+<p>Best love to Mamie and Katie, if still at Gad's. I am
+going to bring the boys some toffee.</p>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">The Misses
+Armstrong</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span style="margin-right: 2em;"><span class="smcap">Gad's Hill Place, Higham by Rochester, Kent</span>,</span><br />
+<i>Monday, Feb. 10th, 1862.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='unindent'><span class='smcap'>My dear Girls</span>,</div>
+
+<p>For if I were to write "young friends," it would
+look like a schoolmaster; and if I were to write "young
+ladies," it would look like a schoolmistress; and worse than
+that, neither form of words would look familiar and natural,
+or in character with our snowy ride that tooth-chattering
+morning.</p>
+
+<p>I cannot tell you both how gratified I was by your
+remembrance, or how often I think of you as I smoke
+the admirable cigars. But I almost think you must
+have had some magnetic consciousness across the Atlantic,
+of my whiffing my love towards you from the garden
+here.</p>
+
+<p>My daughter says that when you have settled those little
+public affairs at home, she hopes you will come back to
+England (possibly in united states) and give a minute or
+two to this part of Kent. <i>Her</i> words are, "a day or two;"
+but I remember your Italian flights, and correct the
+message.</p>
+
+<p>I have only just now finished my country readings, and
+have had nobody to make breakfast for me since the remote
+ages of Colchester!</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Ever faithfully yours.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_176" id="Page_176">[176]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class='center'>
+OUR LETTER.<br />
+<br />
+By <span class="smcap">M. F. Armstrong</span>.<br />
+</div>
+
+<p>"From among all my treasures&mdash;to each one of which
+some pleasant history is bound&mdash;I choose this letter, written
+on coarse blue paper.</p>
+
+<p>The letter was received in answer to cigars sent from
+America to Mr. Dickens.</p>
+
+<p>The 'little public affairs at home' refers to the war of
+the Rebellion.</p>
+
+<p>At Colchester, he read 'The Trial' from 'Pickwick,'
+and selections from 'Nicholas Nickleby.'</p>
+
+<p>The lady, her two sisters, and her brother were Mr.
+Dickens's guests at the queer old English inn at Colchester.</p>
+
+<p>Through the softly falling snow we came back together
+to London, and on the railway platform parted, with a hearty
+hand-shaking, from the man who will for ever be enshrined
+in our hearts as the kindest and most generous, not to say
+most brilliant of hosts."</p>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">M. de
+Cerjat.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span style="margin-right: 2em;"><span class="smcap">16, Hyde Park Gate, South Kensington Gore</span>,</span><br />
+<i>Sunday, March 16th, 1862.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='unindent'><span class='smcap'>My dear Cerjat</span>,</div>
+
+<p>My daughter naturally liking to be in town at this
+time of year, I have changed houses with a friend for three
+months.</p>
+
+<p>My eldest boy is in business as an Eastern merchant in
+the City, and will do well if he can find continuous energy;
+otherwise not. My second boy is with the 42nd Highlanders<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_177" id="Page_177">[177]</a></span>
+in India. My third boy, a good steady fellow, is
+educating expressly for engineers or artillery. My fourth
+(this sounds like a charade), a born little sailor, is a midshipman
+in H.M.S. <i>Orlando</i>, now at Bermuda, and will
+make his way anywhere. Remaining two at school, elder
+of said remaining two very bright and clever. Georgina
+and Mary keeping house for me; and Francis Jeffrey (I
+ought to have counted him as the third boy, so we'll take
+him in here as number two and a half) in my office at
+present. Now you have the family bill of fare.</p>
+
+<p>You ask me about Fechter and his Hamlet. It was a
+performance of extraordinary merit; by far the most coherent,
+consistent, and intelligible Hamlet I ever saw.
+Some of the delicacies with which he rendered his conception
+clear were extremely subtle; and in particular he
+avoided that brutality towards Ophelia which, with a greater
+or less amount of coarseness, I have seen in all other
+Hamlets. As a mere <i>tour de force</i>, it would have been very
+remarkable in its disclosure of a perfectly wonderful knowledge
+of the force of the English language; but its merit
+was far beyond and above this. Foreign accent, of course,
+but not at all a disagreeable one. And he was so obviously
+safe and at ease, that you were never in pain for him as a
+foreigner. Add to this a perfectly picturesque and romantic
+"make up," and a remorseless destruction of all conventionalities,
+and you have the leading virtues of the impersonation.
+In Othello he did not succeed. In Iago he is very good.
+He is an admirable artist, and far beyond anyone on our
+stage. A real artist and a gentleman.</p>
+
+<p>Last Thursday I began reading again in London&mdash;a
+condensation of "Copperfield," and "Mr. Bob Sawyer's
+Party," from "Pickwick," to finish merrily. The success
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_178" id="Page_178">[178]</a></span>of "Copperfield" is astounding. It made an impression
+that <i>I</i> must not describe. I may only remark that
+I was half dead when I had done; and that although
+I had looked forward, all through the summer, when I
+was carefully getting it up, to its being a London sensation;
+and that although Macready, hearing it at Cheltenham,
+told me to be prepared for a great effect, it even went
+beyond my hopes. I read again next Thursday, and
+the rush for places is quite furious. Tell Townshend this
+with my love, if you see him before I have time to write
+to him; and tell him that I thought the people would
+never let me go away, they became so excited, and showed
+it so very warmly. I am trying to plan out a new book,
+but have not got beyond trying.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Yours affectionately.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mr. Walter
+Thornbury.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span style="margin-right: 2em;"><span class="smcap">Office of "All the Year Round</span>,"</span><br />
+<i>Friday, April 18th, 1862.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='unindent'><span class='smcap'>My dear Thornbury</span>,</div>
+
+<p>The Bow Street runners ceased out of the land soon
+after the introduction of the new police. I remember them
+very well as standing about the door of the office in Bow
+Street. They had no other uniform than a blue dress-coat,
+brass buttons (I am not even now sure that that was necessary),
+and a bright red cloth waistcoat. The waistcoat was
+indispensable, and the slang name for them was "redbreasts,"
+in consequence.</p>
+
+<p>They kept company with thieves and the like, much
+more than the detective police do. I don't know what
+their pay was, but I have no doubt their principal complements
+were got under the rose. It was a very slack institution,
+and its head-quarters were The Brown Bear, in Bow<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_179" id="Page_179">[179]</a></span>
+Street, a public-house of more than doubtful reputation,
+opposite the police-office; and either the house which is
+now the theatrical costume maker's, or the next door
+to it.</p>
+
+<p>Field, who advertises the Secret Enquiry Office, was a
+Bow Street runner, and can tell you all about it; Goddard,
+who also advertises an enquiry office, was another of the
+fraternity. They are the only two I know of as yet existing
+in a "questionable shape."</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Faithfully yours always.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mr. Baylis.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Gad's Hill, etc.</span>, <i>Wednesday, July 2nd, 1862.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='unindent'><span class='smcap'>My dear Mr. Baylis</span>,</div>
+
+<p>I have been in France, and in London, and in other
+parts of Kent than this, and everywhere but here, for weeks
+and weeks. Pray excuse my not having (for this reason
+specially) answered your kind note sooner.</p>
+
+<p>After carefully cross-examining my daughter, I do <span class="smcap">not</span>
+believe her to be worthy of the fernery. Last autumn we
+transplanted into the shrubbery a quantity of evergreens
+previously clustered close to the front of the house, and
+trained more ivy about the wall and the like. When I ask
+her where she would have the fernery and what she would
+do with it, the witness falters, turns pale, becomes confused,
+and says: "Perhaps it would be better not to have it at all."
+I am quite confident that the constancy of the young person
+is not to be trusted, and that she had better attach her
+fernery to one of her ch&acirc;teaux in Spain, or one of her
+English castles in the air. None the less do I thank you
+for your more than kind proposal.</p>
+
+<p>We have been in great anxiety respecting Miss Hogarth,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_180" id="Page_180">[180]</a></span>
+the sudden decline of whose health and spirits has greatly
+distressed us. Although she is better than she was, and the
+doctors are, on the whole, cheerful, she requires great care,
+and fills us with apprehension. The necessity of providing
+change for her will probably take us across the water very
+early in the autumn; and this again unsettles home schemes
+here, and withers many kinds of fern. If they knew (by
+"they" I mean my daughter and Miss Hogarth) that I was
+writing to you, they would charge me with many messages
+of regard. But as I am shut up in my room in a ferocious
+and unapproachable condition, owing to the great accumulation
+of letters I have to answer, I will tell them at lunch
+that I have anticipated their wish. As I know they have
+bills for me to pay, and are at present shy of producing
+them, I wish to preserve a gloomy and repellent reputation.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+My dear Mr. Baylis, faithfully yours always.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mrs.
+Henry
+Austin.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Gad's Hill</span>, <i>Tuesday, Oct. 7th, 1862.</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 do not preach consolation because I am unwilling to
+preach at any time, and know my own weakness too well.
+But in this world there is no stay but the hope of a better,
+and no reliance but on the mercy and goodness of God.
+Through those two harbours of a shipwrecked heart, I fully
+believe that you will, in time, find a peaceful resting-place
+even on this careworn earth. Heaven speed the time, and
+do you try hard to help it on! It is impossible to say but
+that our prolonged grief for the beloved dead may grieve
+them in their unknown abiding-place, and give them trouble.
+The one influencing consideration in all you do as to your<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_181" id="Page_181">[181]</a></span>
+disposition of yourself (coupled, of course, with a real earnest
+strenuous endeavour to recover the lost tone of spirit) is,
+that you think and feel you <i>can</i> do. I do not in the least
+regard your change of course in going to Havre as any
+evidence of instability. But I rather hope it is likely that
+through such restlessness you will come to a far quieter frame
+of mind. The disturbed mind and affections, like the tossed
+sea, seldom calm without an intervening time of confusion
+and trouble.</p>
+
+<p>But nothing is to be attained without striving. In a
+determined effort to settle the thoughts, to parcel out the
+day, to find occupation regularly or to make it, to be up
+and doing something, are chiefly to be found the mere
+mechanical means which must come to the aid of the best
+mental efforts.</p>
+
+<p>It is a wilderness of a day, here, in the way of blowing
+and raining, and as darkly dismal, at four o'clock, as need
+be. My head is but just now raised from a day's writing,
+but I will not lose the post without sending you a word.</p>
+
+<p>Katie was here yesterday, just come back from Clara
+White's (that was), in Scotland. In the midst of her
+brilliant fortune, it is too clear to me that she is already
+beckoned away to follow her dead sisters. Macready was
+here from Saturday evening to yesterday morning, older
+but looking wonderfully well, and (what is very rare in
+these times) with the old thick sweep of hair upon his head.
+Georgina being left alone here the other day, was done no
+good to by a great consternation among the servants. On
+going downstairs, <ins title="Transcriber's Note: original reads 'shefound'">she found</ins> Marsh (the stableman) seated with
+great dignity and anguish in an arm-chair, and incessantly
+crying out: "I am dead." To which the women servants
+said with great pathos (and with some appearance of reason):
+"No, you ain't, Marsh!" And to which he persisted in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_182" id="Page_182">[182]</a></span>
+replying: "Yes, I am; I am dead!" Some neighbouring
+vagabond was impressed to drive a cart over to Rochester
+and fetch the doctor, who said (the patient and his consolers
+being all very anxious that the heart should be the scene
+of affliction): "Stomach."</p>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mr. W.
+Wilkie
+Collins.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span style="margin-right: 2em;"><span class="smcap">Gad's Hill Place, Higham by Rochester, Kent</span>,</span><br />
+<i>Tuesday Night, Oct. 14th, 1862.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='unindent'><span class='smcap'>My dear Wilkie</span>,</div>
+
+<p>Frank Beard has been here this evening, of course
+since I posted my this day's letter to you, and has told me that
+you are not at all well, and how he has given you something
+which he hopes and believes will bring you round. It is
+not to convey this insignificant piece of intelligence, or to
+tell you how anxious I am that you should come up with a
+wet sheet and a flowing sail (as we say at sea when we are
+not sick), that I write. It is simply to say what follows,
+which I hope may save you some mental uneasiness. For I
+was stricken ill when I was doing "Bleak House," and I
+shall not easily forget what I suffered under the fear of not
+being able to come up to time.</p>
+
+<p>Dismiss that fear (if you have it) altogether from your
+mind. Write to me at Paris at any moment, and say you
+are unequal to your work, and want me, and I will come to
+London straight and do your work. I am quite confident
+that, with your notes and a few words of explanation, I
+could take it up at any time and do it. Absurdly unnecessary
+to say that it would be a makeshift! But I could do it at
+a pinch, so like you as that no one should find out the difference.
+Don't make much of this offer in your mind; it is
+nothing, except to ease it. If you should want help, I am<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_183" id="Page_183">[183]</a></span>
+as safe as the bank. The trouble would be nothing to me,
+and the triumph of overcoming a difficulty great. Think it
+a Christmas number, an "Idle Apprentice," a "Lighthouse,"
+a "Frozen Deep." I am as ready as in any of these cases to
+strike in and hammer the hot iron out.</p>
+
+<p>You won't want me. You will be well (and thankless!)
+in no time. But there I am; and I hope that the knowledge
+may be a comfort to you. Call me, and I come.</p>
+
+<p>As Beard always has a sense of medical responsibility,
+and says anything important about a patient in confidence,
+I have merely remarked here that "Wilkie" is out of sorts.
+Charley (who is here with Katie) has no other cue from me.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Ever affectionately.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">M. Charles
+Fechter.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span style="margin-right: 2em;"><span class="smcap">Paris, Rue du Faubourg St. Honor&eacute;, 27</span>,</span><br />
+<i>Tuesday, Nov. 4th, 1862.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='unindent'><span class='smcap'>My dear Fechter</span>,</div>
+
+<p>You know, I believe, how our letters crossed, and
+that I am here until Christmas. Also, you know with what
+pleasure and readiness I should have responded to your
+invitation if I had been in London.</p>
+
+<p>Pray tell Paul F&eacute;val that I shall be charmed to know
+him, and that I shall feel the strongest interest in making
+his acquaintance. It almost puts me out of humour with
+Paris (and it takes a great deal to do that!) to think that I
+was not at home to prevail upon him to come with you, and
+be welcomed to Gad's Hill; but either there or here, I hope
+to become his friend before this present old year is out.
+Pray tell him so.</p>
+
+<p>You say nothing in your note of your Lyceum preparations.
+I trust they are all going on well. There is a fine<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_184" id="Page_184">[184]</a></span>
+opening for you, I am sure, with a good beginning; but
+the importance of a good beginning is very great. If you
+ever have time and inclination to tell me in a short note
+what you are about, you can scarcely interest me more, as
+my wishes and strongest sympathies are for and with your
+success&mdash;<i>mais cela va sans dire</i>.</p>
+
+<p>I went to the Ch&acirc;telet (a beautiful theatre!) the other
+night to see "Rothomago," but was so mortally <i>g&ecirc;n&eacute;</i> with
+the poor nature of the piece and of the acting, that I came
+out again when there was a week or two (I mean an hour or
+two, but the hours seemed weeks) yet to get through.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+My dear Fechter, very faithfully yours always.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mr.
+Clarkson
+Stanfield,
+R.A.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span style="margin-right: 2em;"><span class="smcap">Paris, Rue du Faubourg St. Honor&eacute;, 27</span>,</span><br />
+<i>Friday, Dec. 5th, 1862.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='unindent'><span class='smcap'>My dear Stanny</span>,</div>
+
+<p>We have been here for two months, and I shall
+probably come back here after Christmas (we go home for
+Christmas week) and stay on into February. But I shall
+write and propose a theatre before Christmas is out, so this
+is to warn you to get yourself into working pantomime
+order!</p>
+
+<p>I hope Wills has duly sent you our new Christmas
+number. As you may like to know what I myself wrote of
+it, understand the Dick contributions to be, <i>his leaving it
+till called for</i>, and <i>his wonderful end</i>, <i>his boots</i>, and <i>his brown
+paper parcel</i>.</p>
+
+<p>Since you were at Gad's Hill I have been travelling a
+good deal, and looking up many odd things for use. I want
+to know how you are in health and spirits, and it would be
+the greatest of pleasures to me to have a line under your
+hand.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_185" id="Page_185">[185]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>God bless you and yours with all the blessings of the
+time of year, and of all times!</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+<span style="margin-right: 2em;">Ever your affectionate and faithful</span><br />
+<span class="smcap">Dick</span>.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">M. Charles
+Fechter.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Paris</span>, <i>Saturday, Dec. 6th, 1862.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='unindent'><span class='smcap'>My dear Fechter</span>,</div>
+
+<p>I have read "The White Rose" attentively, and
+think it an extremely good play. It is vigorously written
+with a great knowledge of the stage, and presents many
+striking situations. I think the close particularly fine,
+impressive, bold, and new.</p>
+
+<p>But I greatly doubt the expediency of your doing <i>any</i>
+historical play early in your management. By the words
+"historical play," I mean a play founded on any incident
+in English history. Our public are accustomed to associate
+historical plays with Shakespeare. In any other hands, I
+believe they care very little for crowns and dukedoms.
+What you want is something with an interest of a more
+domestic and general nature&mdash;an interest as romantic as
+you please, but having a more general and wider response
+than a disputed succession to the throne can have for
+Englishmen at this time of day. Such interest culminated
+in the last Stuart, and has worn itself out. It would be
+uphill work to evoke an interest in Perkin Warbeck.</p>
+
+<p>I do not doubt the play's being well received, but my
+fear is that these people would be looked upon as mere
+abstractions, and would have but a cold welcome in consequence,
+and would not lay hold of your audience. Now,
+when you <i>have</i> laid hold of your audience and have
+accustomed them to your theatre, you may produce "The
+White Rose," with far greater justice to the author, and to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_186" id="Page_186">[186]</a></span>
+the manager also. Wait. Feel your way. Perkin Warbeck
+is too far removed from analogy with the sympathies and
+lives of the people for a beginning.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+My dear Fechter, ever faithfully yours.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Miss Mary
+Boyle.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span style="margin-right: 2em;"><span class="smcap">Gad's Hill Place, Higham by Rochester, Kent</span>,</span><br />
+<i>Saturday, Dec. 27th, 1862.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='unindent'><span class='smcap'>My dear Mary</span>,</div>
+
+<p>I must send you my Christmas greeting and happy
+New Year wishes in return for yours; most heartily and
+fervently reciprocating your interest and affection. You are
+among the few whom I most care for and best love.</p>
+
+<p>Being in London two evenings in the opening week, I
+tried to persuade my legs (for whose judgment I have the
+highest respect) to go to an evening party. But I <i>could not</i>
+induce them to pass Leicester Square. The faltering presentiment
+under which they laboured so impressed me,
+that at that point I yielded to their terrors. They immediately
+ran away to the east, and I accompanied them to
+the Olympic, where I saw a very good play, "Camilla's
+Husband," very well played. Real merit in Mr. Neville
+and Miss Saville.</p>
+
+<p>We came across directly after the gale, with the Channel
+all bestrewn with floating wreck, and with a hundred and
+fifty sick schoolboys from Calais on board. I am going
+back on the morning after Fechter's opening night, and
+have promised to read "Copperfield" at the Embassy, for a
+British charity.</p>
+
+<p>Georgy continues wonderfully well, and she and Mary
+send you their best love. The house is pervaded by boys;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_187" id="Page_187">[187]</a></span>
+and every boy has (as usual) an unaccountable and awful
+power of producing himself in every part of the house at
+every moment, apparently in fourteen pairs of creaking boots.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+<span style="margin-right: 2em;">My dear Mary, ever affectionately your</span><br />
+<span class="smcap">Joe</span>.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>1863.</h2>
+
+<h3>NARRATIVE.</h3>
+
+
+<div class='unindent'><span class='smcap'>At</span> the beginning of this year, Charles Dickens was in
+Paris for the purpose of giving a reading at the English
+Embassy.</div>
+
+<p>He remained in Paris until the beginning of February,
+staying with his servant "John" at the H&ocirc;tel du Helder.
+There was a series of readings in London this season at
+the Hanover Square Rooms. The Christmas number of
+"All the Year Round" was entitled "Mrs. Lirriper's
+Lodgings," to which Charles Dickens contributed the first
+and last chapter.</p>
+
+<p>The Lyceum Theatre, under the management of M.
+Fechter, was opened in January with "The Duke's Motto,"
+and the letter given here has reference to this first night.</p>
+
+<p>We regret very much having no letters to Lady Molesworth,
+who was an old and dear friend of Charles Dickens.
+But this lady explains to us that she has long ceased to
+preserve any letters addressed to her.</p>
+
+<p>The "Mr. and Mrs. Humphery" (now Sir William and
+Lady Humphery) mentioned in the first letter for this year,
+were dear and intimate friends of his eldest daughter,
+and were frequent guests in her father's house. Mrs.
+Humphery and her sister Lady Olliffe were daughters of
+the late Mr. William Cubitt, M.P.</p>
+
+<p>We have in this year the first letter of Charles Dickens
+to Mr. Percy Fitzgerald. This gentleman had been a valuable<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_188" id="Page_188">[188]</a></span>
+contributor to his journal before he became personally
+known to Charles Dickens. The acquaintance once made
+soon ripened into friendship, and for the future Mr. Fitzgerald
+was a constant and always a welcome visitor to Gad's
+Hill.</p>
+
+<p>The letter to Mr. Charles Reade alludes to his story,
+"Hard Cash," which was then appearing in "All the Year
+Round." As a writer, and as a friend, he was held by
+Charles Dickens in the highest estimation.</p>
+
+<p>Charles Dickens's correspondence with his solicitor and
+excellent friend, Mr. Frederic Ouvry (now a vice-president
+of the Society of Antiquaries), was almost entirely of a
+business character; but we are glad to give one or two
+notes to that gentleman, although of little public interest,
+in order to have the name in our book of one of the kindest
+of our own friends.</p>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Miss
+Dickens.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span style="margin-right: 2em;"><span class="smcap">Paris, H&ocirc;tel du Helder, Rue du Helder</span>,</span><br />
+<i>Friday, Jan. 16th, 1863.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='unindent'><span class='smcap'>My dearest Mamie</span>,</div>
+
+<p>As I send a line to your aunt to-day and know that
+you will not see it, I send another to you to report my safe
+(and neuralgic) arrival here. My little rooms are perfectly
+comfortable, and I like the hotel better than any I have
+ever put up at in Paris. John's amazement at, and appreciation
+of, Paris are indescribable. He goes about with his
+mouth open, staring at everything and being tumbled over
+by everybody.</p>
+
+<p>The state dinner at the Embassy, yesterday, coming off
+in the room where I am to read, the carpenters did not get
+in until this morning. But their platforms were ready&mdash;or
+supposed to be&mdash;and the preparations are in brisk progress.
+I think it will be a handsome affair to look at&mdash;a very<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_189" id="Page_189">[189]</a></span>
+handsome one. There seems to be great artistic curiosity
+in Paris, to know what kind of thing the reading is.</p>
+
+<p>I know a "rela-shon" (with one weak eye), who is in
+the gunmaking line, very near here. There is a strong
+family resemblance&mdash;but no muzzle. Lady Molesworth
+and I have not begun to "toddle" yet, but have exchanged
+affectionate greetings. I am going round to see her
+presently, and I dine with her on Sunday. The only
+remaining news is, that I am beset by mysterious adorers,
+and smuggle myself in and out of the house in the meanest
+and basest manner.</p>
+
+<p>With kind regard to Mr. and Mrs. Humphery,</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Ever, my dearest Mamey, your affectionate Father.<br />
+</div>
+
+<p>P.S.&mdash;<i>Hommage &agrave; Madame B.!</i></p>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Monsieur
+Regnier.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Paris</span>, <i>Sunday, Feb. 1st, 1863.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='unindent'><span class='smcap'>My dear Regnier</span>,</div>
+
+<p>I was charmed by the receipt of your cordial and
+sympathetic letter, and I shall always preserve it carefully
+as a most noble tribute from a great and real artist.</p>
+
+<p>I wished you had been at the Embassy on Friday evening.
+The audience was a fine one, and the "Carol" is particularly
+well adapted to the purpose. It is an uncommon pleasure
+to me to learn that I am to meet you on Tuesday, for there
+are not many men whom I meet with greater pleasure than
+you. Heaven! how the years roll by! We are quite old
+friends now, in counting by years. If we add sympathies,
+we have been friends at least a thousand years.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Affectionately yours ever.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_190" id="Page_190">[190]</a></span></p>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Miss
+Dickens.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">H&ocirc;tel du Helder, Paris</span>, <i>Sunday, Feb. 1st, 1863.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='unindent'><span class='smcap'>My dearest Mamie</span>,</div>
+
+<p>I cannot give you any idea of the success of the
+readings here, because no one can imagine the scene of last
+Friday night at the Embassy. Such audiences and such
+enthusiasm I have never seen, but the thing culminated on
+Friday night in a two hours' storm of excitement and
+pleasure. They actually recommenced and applauded right
+away into their carriages and down the street.</p>
+
+<p>You know your parent's horror of being lionised, and
+will not be surprised to hear that I am half dead of it. I
+cannot leave here until Thursday (though I am every hour
+in danger of running away) because I have to dine out, to
+say nothing of breakfasting&mdash;think of me breakfasting!&mdash;every
+intervening day. But my project is to send John
+home on Thursday, and then to go on a little perfectly quiet
+tour for about ten days, touching the sea at Boulogne.
+When I get there, I will write to your aunt (in case you
+should not be at home), saying when I shall arrive at the
+office. I must go to the office instead of Gad's, because I
+have much to do with Forster about Elliotson.</p>
+
+<p>I enclose a short note for each of the little boys. Give
+Harry ten shillings pocket-money, and Plorn six.</p>
+
+<p>The Olliffe girls, very nice. Florence at the readings,
+prodigiously excited.</p>
+
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Miss
+Hogarth.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Paris</span>, <i>Sunday, Feb. 1st, 1863.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<p>From my hurried note to Mamie, you will get some
+faint general idea of a new star's having arisen in Paris.
+But of its brightness you can have no adequate conception.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_191" id="Page_191">[191]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>[John has locked me up and gone out, and the little bell
+at the door is ringing demoniacally while I write.]</p>
+
+<p>You have never heard me read yet. I have been twice
+goaded and lifted out of myself into a state that astonished
+<i>me</i> almost as much as the audience. I have a cold, but no
+neuralgia, and am "as well as can be expected."</p>
+
+<p>I forgot to tell Mamie that I went (with Lady Molesworth)
+to hear "Faust" last night. It is a splendid work,
+in which that noble and sad story is most nobly and sadly
+rendered, and perfectly delighted me. But I think it
+requires too much of the audience to do for a London opera
+house. The composer must be a very remarkable man
+indeed. Some management of light throughout the story
+is also very poetical and fine. We had Carvalho's box. I
+could hardly bear the thing, it affected me so.</p>
+
+<p>But, as a certain Frenchman said, "No weakness,
+Danton!" So I leave off.</p>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">M. Charles
+Fechter.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Paris</span>, <i>Wednesday, Feb. 4th, 1863.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='unindent'><span class='smcap'>My dear Fechter</span>,</div>
+
+<p>A thousand congratulations on your great success!
+Never mind what they say, or do, <i>pour vous &eacute;craser;</i> you
+have the game in your hands. The romantic drama,
+thoroughly well done (with a touch of Shakespeare now and
+then), is the speciality of your theatre. Give the public
+the picturesque, romantic drama, with yourself in it; and
+(as I told you in the beginning) you may throw down your
+gauntlet in defiance of all comers.</p>
+
+<p>It is a most brilliant success indeed, and it thoroughly
+rejoices my heart!<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_192" id="Page_192">[192]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Unfortunately I cannot now hope to see "Maquet,"
+because I am packing up and going out to dinner (it is late
+in the afternoon), and I leave to-morrow morning when all
+sensible people, except myself, are in bed; and I do not
+come back to Paris or near it. I had hoped to see him at
+breakfast last Monday, but he was not there. Paul F&eacute;val
+was there, and I found him a capital fellow. If I can do
+anything to help you on with "Maquet"<a name="FNanchor_8_8" id="FNanchor_8_8"></a><a href="#Footnote_8_8" class="fnanchor">[8]</a> when I come back
+I will most gladly do it.</p>
+
+<p>My readings here have had the finest possible reception,
+and have achieved a most noble success. I never before read
+to such fine audiences, so very quick of perception, and so
+enthusiastically responsive.</p>
+
+<p>I shall be heartily pleased to see you again, my dear
+Fechter, and to share your triumphs with the real earnestness
+of a real friend. And so go on and prosper, and believe
+me, as I truly am,</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Most cordially yours.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mr. W. C.
+Macready.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span style="margin-right: 2em;"><span class="smcap">Office of "All the Year Round</span>,"</span><br />
+<i>Thursday, Feb. 19th, 1863.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='unindent'><span class='smcap'>My dearest Macready</span>,</div>
+
+<p>I have just come back from Paris, where the readings&mdash;"Copperfield,"
+"Dombey" and "Trial," and "Carol"
+and "Trial"&mdash;have made a sensation which modesty (my
+natural modesty) renders it impossible for me to describe.
+You know what a noble audience the Paris audience is!
+They were at their very noblest with me.</p>
+
+<p>I was very much concerned by hearing hurriedly from<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_193" id="Page_193">[193]</a></span>
+Georgy that you were ill. But when I came home at night,
+she showed me Katie's letter, and that set me up again.
+Ah, you have the best of companions and nurses, and can
+afford to be ill now and then for the happiness of being so
+brought through it. But don't do it again yet awhile for
+all that.</p>
+
+<p>Legouv&eacute; (whom you remember in Paris as writing for the
+Ristori) was anxious that I should bring you the enclosed.
+A manly and generous effort, I think? Regnier desired
+to be warmly remembered to you. He looks just as of yore.</p>
+
+<p>Paris generally is about as wicked and extravagant as in
+the days of the Regency. Madame Viardot in the "Orph&eacute;e,"
+most splendid. An opera of "Faust," a very sad and noble
+rendering of that sad and noble story. Stage management
+remarkable for some admirable, and really poetical, effects
+of light. In the more striking situations, Mephistopheles
+surrounded by an infernal red atmosphere of his own. Marguerite
+by a pale blue mournful light. The two never blending.
+After Marguerite has taken the jewels placed in her
+way in the garden, a weird evening draws on, and the bloom
+fades from the flowers, and the leaves of the trees droop
+and lose their fresh green, and mournful shadows overhang
+her chamber window, which was innocently bright and gay
+at first. I couldn't bear it, and gave in completely.</p>
+
+<p>Fechter doing wonders over the way here, with a
+picturesque French drama. Miss Kate Terry, in a small
+part in it, perfectly charming. You may remember her
+making a noise, years ago, doing a boy at an inn, in "The
+Courier of Lyons"? She has a tender love-scene in this
+piece, which is a really beautiful and artistic thing. I saw
+her do it at about three in the morning of the day when
+the theatre opened, surrounded by shavings and carpenters,
+and (of course) with that inevitable hammer going; and I<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_194" id="Page_194">[194]</a></span>
+told Fechter: "That is the very best piece of womanly
+tenderness I have ever seen on the stage, and you'll find
+that no audience can miss it." It is a comfort to add that
+it was instantly seized upon, and is much talked of.</p>
+
+<p>Stanfield was very ill for some months, then suddenly
+picked up, and is really rosy and jovial again. Going to
+see him when he was very despondent, I told him the story
+of Fechter's piece (then in rehearsal) with appropriate
+action; fighting a duel with the washing-stand, defying
+the bedstead, and saving the life of the sofa-cushion. This
+so kindled his old theatrical ardour, that I think he turned
+the corner on the spot.</p>
+
+<p>With love to Mrs. Macready and Katie, and (be still my
+heart!) Benvenuta, and the exiled Johnny (not too attentive
+at school, I hope?), and the personally-unknown young
+Parr,</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Ever, my dearest Macready, your most affectionate.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Miss
+Power.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span style="margin-right: 2em;"><span class="smcap">Office of "All the Year Round</span>,"</span><br />
+<i>Thursday, Feb. 26th, 1863.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='unindent'><span class='smcap'>My dear Marguerite</span>,</div>
+
+<p>I think I have found a first-rate title for your book,
+with an early and a delightful association in most people's
+minds, and a strong suggestion of Oriental pictures:</p>
+
+<div class='center'>
+"<span class="smcap">Arabian Days and Nights</span>."<br />
+</div>
+
+<p>I have sent it to Low's. If they have the wit to see it,
+do you in your first chapter touch that string, so as to
+bring a fanciful explanation in aid of the title, and sound it
+afterwards, now and again, when you come to anything
+where Haroun al Raschid, and the Grand Vizier, and
+Mesrour, the chief of the guard, and any of that wonderful
+<i>dramatis person&aelig;</i> are vividly brought to mind.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Ever affectionately.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_195" id="Page_195">[195]</a></span></p>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mr.
+Charles
+Knight.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span style="margin-right: 2em;"><span class="smcap">Office of "All the Year Round</span>,"</span><br />
+<i>Wednesday, March 4th, 1863.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='unindent'><span class='smcap'>My dear Charles Knight</span>,</div>
+
+<p>At a quarter to seven on Monday, the 16th, a
+stately form will be descried breathing birthday cordialities
+and affectionate amenities, as it descends the broken and
+gently dipping ground by which the level country of the
+Clifton Road is attained. A practised eye will be able to
+discern two humble figures in attendance, which from their
+flowing crinolines may, without exposing the prophet to the
+imputation of rashness, be predicted to be women. Though
+certes their importance, absorbed and as it were swallowed
+up in the illustrious bearing and determined purpose of the
+maturer stranger, will not enthrall the gaze that wanders
+over the forest of San Giovanni as the night gathers in.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+<span style="margin-right: 2em;">Ever affectionately,</span><br />
+<span class="smcap">G. P. R. James.</span><br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mrs.
+Dallas.<a name="FNanchor_9_9" id="FNanchor_9_9"></a><a href="#Footnote_9_9" class="fnanchor">[9]</a></div>
+
+
+<div class='center'><small>EXTRACT.</small><br /><br />
+
+<small>THE TIME OF THE PRINCESS ALEXANDRA'S ARRIVAL IN LONDON.</small></div>
+
+<p>It is curious to see London gone mad. Down in the
+Strand here, the monomaniacal tricks it is playing are
+grievous to behold, but along Fleet Street and Cheapside it
+gradually becomes frenzied, dressing itself up in all sorts
+of odds and ends, and knocking itself about in a most
+amazing manner. At London Bridge it raves, principally
+about the Kings of Denmark and their portraits. I have
+been looking among them for Hamlet's uncle, and have
+discovered one personage with a high nose, who I think is
+the man.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Faithfully yours always.<br />
+</div>
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_196" id="Page_196">[196]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mrs.
+Lehmann.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span style="margin-right: 2em;"><span class="smcap">Office of "All the Year Round," No. 26, Wellington Street,</span></span><br />
+<span style="margin-right: 4em;"><span class="smcap">Strand, London, W.C.</span>,</span><br />
+<i>Tuesday, March 10th, 1863.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='unindent'><span class='smcap'>Dear Mrs. Lehmann</span>,</div>
+
+<p>Two stalls for to-morrow's reading were sent to you
+by post before I heard from you this morning. Two will
+always come to you while you remain a Gummidge, and I
+hope I need not say that if you want more, none could be
+better bestowed in my sight.</p>
+
+<p>Pray tell Lehmann, when you next write to him, that I
+find I owe him a mint of money for the delightful Swedish
+sleigh-bells. They are the wonder, awe, and admiration
+of the whole country side, and I never go out without them.</p>
+
+<p>Let us make an exchange of child stories. I heard of
+a little fellow the other day whose mamma had been telling
+him that a French governess was coming over to him from
+Paris, and had been expatiating on the blessings and advantages
+of having foreign tongues. After leaning his plump
+little cheek against the window glass in a dreary little way
+for some minutes, he looked round and enquired in a general
+way, and not as if it had any special application, whether
+she didn't think "that the Tower of Babel was a great
+mistake altogether?"</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Ever faithfully yours.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mrs.
+Major.<a name="FNanchor_10_10" id="FNanchor_10_10"></a><a href="#Footnote_10_10" class="fnanchor">[10]</a></div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span style="margin-right: 2em;"><span class="smcap">Office of "All the Year Round," a Weekly Journal, etc. etc.,</span></span><br />
+<span style="margin-right: 4em;"><span class="smcap">26, Wellington Street, Strand</span>,</span><br />
+<i>Thursday, March 12th, 1863.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='unindent'><span class='smcap'>My dear Mary</span>,</div>
+
+<p>I am quite concerned to hear that you and your
+party (including your brother Willie) paid for seats at my
+reading last night. You must promise me never to do so
+any more. My old affections and attachments are not so<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_197" id="Page_197">[197]</a></span>
+lightly cherished or so easily forgotten as that I can bear
+the thought of you and yours coming to hear me like so
+many strangers. It will at all times delight me if you will
+send a little note to me, or to Georgina, or to Mary, saying
+when you feel inclined to come, and how many stalls you
+want. You may always be certain, even on the fullest
+nights, of room being made for you. And I shall always
+be interested and pleased by knowing that you are present.</p>
+
+<p>Mind! You are to be exceedingly penitent for last
+night's offence, and to make me a promise that it shall
+never be repeated. On which condition accept my noble
+forgiveness.</p>
+
+<p>With kind regard to Mr. Major, my dear Mary,</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Affectionately yours.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mr. W. C.
+Macready.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span style="margin-right: 2em;"><span class="smcap">Gad's Hill Place, Higham by Rochester, Kent</span>,</span><br />
+<i>Thursday, March 31st, 1863.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='unindent'><span class='smcap'>My dearest Macready</span>,</div>
+
+<p>I mean to go on reading into June. For the sake of
+the finer effects (in "Copperfield" principally), I have changed
+from St. James's Hall to the Hanover Square Room. The
+latter is quite a wonderful room for sound, and so easy that
+the least inflection will tell anywhere in the place exactly
+as it leaves your lips; but I miss my dear old shilling
+galleries&mdash;six or eight hundred strong&mdash;with a certain
+roaring sea of response in them, that you have stood upon
+the beach of many and many a time.</p>
+
+<p>The summer, I hope and trust, will quicken the pace at
+which you grow stronger again. I am but in dull spirits
+myself just now, or I should remonstrate with you on your
+slowness.</p>
+
+<p>Having two little boys sent home from school "to see<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_198" id="Page_198">[198]</a></span>
+the illuminations" on the marriage-night, I chartered an
+enormous van, at a cost of five pounds, and we started in
+majesty from the office in London, fourteen strong. We
+crossed Waterloo Bridge with the happy design of beginning
+the sight at London Bridge, and working our way
+through the City to Regent Street. In a by-street in the
+Borough, over against a dead wall and under a railway
+bridge, we were blocked for four hours. We were obliged
+to walk home at last, having seen nothing whatever. The
+wretched van turned up in the course of the next morning;
+and the best of it was that at Rochester here they illuminated
+the fine old castle, and really made a very splendid and
+picturesque thing (so my neighbours tell me).</p>
+
+<p>With love to Mrs. Macready and Katie,</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Ever, my dearest Macready, your most affectionate.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mr. W.
+Wilkie
+Collins.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span style="margin-right: 2em;"><span class="smcap">Gad's Hill Place, Higham by Rochester, Kent</span>,</span><br />
+<i>Wednesday, April 22nd, 1863.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class='center'><small>ON THE DEATH OF MR. EGG.</small><br /><br />
+
+<small>EXTRACT.</small></div>
+
+<p>Ah, poor Egg! I knew what you would think and feel
+about it. When we saw him in Paris on his way out I was
+struck by his extreme nervousness, and derived from it an
+uneasy foreboding of his state. What a large piece of a
+good many years he seems to have taken with him! How
+often have I thought, since the news of his death came, of
+his putting his part in the saucepan (with the cover on)
+when we rehearsed "The Lighthouse;" of his falling out of
+the hammock when we rehearsed "The Frozen Deep;"
+of his learning Italian numbers when he ate the garlic in
+the carriage; of the thousands (I was going to say) of dark
+mornings when I apostrophised him as "Kernel;" of his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_199" id="Page_199">[199]</a></span>
+losing my invaluable knife in that beastly stage-coach; of
+his posting up that mysterious book<a name="FNanchor_11_11" id="FNanchor_11_11"></a><a href="#Footnote_11_11" class="fnanchor">[11]</a> every night! I
+hardly know why, but I have always associated that volume
+most with Venice. In my memory of the dear gentle little
+fellow, he will be (as since those days he always has been)
+eternally posting up that book at the large table in the
+middle of our Venice sitting-room, incidentally asking the
+name of an hotel three weeks back! And his pretty house
+is to be laid waste and sold. If there be a sale on the spot
+I shall try to buy something in loving remembrance of him,
+good dear little fellow. Think what a great "Frozen
+Deep" lay close under those boards we acted on! My
+brother Alfred, Luard, Arthur, Albert, Austin, Egg. Even
+among the audience, Prince Albert and poor Stone! "I
+heard the"&mdash;I forget what it was I used to say&mdash;"come up
+from the great deep;" and it rings in my ears now, like a
+sort of mad prophecy.</p>
+
+<p>However, this won't do. We must close up the ranks
+and march on.</p>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Rev. W.
+Brookfield.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Gad's Hill</span>, <i>May 17th, 1863.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='unindent'><span class='smcap'>My dear Brookfield</span>,</div>
+
+<p>It occurs to me that you may perhaps know, or know
+of, a kind of man that I want to discover.</p>
+
+<p>One of my boys (the youngest) now is at Wimbledon
+School. He is a docile, amiable boy of fair abilities, but
+sensitive and shy. And he writes me so very earnestly that
+he feels the school to be confusingly large for him, and that
+he is sure he could do better with some gentleman who gave
+his own personal attention to the education of half-a-dozen
+or a dozen boys, as to impress me with the belief that I ought
+to heed his conviction.</p>
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_200" id="Page_200">[200]</a></span></p>
+<p>Has any such phenomenon as a good and reliable man
+in this wise ever come in your way? Forgive my troubling
+you, and believe me,</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Cordially yours.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Rev. W.
+Brookfield.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span style="margin-right: 2em;"><span class="smcap">Gad's Hill Place, Higham by Rochester, Kent</span>,</span><br />
+<i>May 24th, 1863.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='unindent'><span class='smcap'>My dear Brookfield</span>,</div>
+
+<p>I am most truly obliged to you for your kind and
+ready help.</p>
+
+<p>When I am in town next week, I will call upon the
+Bishop of Natal, more to thank him than with the hope of
+profiting by that gentleman of whom he writes, as the limitation
+to "little boys" seems to stop the way. I want to
+find someone with whom this particular boy could remain;
+if there were a mutual interest and liking, that would be a
+great point gained.</p>
+
+<p>Why did the kings in the fairy tales want children? I
+suppose in the weakness of the royal intellect.</p>
+
+<p>Concerning "Nickleby," I am so much of your mind
+(comparing it with "Copperfield"), that it was a long time
+before I could take a pleasure in reading it. But I got
+better, as I found the audience always taking to it. I have
+been trying, alone by myself, the "Oliver Twist" murder, but
+have got something so horrible out of it that I am afraid to
+try it in public.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Ever faithfully yours.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">M. de
+Cerjat.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span style="margin-right: 2em;"><span class="smcap">Gad's Hill Place, Higham by Rochester, Kent</span>,</span><br />
+<i>Thursday, May 28th, 1863.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='unindent'><span class='smcap'>My dear Cerjat</span>,</div>
+
+<p>I don't wonder at your finding it difficult to reconcile
+your mind to a French Hamlet; but I assure you that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_201" id="Page_201">[201]</a></span>
+Fechter's is a very remarkable performance perfectly consistent
+with itself (whether it be my particular Hamlet,
+or your particular Hamlet, or no), a coherent and intelligent
+whole, and done by a true artist. I have never seen,
+I think, an intelligent and clear view of the whole character
+so well sustained throughout; and there is a very captivating
+air of romance and picturesqueness added, which is
+quite new. Rely upon it, the public were right. The thing
+could not have been sustained by oddity; it would have
+perished upon that, very soon. As to the mere accent,
+there is far less drawback in that than you would suppose.
+For this reason, he obviously knows English so thoroughly
+that you feel he is safe. You are never in pain for him.
+This sense of ease is gained directly, and then you think
+very little more about it.</p>
+
+<p>The Colenso and Jowett matter is a more difficult question,
+but here again I don't go with you. The position of
+the writers of "Essays and Reviews" is, that certain parts
+of the Old Testament have done their intended function in
+the education of the world <i>as it was;</i> but that mankind, like
+the individual man, is designed by the Almighty to have
+an infancy and a maturity, and that as it advances, the
+machinery of its education must advance too. For example:
+inasmuch as ever since there was a sun and there was
+vapour, there <i>must have</i> been a rainbow under certain
+conditions, so surely it would be better now to recognise
+that indisputable fact. Similarly, Joshua might command
+the sun to stand still, under the impression that it moved
+round the earth; but he could not possibly have inverted
+the relations of the earth and the sun, whatever his
+impressions were. Again, it is contended that the science
+of geology is quite as much a revelation to man, as books
+of an immense age and of (at the best) doubtful origin, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_202" id="Page_202">[202]</a></span>
+that your consideration of the latter must reasonably be
+influenced by the former. As I understand the importance
+of timely suggestions such as these, it is, that the Church
+should not gradually shock and lose the more thoughtful
+and logical of human minds; but should be so gently and
+considerately yielding as to retain them, and, through them,
+hundreds of thousands. This seems to me, as I understand
+the temper and tendency of the time, whether for good or
+evil, to be a very wise and necessary position. And as I
+understand the danger, it is not chargeable on those who
+take this ground, but on those who in reply call names and
+argue nothing. What these bishops and such-like say
+about revelation, in assuming it to be finished and done
+with, I can't in the least understand. Nothing is discovered
+without God's intention and assistance, and I suppose every
+new knowledge of His works that is conceded to man to be
+distinctly a revelation by which men are to guide themselves.
+Lastly, in the mere matter of religious doctrine and dogmas,
+these men (Protestants&mdash;protestors&mdash;successors of the men
+who protested against human judgment being set aside) talk
+and write as if they were all settled by the direct act of
+Heaven; not as if they had been, as we know they were, a
+matter of temporary accommodation and adjustment among
+disputing mortals as fallible as you or I.</p>
+
+<p>Coming nearer home, I hope that Georgina is almost
+quite well. She has no attack of pain or flurry now, and is
+in all respects immensely better. Mary is neither married
+nor (that I know of) going to be. She and Katie and a lot
+of them have been playing croquet outside my window here
+for these last four days, to a mad and maddening extent.
+My sailor-boy's ship, the <i>Orlando</i>, is fortunately in Chatham
+Dockyard&mdash;so he is pretty constantly at home&mdash;while the
+shipwrights are repairing a leak in her. I am reading in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_203" id="Page_203">[203]</a></span>
+London every Friday just now. Great crams and great
+enthusiasm. Townshend I suppose to have left Lausanne
+somewhere about this day. His house in the park is hermetically
+sealed, ready for him. The Prince and Princess
+of Wales go about (wisely) very much, and have as fair a
+chance of popularity as ever prince and princess had. The
+City ball in their honour is to be a tremendously gorgeous
+business, and Mary is highly excited by her father's being
+invited, and she with him. Meantime the unworthy parent
+is devising all kinds of subterfuges for sending her and
+getting out of it himself. A very intelligent German friend
+of mine, just home from America, maintains that the conscription
+will succeed in the North, and that the war will be
+indefinitely prolonged. <i>I</i> say "No," and that however mad
+and villainous the North is, the war will finish by reason of
+its not supplying soldiers. We shall see. The more they
+brag the more I don't believe in them.</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. Percy
+Fitzgerald.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Gad's Hill Place</span>, <i>Saturday Night, July 4th, 1863.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='unindent'><span class='smcap'>My dear Mr. Fitzgerald</span>,</div>
+
+<p>I have been most heartily gratified by the perusal of
+your article on my dogs. It has given me an amount and a
+kind of pleasure very unusual, and for which I thank you
+earnestly. The owner of the renowned dog C&aelig;sar understands
+me so sympathetically, that I trust with perfect confidence
+to his feeling what I really mean in these few words.
+You interest me very much by your kind promise, the
+redemption of which I hereby claim, to send me your life of
+Sterne when it comes out. If you should be in England
+before this, I should be delighted to see you here on the top
+of Falstaff's own Gad's Hill. It is a very pretty country,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_204" id="Page_204">[204]</a></span>
+not thirty miles from London; and if you could spare a
+day or two for its fine walks, I and my two latest dogs, a
+St. Bernard and a bloodhound, would be charmed with your
+company as one of ourselves.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Believe me, very faithfully yours.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<i>Friday, July 10th, 1863.</i><a name="FNanchor_12_12" id="FNanchor_12_12"></a><a href="#Footnote_12_12" class="fnanchor">[12]</a><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='unindent'><span class='smcap'>Dear Madam</span>,</div>
+
+<p>I hope you will excuse this tardy reply to your letter.
+It is often impossible for me, by any means, to keep pace
+with my correspondents. I must take leave to say, that if
+there be any general feeling on the part of the intelligent
+Jewish people, that I have done them what you describe as
+"a great wrong," they are a far less sensible, a far less just,
+and a far less good-tempered people than I have always
+supposed them to be. Fagin, in "Oliver Twist," is a Jew,
+because it unfortunately was true of the time to which that
+story refers, that that class of criminal almost invariably
+was a Jew. But surely no sensible man or woman of your
+persuasion can fail to observe&mdash;firstly, that all the rest of
+the wicked <i>dramatis person&aelig;</i> are Christians; and secondly,
+that he is called the "Jew," not because of his religion, but
+because of his race. If I were to write a story, in which
+I described a Frenchman or a Spaniard as "the Roman
+Catholic," I should do a very indecent and unjustifiable
+thing; but I make mention of Fagin as the Jew, because he
+is one of the Jewish people, and because it conveys that
+kind of idea of him which I should give my readers of a
+Chinaman, by calling him a Chinese.</p>
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_205" id="Page_205">[205]</a></span></p>
+<p>The enclosed is quite a nominal subscription towards the
+good object in which you are interested; but I hope it may
+serve to show you that I have no feeling towards the Jewish
+people but a friendly one. I always speak well of them,
+whether in public or in private, and bear my testimony (as
+I ought to do) to their perfect good faith in such transactions
+as I have ever had with them; and in my "Child's
+History of England," I have lost no opportunity of setting
+forth their cruel persecution in old times.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Dear Madam, faithfully yours.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<p>In reply to this, the Jewish lady thanks him for
+his kind letter and its enclosure, still remonstrating and
+pointing out that though, as he observes, "all the other
+criminal characters were Christians, they are, at least, contrasted
+with characters of good Christians; this wretched
+Fagin stands alone as the Jew."</p>
+
+<p>The reply to <i>this</i> letter afterwards was the character
+of Riah, in "Our Mutual Friend," and some favourable
+sketches of Jewish character in the lower class, in some
+articles in "All the Year Round."</p>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mr. Ouvry.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span style="margin-right: 2em;"><span class="smcap">Gad's Hill Place, Higham by Rochester, Kent</span>,</span><br />
+<i>Wednesday Night, July 29th, 1863.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='unindent'><span class='smcap'>My Dear Ouvry</span>,</div>
+
+<p>I have had some undefined idea that you were to let
+me know if you were coming to the arch&aelig;ologs at Rochester.
+(I myself am keeping out of their way, as having had
+enough of crowding and speech-making in London.) Will
+you tell me where you are, whether you are in this neighbourhood
+or out of it, whether you will come here on Saturday
+and stay till Monday or till Tuesday morning? If you
+will come, I <i>know</i> I can give you the heartiest welcome in
+Kent, and I <i>think</i> I can give you the best wine in this part<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_206" id="Page_206">[206]</a></span>
+of it. Send me a word in reply. I will fetch you from
+anywhere, at any indicated time.</p>
+
+<p>We have very pretty places in the neighbourhood, and
+are not uncomfortable people (I believe) to stay with.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Faithfully yours ever.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mr.
+Charles
+Reade.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span style="margin-right: 2em;"><span class="smcap">Office of "All the Year Round</span>,"</span><br />
+<i>Wednesday, Sept. 30th, 1863.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='unindent'><span class='smcap'>My dear Reade</span>,</div>
+
+<p>I <i>must</i> write you one line to say how interested I am
+in your story, and to congratulate you upon its admirable
+art and its surprising grace and vigour.</p>
+
+<p>And to hint my hope, at the same time, that you will be
+able to find leisure for a little dash for the Christmas number.
+It would be a really great and true pleasure to me if you
+could.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Faithfully yours always.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Miss
+Hogarth.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span style="margin-right: 2em;"><span class="smcap">Gad's Hill Place, Higham by Rochester, Kent</span>,</span><br />
+<i>Wednesday, Oct. 7th, 1863.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='unindent'><span class='smcap'>My dearest Georgy</span>,</div>
+
+<p>You will see by to-day's <i>Times</i> that it <i>was</i> an earthquake
+that shook me, and that my watch showed exactly the
+same time as the man's who writes from Blackheath so near
+us&mdash;twenty minutes past three.</p>
+
+<p>It is a great satisfaction to me to make it out so precisely;
+I wish you would enquire whether the servants felt
+it. I thought it was the voice of the cook that answered
+me, but that was nearly half an hour later. I am strongly
+inclined to think that there is a peculiar susceptibility in
+iron&mdash;at all events in our part of the country&mdash;to the shock,
+as though there were something magnetic in it. For, whereas<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_207" id="Page_207">[207]</a></span>
+my long iron bedstead was so violently shaken, I certainly
+heard nothing rattle in the room.</p>
+
+<p>I will write about my return as soon as I get on with the
+still unbegun "Uncommercial."</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Ever affectionately.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mr. W. H.
+Wills.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Gad's Hill</span>, <i>Sunday, Dec. 20th, 1863.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='unindent'><span class='smcap'>My dear Wills</span>,</div>
+
+<p>I am clear that you took my cold. Why didn't you
+do the thing completely, and take it away from me? for it
+hangs by me still.</p>
+
+<p>Will you tell Mrs. Linton that in looking over her
+admirable account (<i>most</i> admirable) of Mrs. Gordon's
+book, I have taken out the references to Lockhart, not
+because I in the least doubt their justice, but because I
+knew him and he liked me; and because one bright day in
+Rome, I walked about with him for some hours when he was
+dying fast, and all the old faults had faded out of him, and
+the now ghost of the handsome man I had first known
+when Scott's daughter was at the head of his house, had
+little more to do with this world than she in her grave, or
+Scott in his, or small Hugh Littlejohn in his. Lockhart
+had been anxious to see me all the previous day (when I
+was away on the Campagna), and as we walked about I
+knew very well that <i>he</i> knew very well why. He talked of
+getting better, but I never saw him again. This makes me
+stay Mrs. Linton's hand, gentle as it is.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Lirriper is indeed a most brilliant old lady. God
+bless her.</p>
+
+<p>I am glad to hear of your being "haunted," and hope to
+increase your stock of such ghosts pretty liberally.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Ever faithfully.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_208" id="Page_208">[208]</a></span></p>
+<h2>1864.</h2>
+
+<h3>NARRATIVE.</h3>
+
+
+<div class='unindent'><span class='smcap'>Charles Dickens</span> was, as usual, at Gad's Hill, with a family
+and friendly party, at the opening of this year, and had
+been much shocked and distressed by the news of the
+sudden death of Mr. Thackeray, brought to him by friends
+arriving from London on the Christmas Eve of 1863, the
+day on which the sad event happened. He writes of it, in
+the first letter of the year, to Mr. Wilkie Collins, who was
+passing the winter in Italy. He tells him, also, of his
+having got well to work upon a new serial story, the first
+number of which ("Our Mutual Friend") was published on
+the 1st of May.</div>
+
+<p>The year began very sadly for Charles Dickens. On the
+7th of February (his own birthday) he received the mournful
+announcement of the death of his second son, Walter Landor
+(a lieutenant in the 42nd Royal Highlanders), who had died
+quite suddenly at Calcutta, on the last night of the year of
+1863, at the age of twenty-three. His third son, Francis
+Jeffrey, had started for India at the end of January.</p>
+
+<p>His annual letter to M. de Cerjat contains an allusion to
+"another generation beginning to peep above the table"&mdash;the
+children of his son Charles, who had been married
+three years before, to Miss Bessie Evans.</p>
+
+<p>In the middle of February he removed to a house in
+London (57, Gloucester Place, Hyde Park), where he made a
+stay of the usual duration, up to the middle of June, all the
+time being hard at work upon "Our Mutual Friend" and
+"All the Year Round." Mr. Marcus Stone was the illustrator
+of the new monthly work, and we give a specimen of one of
+many letters which he wrote to him about his "subjects."</p>
+
+<p>His old friend, Mr. Charles Knight, with whom for many
+years Charles Dickens had dined on his birthday, was staying,
+this spring, in the Isle of Wight. To him he writes of the
+death of Walter, and of another sad death which happened
+at this time, and which affected him almost as much. Clara,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_209" id="Page_209">[209]</a></span>
+the last surviving daughter of Mr. and Mrs. White, who had
+been happily married to Mr. Gordon, of Cluny, not more
+than two years, had just died at Bonchurch. Her father,
+as will be seen by the touching allusion to him in this letter,
+had died a short time after this daughter's marriage.</p>
+
+<p>A letter to Mr. Edmund Ollier has reference to certain
+additions which Charles Dickens wished him to make to an
+article (by Mr. Ollier) on Working Men's Clubs, published
+in "All the Year Round."</p>
+
+<p>We are glad to have one letter to the Lord Chief Baron,
+Sir Frederick Pollock, which shows the great friendship and
+regard Charles Dickens had for him, and his admiration of
+his qualities in his judicial capacity.</p>
+
+<p>We give a pleasant letter to Mrs. Storrar, for whom,
+and for her husband, Dr. Storrar, Charles Dickens had affectionate
+regard, because we are glad to have their names
+in our book. The letter speaks for itself and needs no
+explanation.</p>
+
+<p>The latter part of the year was uneventful. Hard at
+work, he passed the summer and autumn at Gad's Hill,
+taking holidays by receiving visitors at home (among them,
+this year, Sir J. Emerson Tennent, his wife and daughter,
+who were kindly urgent for his paying them a return visit
+in Ireland) and occasional "runs" into France. The last
+letters we give are his annual one to M. de Cerjat, and a
+graceful little New Year's note to his dear old friend
+"Barry Cornwall."</p>
+
+<p>The Christmas number was "Mrs. Lirriper's Legacy,"
+the first and last part written by himself, as in the case of
+the previous year's "Mrs. Lirriper."</p>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mr. W.
+Wilkie
+Collins.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Gad's Hill</span>, <i>Monday, Jan. 24th, 1864.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='center'><small>EXTRACT.</small></div>
+
+<div class='unindent'><span class='smcap'>My dear Wilkie</span>,</div>
+
+<p>I am horribly behindhand in answering your welcome
+letter; but I have been so busy, and have had the
+house so full for Christmas and the New Year, and have had<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_210" id="Page_210">[210]</a></span>
+so much to see to in getting Frank out to India, that I have
+not been able to settle down to a regular long letter, which
+I mean this to be, but which it may not turn out to be,
+after all.</p>
+
+<p>First, I will answer your enquiries about the Christmas
+number and the new book. The Christmas number has
+been the greatest success of all; has shot ahead of last
+year; has sold about two hundred and twenty thousand;
+and has made the name of Mrs. Lirriper so swiftly and
+domestically famous as never was. I had a very strong
+belief in her when I wrote about her, finding that she made
+a great effect upon me; but she certainly has gone beyond
+my hopes. (Probably you know nothing about her? which
+is a very unpleasant consideration.) Of the new book, I
+have done the two first numbers, and am now beginning
+the third. It is a combination of drollery with romance
+which requires a great deal of pains and a perfect throwing
+away of points that might be amplified; but I hope it is
+<i>very good</i>. I confess, in short, that I think it is. Strange
+to say, I felt at first quite dazed in getting back to the large
+canvas and the big brushes; and even now, I have a sensation
+as of acting at the San Carlo after Tavistock House,
+which I could hardly have supposed would have come upon
+so old a stager.</p>
+
+<p>You will have read about poor Thackeray's death&mdash;sudden,
+and yet not sudden, for he had long been alarmingly
+ill. At the solicitation of Mr. Smith and some of his
+friends, I have done what I would most gladly have excused
+myself from doing, if I felt I could&mdash;written a couple of
+pages about him in what was his own magazine.</p>
+
+<p>Concerning the Italian experiment, De la Rue is more
+hopeful than you. He and his bank are closely leagued
+with the powers at Turin, and he has long been devoted to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_211" id="Page_211">[211]</a></span>
+Cavour; but he gave me the strongest assurances (with
+illustrations) of the fusion between place and place, and of
+the blending of small mutually antagonistic characters into
+one national character, progressing cheeringly and certainly.
+Of course there must be discouragements and discrepancies
+in the first struggles of a country previously so degraded
+and enslaved, and the time, as yet, has been very short.</p>
+
+<p>I should like to have a day with you at the Coliseum,
+and on the Appian Way, and among the tombs, and with
+the Orvieto. But Rome and I are wide asunder, physically
+as well as morally. I wonder whether the dramatic stable,
+where we saw the marionettes, still receives the Roman
+public? And Lord! when I think of you in that hotel, how
+I think of poor dear Egg in the long front drawing-room,
+giving on to the piazza, posting up that wonderful necromantic
+volume which we never shall see opened!</p>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mr.
+Marcus
+Stone.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span style="margin-right: 2em;">57, <span class="smcap">Gloucester Place, Hyde Park</span>,<br /></span>
+<i>Tuesday, Feb. 23rd, 1864.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='unindent'><span class='smcap'>My dear Marcus</span>,</div>
+
+<p>I think the design for the cover <i>excellent</i>, and do not
+doubt its coming out to perfection. The slight alteration I
+am going to suggest originates in a business consideration
+not to be overlooked.</p>
+
+<p>The word "Our" in the title must be out in the open
+like "Mutual Friend," making the title three distinct large
+lines&mdash;"Our" as big as "Mutual Friend." This would
+give you too much design at the bottom. I would therefore
+take out the dustman, and put the Wegg and Boffin composition
+(which is capital) in its place. I don't want
+Mr. Inspector or the murder reward bill, because these
+points are sufficiently indicated in the river at the top.
+Therefore you can have an indication of the dustman in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_212" id="Page_212">[212]</a></span>
+Mr. Inspector's place. Note, that the dustman's face
+should be droll, and not horrible. Twemlow's elbow will
+still go out of the frame as it does now, and the same with
+Lizzie's skirts on the opposite side. With these changes,
+work away!</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Boffin, as I judge of her from the sketch, "very
+good, indeed." I want Boffin's oddity, without being at all
+blinked, to be an oddity of a very honest kind, that people
+will like.</p>
+
+<p>The doll's dressmaker is immensely better than she was.
+I think she should now come extremely well. A weird sharpness
+not without beauty is the thing I want.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Affectionately always.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mr.
+Charles
+Knight.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+57, <span class="smcap">Gloucester Place</span>, W., <i>Tuesday, March 1st, 1864.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='unindent'><span class='smcap'>My dear Knight</span>,</div>
+
+<p>We knew of your being in the Isle of Wight, and
+had said that we should have this year to drink your health
+in your absence. Rely on my being always ready and happy
+to renew our old friendship in the flesh. In the spirit it
+needs no renewal, because it has no break.</p>
+
+<p>Ah, poor Mrs. White! A sad, sad story! It is better
+for poor White that that little churchyard by the sea
+received his ashes a while ago, than that he should have
+lived to this time.</p>
+
+<p>My poor boy was on his way home from an up-country
+station, on sick leave. He had been very ill, but was not
+so at the time. He was talking to some brother-officers in
+the Calcutta hospital about his preparations for home, when
+he suddenly became excited, had a rush of blood from the
+mouth, and was dead. His brother Frank would arrive out<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_213" id="Page_213">[213]</a></span>
+at Calcutta, expecting to see him after six years, and he
+would have been dead a month.</p>
+
+<p>My "working life" is resolving itself at the present
+into another book, in twenty green leaves. You work like
+a Trojan at Ventnor, but you do that everywhere; and
+that's why you are so young.</p>
+
+<p>Mary and Georgina unite in kindest regard to you, and
+to Mrs. Knight, and to your daughters. So do I. And I
+am ever, my dear Knight,</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Affectionately yours.<br />
+</div>
+
+<p>P.S.&mdash;Serene View! What a placid address!</p>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mr.
+Edmund
+Ollier.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+"<span class="smcap">All the Year Round" Office</span>, <i>March, 1864.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='center'><small>EXTRACT.</small></div>
+
+<p>I want the article on "Working Men's Clubs" to refer
+back to "The Poor Man and his Beer" in No. 1, and to
+maintain the principle involved in that effort.</p>
+
+<p>Also, emphatically, to show that trustfulness is at the
+bottom of all social institutions, and that to trust a man, as
+one of a body of men, is to place him under a wholesome
+restraint of social opinion, and is a very much better thing
+than to make a baby of him.</p>
+
+<p>Also, to point out that the rejection of beer in this club,
+tobacco in that club, dancing or what-not in another club,
+are instances that such clubs are founded on mere whims,
+and therefore cannot successfully address human nature in
+the general, and hope to last.</p>
+
+<p>Also, again to urge that patronage is the curse and
+blight of all such endeavours, and to impress upon the
+working men that they must originate and manage for
+themselves. And to ask them the question, can they possibly
+show their detestation of drunkenness better, or better<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_214" id="Page_214">[214]</a></span>
+strive to get rid of it from among them, than to make it a
+hopeless disqualification in all their clubs, and a reason for
+expulsion.</p>
+
+<p>Also, to encourage them to declare to themselves and
+their fellow working men that they want social rest and
+social recreation for themselves and their families; and that
+these clubs are intended for that laudable and necessary
+purpose, and do not need educational pretences or flourishes.
+Do not let them be afraid or ashamed of wanting to be
+amused and pleased.</p>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">The Lord
+Chief
+Baron.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+57, <span class="smcap">Gloucester Place</span>, <i>Tuesday, March 15th, 1864.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='unindent'><span class='smcap'>My dear Chief Baron</span>,</div>
+
+<p>Many thanks for your kind letter, which I find on my
+return from a week's holiday.</p>
+
+<p>Your answer concerning poor Thackeray I will duly
+make known to the active spirit in that matter, Mr. Shirley
+Brooks.</p>
+
+<p>Your kind invitation to me to come and see you and
+yours, and hear the nightingales, I shall not fail to discuss
+with Forster, and with an eye to spring. I expect to see
+him presently; the rather as I found a note from him
+when I came back yesterday, describing himself somewhat
+gloomily as not having been well, and as feeling a little out
+of heart.</p>
+
+<p>It is not out of order, I hope, to remark that you have
+been much in my thoughts and on my lips lately? For I
+really have not been able to repress my admiration of the
+vigorous dignity and sense and spirit, with which one of the
+best of judges set right one of the dullest of juries in a
+recent case.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Believe me ever, very faithfully yours.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_215" id="Page_215">[215]</a></span></p>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mr. John
+Forster.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+57, <span class="smcap">Gloucester Place</span>, <i>Tuesday, March 29th, 1864.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='unindent'><span class='smcap'>My dear Forster</span>,</div>
+
+<p>I meant to write to you last night, but to enable
+Wills to get away I had to read a book of Fitzgerald's
+through before I went to bed.</p>
+
+<p>Concerning Eliot, I sat down, as I told you, and read
+the book through with the strangest interest and the
+highest admiration. I believe it to be as honest, spirited,
+patient, reliable, and gallant a piece of biography as ever
+was written, the care and pains of it astonishing, the completeness
+of it masterly; and what I particularly feel about
+it is that the dignity of the man, and the dignity of the
+book that tells about the man, always go together, and fit
+each other. This same quality has always impressed me as
+the great leading speciality of the Goldsmith, and enjoins
+sympathy with the subject, knowledge of it, and pursuit of
+it in its own spirit; but I think it even more remarkable
+here. I declare that apart from the interest of having been
+so put into the time, and enabled to understand it, I personally
+feel quite as much the credit and honour done to
+literature by such a book. It quite clears out of the
+remembrance a thousand pitiful things, and sets one up in
+heart again. I am not surprised in the least by Bulwer's
+enthusiasm. I was as confident about the effect of the book
+when I closed the first volume, as I was when I closed the
+second with a full heart. No man less in earnest than Eliot
+himself could have done it, and I make bold to add that it
+never could have been done by a man who was so distinctly
+born to do the work as Eliot was to do his.</p>
+
+<p>Saturday at Hastings I must give up. I have wavered
+and considered, and considered and wavered, but if I take
+that sort of holiday, I must have a day to spare after it,
+and at this critical time I have not. If I were to lose a page<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_216" id="Page_216">[216]</a></span>
+of the five numbers I have purposed to myself to be ready
+by the publication day, I should feel that I had fallen short.
+I have grown hard to satisfy, and write very slowly, and I
+have so much bad fiction, that <i>will</i> be thought of when I
+don't want to think of it, that I am forced to take more
+care than I ever took.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Ever affectionately.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mrs.
+Storrar.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span style="margin-right: 2em;"><span class="smcap">Gad's Hill Place, Higham by Rochester, Kent</span>,</span><br />
+<i>Sunday Morning, May 15th, 1864.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='unindent'><span class='smcap'>My dear Mrs. Storrar</span>,</div>
+
+<p>Our family dinner must come off at Gad's Hill, where
+I have improvements to exhibit, and where I shall be truly
+pleased to see you and the doctor again. I have deferred
+answering your note, while I have been scheming and
+scheming for a day between this time and our departure.
+But it is all in vain. My engagements have accumulated,
+and become such a whirl, that no day is left me. Nothing
+is left me but to get away. I look forward to my release
+from this dining life with an inexpressible longing after
+quiet and my own pursuits. What with public speechifying,
+private eating and drinking, and perpetual simmering in hot
+rooms, I have made London too hot to hold me and my work
+together. Mary and Georgina acknowledge the condition of
+imbecility to which we have become reduced in reference to
+your kind reminder. They say, when I stare at them in a
+forlorn way with your note in my hand: "What <span class="smcap">can</span> you
+do!" To which I can only reply, implicating them: "See
+what you have brought me to!"</p>
+
+<p>With our united kind regard to yourself and Dr. Storrar,
+I entreat your pity and compassion for an unfortunate wretch
+whom a too-confiding disposition has brought to this pass. If<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_217" id="Page_217">[217]</a></span>
+I had not allowed my "cheeild" to pledge me to all manner
+of fellow-creatures, I and my digestion might have been in
+a state of honourable independence this day.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Faithfully and penitently yours.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mr. Percy
+Fitzgerald.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span style="margin-right: 2em;"><span class="smcap">Office of "All the Year Round," etc. etc. etc.</span></span><br />
+<i>Wednesday, July 27th, 1864.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='unindent'><span class='smcap'>My dear Mr. Fitzgerald</span>,</div>
+
+<p>First, let me assure you that it gave us all real pleasure
+to see your sister and you at Gad's Hill, and that we
+all hope you will both come and stay a day or two with us
+when you are next in England.</p>
+
+<p>Next, let me convey to you the intelligence that I resolve
+to launch "Miss Manuel," fully confiding in your conviction
+of the power of the story. On all business points,
+Wills will communicate with you. I purpose beginning its
+publication in our first September number, therefore there
+is no time to be lost.</p>
+
+<p>The only suggestion I have to make as to the MS. in
+hand and type is, that Captain Fermor wants relief. It is a
+disagreeable character, as you mean it to be, and I should
+be afraid to do so much with him, if the case were mine,
+without taking the taste of him, here and there, out of the
+reader's mouth. It is remarkable that if you do not administer
+a disagreeable character carefully, the public have
+a decided tendency to think that the <i>story</i> is disagreeable,
+and not merely the fictitious person.</p>
+
+<p>What do you think of the title,</p>
+
+<div class='center'>
+<span class="smcap">Never Forgotten?</span><br />
+</div>
+
+<p>It is a good one in itself, would express the eldest sister's
+pursuit, and glanced at now and then in the text, would hold
+the reader in suspense. I would propose to add the line,</p>
+
+<div class='center'>
+<span class="smcap">By the Author of Bella Donna</span>.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_218" id="Page_218">[218]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Let me know your opinion as to the title. I need not
+assure you that the greatest care will be taken of you here,
+and that we shall make you as thoroughly well and widely
+known as we possibly can.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Very faithfully yours.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Sir James
+Emerson
+Tennent.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span style="margin-right: 2em;"><span class="smcap">Gad's Hill Place, Higham by Rochester, Kent</span>,</span><br />
+<i>Friday, Aug. 26th, 1864.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='unindent'><span class='smcap'>My dear Tennent</span>,</div>
+
+<p>Believe me, I fully intended to come to you&mdash;did not
+doubt that I should come&mdash;and have greatly disappointed
+Mary and her aunt, as well as myself, by not coming. But
+I do not feel safe in going out for a visit. The mere
+knowledge that I had such a thing before me would put
+me out. It is not the length of time consumed, or the
+distance traversed, but it is the departure from a settled
+habit and a continuous sacrifice of pleasures that comes in
+question. This is an old story with me. I have never
+divided a book of my writing with anything else, but have
+always wrought at it to the exclusion of everything else;
+and it is now too late to change.</p>
+
+<p>After receiving your kind note I resolved to make
+another trial. But the hot weather and a few other drawbacks
+did not mend the matter, for I have dropped astern
+this month instead of going ahead. So I have seen Forster,
+and shown him my chains, and am reduced to taking
+exercise in them, like Baron Trenck.</p>
+
+<p>I am heartily pleased that you set so much store by the
+dedication. You may be sure that it does not make me
+the less anxious to take pains, and to work out well what I
+have in my mind.</p>
+
+<p>Mary and Georgina unite with me in kindest regards<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_219" id="Page_219">[219]</a></span>
+to Lady Tennent and Miss Tennent, and wish me to report
+that while they are seriously disappointed, they still feel
+there is no help for it. I can testify that they had great
+pleasure in the anticipation of the visit, and that their faces
+were very long and blank indeed when I began to hint my
+doubts. They fought against them valiantly as long as
+there was a chance, but they see my difficulty as well as
+anyone not myself can.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Believe me, my dear Tennent, ever faithfully yours.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mr.
+Clarkson
+Stanfield,
+R.A.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">The Athen&aelig;um</span>, <i>Wednesday, Sept. 21st, 1864.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='unindent'><span class='smcap'>My dear Stanny</span>,</div>
+
+<p>I met George in the street a few days ago, and he
+gave me a wonderful account of the effect of your natural
+element upon you at Ramsgate. I expect you to come back
+looking about twenty-nine, and feeling about nineteen.</p>
+
+<p>This morning I have looked in here to put down Fechter
+as a candidate, on the chance of the committee's electing
+him some day or other. He is a most devoted worshipper
+of yours, and would take it as a great honour if you would
+second him. Supposing you to have not the least objection
+(of course, if you should have any, I can in a moment provide
+a substitute), will you write your name in the candidates'
+book as his seconder when you are next in town and
+passing this way?</p>
+
+<p>Lastly, if you should be in town on his opening night (a
+Saturday, and in all probability the 22nd of October), will
+you come and dine at the office and see his new piece? You
+have not yet "pronounced" in the matter of that new
+French stage of his, on which Calcott for the said new piece
+has built up all manner of villages, camps, Versailles gardens,
+etc. etc. etc. etc., with no wings, no flies, no looking off in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_220" id="Page_220">[220]</a></span>
+any direction. If you tell me that you are to be in town by
+that time, I will not fail to refresh your memory as to the
+precise day.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+<span style="margin-right: 10em;">With kind regard to Mrs. Stanfield,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-right: 2em;">Believe me, my dear old boy, ever your affectionate</span><br />
+<span class="smcap">Dick</span>.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">M. de
+Cerjat.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span style="margin-right: 2em;"><span class="smcap">Gad's Hill Place, Higham by Rochester</span>,</span><br />
+<i>Tuesday, Oct. 25th, 1864.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='unindent'><span class='smcap'>My dear Cerjat</span>,</div>
+
+<p>Here is a limping brute of a reply to your always-welcome
+Christmas letter! But, as usual, when I have done
+my day's work, I jump up from my desk and rush into air
+and exercise, and find letter-writing the most difficult thing
+in my daily life.</p>
+
+<p>I hope that your asthmatic tendencies may not be
+strong just now; but Townshend's account of the premature
+winter at Lausanne is not encouraging, and with us here
+in England all such disorders have been aggravated this
+autumn. However, a man of your dignity <i>must</i> have either
+asthma or gout, and I hope you have got the better of the
+two.</p>
+
+<p>In London there is, as you see by the papers, extraordinarily
+little news. At present the apprehension (rather
+less than it was thought) of a commercial crisis, and the trial
+of M&uuml;ller next Thursday, are the two chief sensations. I
+hope that gentleman will be hanged, and have hardly a
+doubt of it, though croakers contrariwise are not wanting.
+It is difficult to conceive any other line of defence than
+that the circumstances proved, taken separately, are slight.
+But a sound judge will immediately charge the jury that
+the strength of the circumstances lies in their being put
+together, and will thread them together on a fatal rope.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_221" id="Page_221">[221]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>As to the Church, my friend, I am sick of it. The
+spectacle presented by the indecent squabbles of priests of
+most denominations, and the exemplary unfairness and
+rancour with which they conduct their differences, utterly
+repel me. And the idea of the Protestant establishment,
+in the face of its own history, seeking to trample out discussion
+and private judgment, is an enormity so cool, that I
+wonder the Right Reverends, Very Reverends, and all other
+Reverends, who commit it, can look in one another's faces
+without laughing, as the old soothsayers did. Perhaps
+they can't and don't. How our sublime and so-different
+Christian religion is to be administered in the future I
+cannot pretend to say, but that the Church's hand is at
+its own throat I am fully convinced. Here, more Popery,
+there, more Methodism&mdash;as many forms of consignment to
+eternal damnation as there are articles, and all in one forever
+quarrelling body&mdash;the Master of the New Testament put
+out of sight, and the rage and fury almost always turning
+on the letter of obscure parts of the Old Testament, which
+itself has been the subject of accommodation, adaptation,
+varying interpretation without end&mdash;these things cannot last.
+The Church that is to have its part in the coming time must
+be a more Christian one, with less arbitrary pretensions and
+a stronger hold upon the mantle of our Saviour, as He
+walked and talked upon this earth.</p>
+
+<p>Of family intelligence I have very little. Charles
+Collins continuing in a very poor way, and showing no
+signs of amendment. He and my daughter Katie went to
+Wiesbaden and thence to Nice, where they are now. I
+have strong apprehensions that he will never recover, and
+that she will be left a young widow. All the rest are as they
+were. Mary neither married nor going to be; Georgina
+holding them all together and perpetually corresponding<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_222" id="Page_222">[222]</a></span>
+with the distant ones; occasional rallyings coming off here,
+in which another generation begins to peep above the table.
+I once used to think what a horrible thing it was to be a
+grandfather. Finding that the calamity falls upon me
+without my perceiving any other change in myself, I bear it
+like a man.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Watson has bought a house in town, to which she
+repairs in the season, for the bringing out of her daughter.
+She is now at Rockingham. Her eldest son is said to be
+as good an eldest son as ever was, and to make her position
+there a perfectly independent and happy one. I have not
+seen him for some years; her I often see; but he ought to
+be a good fellow, and is very popular in his neighbourhood.</p>
+
+<p>I have altered this place very much since you were here,
+and have made a pretty (I think an unusually pretty) drawing-room.
+I wish you would come back and see it. My
+being on the Dover line, and my being very fond of France,
+occasion me to cross the Channel perpetually. Whenever
+I feel that I have worked too much, or am on the eve of overdoing
+it, and want a change, away I go by the mail-train,
+and turn up in Paris or anywhere else that suits my
+humour, next morning. So I come back as fresh as a
+daisy, and preserve as ruddy a face as though I never leant
+over a sheet of paper. When I retire from a literary life I
+think of setting up as a Channel pilot.</p>
+
+<p>Pray give my love to Mrs. Cerjat, and tell her that I
+should like to go up the Great St. Bernard again, and shall
+be glad to know if she is open to another ascent. Old
+days in Switzerland are ever fresh to me, and sometimes
+I walk with you again, after dark, outside the hotel at
+Martigny, while Lady Mary Taylour (wasn't it?) sang
+within very prettily. Lord, how the time goes! How
+many years ago!</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Affectionately yours.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_223" id="Page_223">[223]</a></span></p>
+
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<i>Wednesday, Nov. 16th, 1864.</i><a name="FNanchor_13_13" id="FNanchor_13_13"></a><a href="#Footnote_13_13" class="fnanchor">[13]</a><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='unindent'><span class='smcap'>Dear Madam</span>,</div>
+
+<p>I have received your letter with great pleasure, and
+hope to be (as I have always been at heart) the best of
+friends with the Jewish people. The error you point out to
+me had occurred to me, as most errors do to most people,
+when it was too late to correct it. But it will do no harm.
+The peculiarities of dress and manner are fused together for
+the sake of picturesqueness.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Dear Madam, faithfully yours.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mr. B. W.
+Procter.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span style="margin-right: 2em;"><span class="smcap">Gad's Hill Place, Higham by Rochester, Kent</span>,</span><br />
+<i>Saturday, Dec. 31st, 1864.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='unindent'><span class='smcap'>My dear Procter</span>,</div>
+
+<p>I have reserved my acknowledgment of your delightful
+note (the youngest note I have had in all this year)
+until to-day, in order that I might send, most heartily and
+affectionately, all seasonable good wishes to you and to
+Mrs. Procter, and to those who are nearest and dearest to
+you. Take them from an old friend who loves you.</p>
+
+<p>Mamie returns the tender compliments, and Georgina
+does what the Americans call "endorse them." Mrs.
+Lirriper is proud to be so remembered, and says over and
+over again "that it's worth twenty times the trouble she
+has taken with the narrative, since Barry Cornwall, Esquire,
+is pleased to like it."</p>
+
+<p>I got rid of a touch of neuralgia in France (as I always
+do there), but I found no old friends in my voyages of
+discovery on that side, such as I have left on this.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+My dear Procter, ever your affectionate.<br />
+</div>
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_224" id="Page_224">[224]</a></span></p>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>1865.</h2>
+
+<h3>NARRATIVE.</h3>
+
+
+<div class='unindent'><span class='smcap'>For</span> this spring a furnished house in Somer's Place, Hyde
+Park, had been taken, which Charles Dickens occupied, with
+his sister-in-law and daughter, from the beginning of March
+until June.</div>
+
+<p>During the year he paid two short visits to France.</p>
+
+<p>He was still at work upon "Our Mutual Friend," two
+numbers of which had been issued in January and February,
+when the first volume was published, with dedication to Sir
+James Emerson Tennent. The remaining numbers were
+issued between March and November, when the complete
+work was published in two volumes.</p>
+
+<p>The Christmas number, to which Charles Dickens contributed
+three stories, was called "Doctor Marigold's
+Prescriptions."</p>
+
+<p>Being out of health, and much overworked, Charles
+Dickens, at the end of May, took his first short holiday trip
+into France. And on his way home, and on a day afterwards
+so fatal to him, the 9th of June, he was in that
+most terrible railway accident at Staplehurst. Many of our
+letters for this year have reference to this awful experience&mdash;an
+experience from the effects of which his nerves never
+wholly recovered. His letters to Mr. Thomas Mitton and
+to Mrs. Hulkes (an esteemed friend and neighbour) are
+graphic descriptions of this disaster. But they do <span class="smcap">not</span> tell
+of the wonderful presence of mind and energy shown by
+Charles Dickens when most of the terrified passengers were
+incapable of thought or action, or of his gentleness and
+goodness to the dead and dying. The Mr. Dickenson<a name="FNanchor_14_14" id="FNanchor_14_14"></a><a href="#Footnote_14_14" class="fnanchor">[14]</a> mentioned
+in the letter to Mrs. Hulkes soon recovered. He
+always considers that he owes his life to Charles Dickens,
+the latter having discovered and extricated him from beneath
+a carriage before it was too late.</p>
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_225" id="Page_225">[225]</a></span></p>
+<p>Our first letter to Mr. Kent is one of congratulation upon
+his having become the proprietor of <i>The Sun</i> newspaper.</p>
+
+<p>Professor Owen has been so kind as to give us some
+notes, which we publish for the sake of his great name.
+Charles Dickens had not much correspondence with Professor
+Owen, but there was a firm friendship and great
+mutual admiration between them.</p>
+
+<p>The letter to Mrs. Procter is in answer to one from her,
+asking Charles Dickens to write a memoir of her daughter
+Adelaide, as a preface to a collected edition of her poems.</p>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mr.
+William
+Charles
+Kent.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span style="margin-right: 2em;"><span class="smcap">Gad's Hill Place, Higham by Rochester, Kent</span>,</span><br />
+<i>Tuesday, Jan. 17th, 1865.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='unindent'><span class='smcap'>My dear Kent</span>,</div>
+
+<p>I meant to have written instantly on the appearance
+of your paper in its beautiful freshness, to congratulate you
+on its handsome appearance, and to send you my heartiest
+good wishes for its thriving and prosperous career. Through
+a mistake of the postman's, that remarkable letter has been
+tesselated into the Infernal Pavement instead of being
+delivered in the Strand.</p>
+
+<p>We have been looking and waiting for your being well
+enough to propose yourself for a mouthful of fresh air. Are
+you well enough to come on Sunday? We shall be coming
+down from Charing Cross on Sunday morning, and I shall
+be going up again at nine on Monday morning.</p>
+
+<p>It amuses me to find that you don't see your way with a
+certain "Mutual Friend" of ours. I have a horrible suspicion
+that you may begin to be fearfully knowing at somewhere
+about No. 12 or 13. But you shan't if I can help it.</p>
+
+<p>Your note delighted me because it dwelt upon the places
+in the number that <i>I</i> dwell on. Not that that is anything
+new in your case, but it is always new to me in the pleasure
+I derive from it, which is truly inexpressible.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Ever cordially yours.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_226" id="Page_226">[226]</a></span></p>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mrs.
+Procter.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span style="margin-right: 2em;"><span class="smcap">Gad's Hill Place, Higham by Rochester, Kent</span>,</span><br />
+<i>Wednesday, Feb. 15th, 1865.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='unindent'><span class='smcap'>My dear Mrs. Procter</span>,</div>
+
+<p>Of course I will do it, and of course I will do it for
+the love of you and Procter. You can give me my brief,
+and we can speak about its details. Once again, of course
+I will do it, and with all my heart.</p>
+
+<p>I have registered a vow (in which there is not the least
+merit, for I couldn't help it) that when I am, as I am now,
+very hard at work upon a book, I never will dine out more
+than one day in a week. Why didn't you ask me for the
+Wednesday, before I stood engaged to Lady Molesworth
+for the Tuesday?</p>
+
+<p>It is so delightful to me to sit by your side anywhere
+and be brightened up, that I lay a handsome sacrifice upon
+the altar of "Our Mutual Friend" in writing this note,
+very much against my will. But for as many years as can
+be made consistent with my present juvenility, I always
+have given my work the first place in my life, and what can
+I do now at 35!&mdash;or at least at the two figures, never mind
+their order.</p>
+
+<p>I send my love to Procter, hoping you may appropriate
+a little of it by the way.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Affectionately yours.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mr. W. C.
+Macready.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span style="margin-right: 2em;"><span class="smcap">Office of "All the Year Round</span>,"</span><br />
+<i>Wednesday, March 1st, 1865.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='unindent'><span class='smcap'>My dearest Macready</span>,</div>
+
+<p>I have been laid up here with a frost-bitten foot
+(from hard walking in the snow), or you would have heard
+from me sooner.</p>
+
+<p>My reply to Professor Agassiz is short, but conclusive.
+Daily seeing improper uses made of confidential letters in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_227" id="Page_227">[227]</a></span>
+the addressing of them to a public audience that have no
+business with them, I made not long ago a great fire in my
+field at Gad's Hill, and burnt every letter I possessed. And
+now I always destroy every letter I receive not on absolute
+business, and my mind is so far at ease. Poor dear Felton's
+letters went up into the air with the rest, or his highly
+distinguished representative should have had them most
+willingly.</p>
+
+<p>We never fail to drink old P.'s health on his birthday,
+or to make him the subject of a thousand loving remembrances.
+With best love to Mrs. Macready and Katie,</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+<span style="margin-right: 4em;">Ever, my dearest Macready,</span><br />
+Your most affectionate Friend.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mr. W. C.
+Macready.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span style="margin-right: 2em;">16, <span class="smcap">Somer's Place, Hyde Park</span>,</span><br />
+<i>Saturday Night, April 22nd, 1865.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='unindent'><span class='smcap'>My dearest Macready</span>,</div>
+
+<p>A thousand thanks for your kind letter, most heartily
+welcome.</p>
+
+<p>My frost-bitten foot, after causing me great inconvenience
+and much pain, has begun to conduct itself
+amiably. I can now again walk my ten miles in the morning
+without inconvenience, but am absurdly obliged to sit shoeless
+all the evening&mdash;a very slight penalty, as I detest going
+out to dinner (which killed the original old Parr by-the-bye).</p>
+
+<p>I am working like a dragon at my book, and am a terror
+to the household, likewise to all the organs and brass bands
+in this quarter. Gad's Hill is being gorgeously painted,
+and we are here until the 1st of June. I wish I might
+hope you would be there any time this summer; I really
+<i>have</i> made the place comfortable and pretty by this time.</p>
+
+<p>It is delightful to us to hear such good news of Butty.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_228" id="Page_228">[228]</a></span>
+She made so deep an impression on Fechter that he always
+asks me what Ceylon has done for her, and always beams
+when I tell him how thoroughly well it has made her. As
+to <i>you</i>, you are the youngest man (worth mentioning as a
+thorough man) that I know. Oh, let me be as young when
+I am as&mdash;&mdash;did you think I was going to write "old?"
+No, sir&mdash;<ins title="Transcriber's Note: original reads 'withdraw'">withdrawn</ins> from the wear and tear of busy life is
+my expression.</p>
+
+<p>Poole still holds out at Kentish Town, and says he is
+dying of solitude. His memory is astoundingly good. I
+see him about once in two or three months, and in the
+meantime he makes notes of questions to ask me when I
+come. Having fallen in arrear of the time, these generally
+refer to unknown words he has encountered in the newspapers.
+His three last (he always reads them with tremendous
+difficulty through an enormous magnifying-glass)
+were as follows:</p>
+
+<div class='poem'>
+1. What's croquet?<br />
+2. What's an Albert chain?<br />
+3. Let me know the state of mind of the Queen.<br />
+</div>
+
+<p>When I had delivered a neat exposition on these heads,
+he turned back to his memoranda, and came to something
+that the utmost power of the enormous magnifying-glass
+couldn't render legible. After a quarter of an hour or so,
+he said: "O yes, I know." And then rose and clasped
+his hands above his head, and said: "Thank God, I am not
+a dram-drinker."</p>
+
+<p>Do think of coming to Gad's in the summer; and do give
+my love to Mrs. Macready, and tell her I know she can
+make you come if she will. Mary and Georgy send best
+and dearest loves to her, to you, and to Katie, and to baby.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_229" id="Page_229">[229]</a></span>
+Johnny we suppose to be climbing the tree of knowledge
+elsewhere.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+My dearest Macready, ever yours most affectionately.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mr. W. C.
+Macready.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Gad's Hill</span>, <i>Monday, June 12th</i>, 1865.<br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='unindent'><span class='smcap'>My dearest Macready</span>,</div>
+
+<div class='center'>
+[<i>So far in his own writing.</i>]<br />
+</div>
+
+<p>Many thanks for your kind words of remembrance.<a name="FNanchor_15_15" id="FNanchor_15_15"></a><a href="#Footnote_15_15" class="fnanchor">[15]</a>
+This is not all in my own hand, because I am too much
+shaken to write many notes. Not by the beating and
+dragging of the carriage in which I was&mdash;it did not go over,
+but was caught on the turn, among the ruins of the bridge&mdash;but
+by the work afterwards to get out the dying and
+dead, which was terrible.</p>
+
+<div class='center'>
+[<i>The rest in his own writing</i>.]<br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Ever your affectionate Friend.<br />
+</div>
+
+<p>P.S.&mdash;My love to Mrs. Macready.</p>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mr.
+Thomas
+Mitton.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span style="margin-right: 2em;"><span class="smcap">Gad's Hill Place, Higham by Rochester, Kent</span>,</span><br />
+<i>Tuesday, June 13th, 1865.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='unindent'><span class='smcap'>My dear Mitton</span>,</div>
+
+<p>I should have written to you yesterday or the day
+before, if I had been quite up to writing.</p>
+
+<p>I was in the only carriage that did not go over into the
+stream. It was caught upon the turn by some of the ruin
+of the bridge, and hung suspended and balanced in an
+apparently impossible manner. Two ladies were my fellow-passengers,
+an old one and a young one. This is exactly
+what passed. You may judge from it the precise length of
+the suspense: Suddenly we were off the rail, and beating<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_230" id="Page_230">[230]</a></span>
+the ground as the car of a half-emptied balloon might.
+The old lady cried out, "My God!" and the young one
+screamed. I caught hold of them both (the old lady sat
+opposite and the young one on my left), and said: "We can't
+help ourselves, but we can be quiet and composed. Pray
+don't cry out." The old lady immediately answered: "Thank
+you. Rely upon me. Upon my soul I will be quiet." We
+were then all tilted down together in a corner of the carriage,
+and stopped. I said to them thereupon: "You may be sure
+nothing worse can happen. Our danger <i>must</i> be over.
+Will you remain here without stirring, while I get out of
+the window?" They both answered quite collectedly,
+"Yes," and I got out without the least notion what had
+happened. Fortunately I got out with great caution and
+stood upon the step. Looking down I saw the bridge gone,
+and nothing below me but the line of rail. Some people in
+the two other compartments were madly trying to plunge
+out at window, and had no idea that there was an open
+swampy field fifteen feet down below them, and nothing
+else! The two guards (one with his face cut) were running
+up and down on the down side of the bridge (which was not
+torn up) quite wildly. I called out to them: "Look at me.
+Do stop an instant and look at me, and tell me whether you
+don't know me." One of them answered: "We know you
+very well, Mr. Dickens." "Then," I said, "my good fellow,
+for God's sake give me your key, and send one of those
+labourers here, and I'll empty this carriage." We did it
+quite safely, by means of a plank or two, and when it was
+done I saw all the rest of the train, except the two baggage
+vans, down in the stream. I got into the carriage again for
+my brandy flask, took off my travelling hat for a basin,
+climbed down the brickwork, and filled my hat with
+water.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_231" id="Page_231">[231]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Suddenly I came upon a staggering man covered with
+blood (I think he must have been flung clean out of his
+carriage), with such a frightful cut across the skull that I
+couldn't bear to look at him. I poured some water over his
+face and gave him some to drink, then gave him some
+brandy, and laid him down on the grass, and he said, "I am
+gone," and died afterwards. Then I stumbled over a lady
+lying on her back against a little pollard-tree, with the
+blood streaming over her face (which was lead colour) in a
+number of distinct little streams from the head. I asked
+her if she could swallow a little brandy and she just nodded,
+and I gave her some and left her for somebody else. The
+next time I passed her she was dead. Then a man,
+examined at the inquest yesterday (who evidently had not
+the least remembrance of what really passed), came running
+up to me and implored me to help him find his wife, who
+was afterwards found dead. No imagination can conceive
+the ruin of the carriages, or the extraordinary weights
+under which the people were lying, or the complications
+into which they were twisted up among iron and wood, and
+mud and water.</p>
+
+<p>I don't want to be examined at the inquest, and I don't
+want to write about it. I could do no good either way, and
+I could only seem to speak about myself, which, of course,
+I would rather not do. I am keeping very quiet here. I
+have a&mdash;I don't know what to call it&mdash;constitutional (I
+suppose) presence of mind, and was not in the least fluttered
+at the time. I instantly remembered that I had the MS. of
+a number with me, and clambered back into the carriage
+for it. But in writing these scanty words of recollection I
+feel the shake and am obliged to stop.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Ever faithfully.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_232" id="Page_232">[232]</a></span></p>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mr.
+Walter
+Jones.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span style="margin-right: 2em;"><span class="smcap">Gad's Hill Place, Higham by Rochester, Kent</span>,</span><br />
+<i>Saturday, June 17th, 1865</i>.<a name="FNanchor_16_16" id="FNanchor_16_16"></a><a href="#Footnote_16_16" class="fnanchor">[16]</a><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='unindent'><span class='smcap'>Sir</span>,</div>
+
+<p>I beg you to assure the Committee of the Newsvendors'
+Benevolent and Provident Institution, that I have
+been deeply affected by their special remembrance of me in
+my late escape from death or mutilation, and that I thank
+them with my whole heart.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Faithfully yours and theirs.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mrs.
+Hulkes.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Gad's Hill</span>, <i>Sunday, June 18th, 1865.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='unindent'><span class='smcap'>My dear Mrs. Hulkes</span>,</div>
+
+<p>I return the <i>Examiner</i> with many thanks. The
+account is true, except that I <i>had</i> brandy. By an extraordinary
+chance I had a bottle and a half with me. I slung
+the half-bottle round my neck, and carried my hat full of
+water in my hands. But I can understand the describer
+(whoever he is) making the mistake in perfect good faith,
+and supposing that I called for brandy, when I really called
+to the others who were helping: "I have brandy here."
+The Mr. Dickenson mentioned had changed places with a
+Frenchman, who did not like the window down, a few
+minutes before the accident. The Frenchman was killed,
+and a labourer and I got Mr. Dickenson out of a most
+extraordinary heap of dark ruins, in which he was jammed
+upside down. He was bleeding at the eyes, ears, nose,
+and mouth; but he didn't seem to know that afterwards,
+and of course I didn't tell him. In the moment of going
+over the viaduct the whole of his pockets were shaken
+empty! He had no watch, no chain, no money, no pocket-book,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_233" id="Page_233">[233]</a></span>
+no handkerchief, when we got him out. He had
+been choking a quarter of an hour when I heard him groaning.
+If I had not had the brandy to give him at the
+moment, I think he would have been done for. As it was,
+I brought him up to London in the carriage with me, and
+couldn't make him believe he was hurt. He was the first
+person whom the brandy saved. As I ran back to the
+carriage for the whole full bottle, I saw the first two people
+I had helped lying dead. A bit of shade from the hot sun,
+into which we got the unhurt ladies, soon had as many dead
+in it as living.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Faithfully yours always.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mr.
+Arthur
+Ryland.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span style="margin-right: 2em;"><span class="smcap">Gad's Hill Place, Higham by Rochester, Kent</span>,</span><br />
+<i>Wednesday, June 21st, 1865.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='unindent'><span class='smcap'>My dear Mr. Ryland</span>,</div>
+
+<p>I need not assure you that I regard the unanimous
+desire of the Town Council Committee as a great honour,
+and that I feel the strongest interest in the occasion, and
+the strongest wish to associate myself with it.</p>
+
+<p>But, after careful consideration, I most unwillingly come
+to the conclusion that I must decline. At the time in
+question I shall, please God, either have just finished, or be
+just finishing, my present book. Country rest and reflection
+will then be invaluable to me, before casting about for
+Christmas. I am a little shaken in my nervous system by
+the terrible and affecting incidents of the late railway
+accident, from which I bodily escaped. I am withdrawing
+myself from engagements of all kinds, in order that I may
+pursue my story with the comfortable sense of being
+perfectly free while it is a-doing, and when it is done. The
+consciousness of having made this engagement would, if I<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_234" id="Page_234">[234]</a></span>
+were to make it, render such sense incomplete, and so open
+the way to others. This is the real state of the case, and
+the whole reason for my declining.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Faithfully yours always.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mrs.
+Lehmann.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span style="margin-right: 2em;"><span class="smcap">Gad's Hill Place, Higham by Rochester, Kent</span>,</span><br />
+<i>Tuesday, June 29th, 1865.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='unindent'><span class='smcap'>Dear Mrs. Lehmann</span>,</div>
+
+<p>Come (with self and partner) on either of the days
+you name, and you will be heartily welcomed by the humble
+youth who now addresses you, and will then cast himself
+at your feet.</p>
+
+<p>I am quite right again, I thank God, and have even got
+my voice back; I most unaccountably brought somebody
+else's out of that terrible scene. The directors have sent
+me a Resolution of Thanks for assistance to the unhappy
+passengers.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+With kind regards to Lehmann, ever yours.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mr. Percy
+Fitzgerald.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span style="margin-right: 2em;"><span class="smcap">Office of "All the Year Round</span>,"</span><br />
+<i>Friday, July 7th, 1865.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='unindent'><span class='smcap'>My dear Fitzgerald</span>,</div>
+
+<p>I shall be delighted to see you at Gad's Hill on
+Sunday, and I hope you will bring a bag with you and will
+not think of returning to London at night.</p>
+
+<p>We are a small party just now, for my daughter Mary
+has been decoyed to Andover for the election week, in the
+Conservative interest; think of my feelings as a Radical
+parent! The wrong-headed member and his wife are the
+friends with whom she hunts, and she helps to receive (and
+<i>de</i>ceive) the voters, which is very awful!</p>
+
+<p>But in the week after next we shall be in great croquet<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_235" id="Page_235">[235]</a></span>
+force. I shall hope to persuade you to come back to us then
+for a few days, and we will try to make you some amends
+for a dull Sunday. Turn it over in your mind and try to
+manage it.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Sincerely yours ever.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Professor
+Owen,
+F.R.S.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Gad's Hill</span>, <i>Wednesday, July 12th, 1865.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='unindent'><span class='smcap'>My dear Owen</span>,</div>
+
+<p>Studying the gorilla last night for the twentieth
+time, it suddenly came into my head that I had never
+thanked you for that admirable treatise. This is to bear
+witness to my blushes and repentance. If you knew how
+much interest it has awakened in me, and how often it has
+set me a-thinking, you would consider me a more thankless
+beast than any gorilla that ever lived. But happily you do
+<i>not</i> know, and I am not going to tell you.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Believe me, ever faithfully yours.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">The Earl
+Russell.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span style="margin-right: 2em;"><span class="smcap">Gad's Hill Place, Higham by Rochester, Kent</span>,</span><br />
+<i>Wednesday, Aug. 16th, 1865.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='unindent'><span class='smcap'>My dear Lord Russell</span>,</div>
+
+<p>Mr. Dallas, who is a candidate for the Scotch professional
+chair left vacant by Aytoun's death, has asked me
+if I would object to introduce to you the first volume of a
+book he has in the press with my publishers, on "The Gay
+Science of Art and Criticism." I have replied I would <i>not</i>
+object, as I have read as many of the sheets as I could get,
+with extreme pleasure, and as I know you will find it a very
+winning and brilliant piece of writing. Therefore he will
+send the proofs of the volume to you as soon as he can get
+them from the printer (at about the end of this week I take
+it), and if you read them you will not be hard upon me for
+bearing the responsibility of his doing so, I feel assured.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_236" id="Page_236">[236]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>I suppose Mr. Dallas to have some impression that his
+pleasing you with his book might advance his Scottish suit.
+But all I know is, that he is a gentleman of great attainments
+and erudition, much distinguished as the writer of
+the best critical literary pieces in <i>The Times</i>, and thoroughly
+versed in the subjects which Professor Aytoun represented
+officially.</p>
+
+<p>I beg to send my regard to Lady Russell and all the
+house, and am ever, my dear Lord Russell,</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Your faithful and obliged.<br />
+</div>
+
+<p>P.S.&mdash;I am happy to report that my sailor-boy's captain,
+relinquishing his ship on sick leave, departs from the mere
+form of certificate given to all the rest, and adds that his
+obedience to orders is remarkable, and that he is a highly
+intelligent and promising young officer.</p>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mr.
+Marcus
+Stone.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">H&ocirc;tel du Helder, Paris</span>, <i>Wednesday, Sept. 13th, 1865.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='unindent'><span class='smcap'>My dear Marcus</span>,</div>
+
+<p>I leave here to-morrow, and propose going to the
+office by tidal train <i>next Saturday evening</i>. Through the
+whole of next week, on and off, I shall be at the office; when
+not there, at Gad's; but much oftener at the office. The
+sooner I can know about the subjects you take for illustration
+the better, as I can then fill the list of illustrations to
+the second volume for the printer, and enable him to make
+up his last sheet. Necessarily that list is now left blank,
+as I cannot give him the titles of the subjects, not knowing
+them myself.</p>
+
+<p>It has been fearfully hot on this side, but is something
+cooler.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Ever affectionately yours.<br />
+</div>
+
+<p>P.S.&mdash;On glancing over this note, I find it very like the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_237" id="Page_237">[237]</a></span>
+king's love-letter in "Ruy Blas." "Madam, there is a high
+wind. I have shot six wolves."</p>
+
+<p>I think the frontispiece to the second volume should be
+the dustyard with the three mounds, and Mr. Boffin digging
+up the Dutch bottle, and Venus restraining Wegg's ardour
+to get at him. Or Mr. Boffin might be coming down with
+the bottle, and Venus might be dragging Wegg out of the
+way as described.</p>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mr. Percy
+Fitzgerald.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span style="margin-right: 2em;"><span class="smcap">Office of "All the Year Round</span>,"</span><br />
+<i>Saturday, Sept. 23rd, 1865.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='unindent'><span class='smcap'>My dear Fitzgerald</span>,</div>
+
+<p>I cannot thank you too much for Sultan. He is a
+noble fellow, has fallen into the ways of the family with a
+grace and dignity that denote the gentleman, and came
+down to the railway a day or two since to welcome me home
+(it was our first meeting), with a profound absence of
+interest in my individual opinion of him which captivated
+me completely. I am going home to-day to take him about
+the country, and improve his acquaintance. You will find
+a perfect understanding between us, I hope, when you next
+come to Gad's Hill. (He has only swallowed Bouncer once,
+and temporarily.)</p>
+
+<p>Your hint that you were getting on with your story and
+liked it was more than golden intelligence to me in foreign
+parts. The intensity of the heat, both in Paris and the
+provinces, was such that I found nothing else so refreshing
+in the course of my rambles.</p>
+
+<p>With many more thanks for the dog than my sheet of
+paper would hold,</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Believe me, ever very faithfully yours.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_238" id="Page_238">[238]</a></span></p>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mrs.
+Procter.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span style="margin-right: 2em;"><span class="smcap">Gad's Hill Place, Higham by Rochester, Kent</span>,</span><br />
+<i>Sept. 26th, 1865.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='unindent'><span class='smcap'>My dear Mrs. Procter</span>,</div>
+
+<p>I have written the little introduction, and have sent
+it to my printer, in order that you may read it without
+trouble. But if you would like to keep the few pages of
+MS., of course they are yours.</p>
+
+<p>It is brief, and I have aimed at perfect simplicity, and
+an avoidance of all that your beloved Adelaide would have
+wished avoided. Do not expect too much from it. If there
+should be anything wrong in fact, or anything that you
+would like changed for any reason, <i>of course you will tell
+me so</i>, and of course you will not deem it possible that you
+can trouble me by making any such request most freely.</p>
+
+<p>You will probably receive the proof either on Friday or
+Saturday. Don't write to me until you have read it. In
+the meantime I send you back the two books, with the two
+letters in the bound one.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+<span style="margin-right: 6em;">With love to Procter,</span><br />
+Ever your affectionate Friend.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mr.
+Edmund
+Yates.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">H&ocirc;tel du Helder, Paris</span>, <i>Wednesday, Sept. 30th, 1865.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='unindent'><span class='smcap'>My dear Edmund</span>,</div>
+
+<p>I leave here to-morrow and purpose being at the
+office on Saturday night; all next week I shall be there, off
+and on&mdash;"off" meaning Gad's Hill; the office will be my
+last address. The heat has been excessive on this side of
+the Channel, and I got a slight sunstroke last Thursday, and
+was obliged to be doctored and put to bed for a day; but,
+thank God, I am all right again. The man who sells the
+<i>tisane</i> on the Boulevards can't keep the flies out of his
+glasses, and as he wears them on his red velvet bands, the
+flies work themselves into the ends of the tumblers, trying<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_239" id="Page_239">[239]</a></span>
+to get through and tickle the man. If fly life were long
+enough, I think they would at last. Three paving blouses
+came to work at the corner of this street last Monday,
+pulled up a bit of road, sat down to look at it, and fell
+asleep. On Tuesday one of the blouses spat on his hands
+and seemed to be going to begin, but didn't. The other
+two have shown no sign of life whatever. This morning
+the industrious one ate a loaf. You may rely upon this as
+the latest news from the French capital.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Faithfully ever.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mr.
+William
+Charles
+Kent.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+26, <span class="smcap">Wellington Street</span>, <i>Monday, Nov. 6th, 1865.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='unindent'><span class='smcap'>My dear Kent</span>,</div>
+
+<p><i>No</i>, I <i>won't</i> write in this book, because I have sent
+another to the binder's for you.</p>
+
+<p>I have been unwell with a relaxed throat, or I should
+have written to you sooner to thank you for your dedication,
+to assure you that it heartily, most heartily, gratifies me, as
+the sincere tribute of a true and generous heart, and to tell
+you that I have been charmed with your book itself. I am
+proud of having given a name to anything so picturesque,
+so sympathetic and spirited.</p>
+
+<p>I hope and believe the "Doctor" is nothing but a
+good 'un. He has perfectly astonished Forster, who writes:
+"Neither good, gooder, nor goodest, but super-excellent;
+all through there is such a relish of you at your best, as I
+could not have believed in, after a long story."</p>
+
+<p>I shall be charmed to see you to-night.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Ever affectionately.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_240" id="Page_240">[240]</a></span></p>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">M. de
+Cerjat.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span style="margin-right: 2em;"><span class="smcap">Gad's Hill Place, Higham by Rochester, Kent</span>,</span><br />
+<i>November 13th, 1865.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='center'><small>EXTRACT.</small></div>
+
+<div class='unindent'><span class='smcap'>My dear Cerjat</span>,</div>
+
+<p>Having achieved my book and my Christmas
+number, and having shaken myself after two years' work,
+I send you my annual greeting. How are you? Asthmatic,
+I know you will reply; but as my poor father (who was
+asthmatic, too, and the jolliest of men) used philosophically
+to say, "one must have something wrong, I suppose, and I
+like to know what it is."</p>
+
+<p>In England we are groaning under the brigandage of the
+butcher, which is being carried to that height that I think
+I foresee resistance on the part of the middle-class, and
+some combination in perspective for abolishing the middleman,
+whensoever he turns up (which is everywhere) between
+producer and consumer. The cattle plague is the butcher's
+stalking-horse, and it is unquestionably worse than it was;
+but seeing that the great majority of creatures lost or
+destroyed have been cows, and likewise that the rise in
+butchers' meat bears no reasonable proportion to the
+market prices of the beasts, one comes to the conclusion
+that the public is done. The commission has ended very
+weakly and ineffectually, as such things in England rather
+frequently do; and everybody writes to <i>The Times</i>, and
+nobody does anything else.</p>
+
+<p>If the Americans don't embroil us in a war before long
+it will not be their fault. What with their swagger and
+bombast, what with their claims for indemnification, what
+with Ireland and Fenianism, and what with Canada, I have
+strong apprehensions. With a settled animosity towards
+the French usurper, I believe him to have always been
+sound in his desire to divide the States against themselves,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_241" id="Page_241">[241]</a></span>
+and that we were unsound and wrong in "letting I dare
+not wait upon I would." The Jamaica insurrection is
+another hopeful piece of business. That platform-sympathy
+with the black&mdash;or the native, or the devil&mdash;afar off, and
+that platform indifference to our own countrymen at enormous
+odds in the midst of bloodshed and savagery, makes
+me stark wild. Only the other day, here was a meeting of
+jawbones of asses at Manchester, to censure the Jamaica
+Governor for his manner of putting down the insurrection!
+So we are badgered about New Zealanders and Hottentots,
+as if they were identical with men in clean shirts at Camberwell,
+and were to be bound by pen and ink accordingly.
+So Exeter Hall holds us in mortal submission to missionaries,
+who (Livingstone always excepted) are perfect nuisances,
+and leave every place worse than they found it.</p>
+
+<p>Of all the many evidences that are visible of our being
+ill-governed, no one is so remarkable to me as our ignorance
+of what is going on under our Government. What will
+future generations think of that enormous Indian Mutiny
+being ripened without suspicion, until whole regiments arose
+and killed their officers? A week ago, red tape, half-bouncing
+and half pooh-poohing what it bounced at, would
+have scouted the idea of a Dublin jail not being able to
+hold a political prisoner. But for the blacks in Jamaica
+being over-impatient and before their time, the whites
+might have been exterminated, without a previous hint or
+suspicion that there was anything amiss. <i>Laissez aller</i>, and
+Britons never, never, never!&mdash;&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>Meantime, if your honour were in London, you would
+see a great embankment rising high and dry out of the
+Thames on the Middlesex shore, from Westminster Bridge
+to Blackfriars. A really fine work, and really getting on.
+Moreover, a great system of drainage. Another really fine<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_242" id="Page_242">[242]</a></span>
+work, and likewise really getting on. Lastly, a muddle of
+railways in all directions possible and impossible, with
+no general public scheme, no general public supervision,
+enormous waste of money, no fixable responsibility, no accountability
+but under Lord Campbell's Act. I think of
+that accident in which I was preserved. Before the most
+furious and notable train in the four-and-twenty hours, the
+head of a gang of workmen takes up the rails. That train
+changes its time every day as the tide changes, and that
+head workman is not provided by the railway company with
+any clock or watch! Lord Shaftesbury wrote to me to ask
+me what I thought of an obligation on railway companies to
+put strong walls to all bridges and viaducts. I told him, of
+course, that the force of such a shock would carry away anything
+that any company could set up, and I added: "Ask
+the minister what <i>he</i> thinks about the votes of the railway
+interest in the House of Commons, and about his being afraid
+to lay a finger on it with an eye to his majority."</p>
+
+<p>I seem to be grumbling, but I am in the best of humours.
+All goes well with me and mine, thank God.</p>
+
+<p>Last night my gardener came upon a man in the garden
+and fired. The man returned the compliment by kicking
+him in the groin and causing him great pain. I set off, with
+a great mastiff-bloodhound I have, in pursuit. Couldn't find
+the evil-doer, but had the greatest difficulty in preventing
+the dog from tearing two policemen down. They were
+coming towards us with professional mystery, and he was
+in the air on his way to the throat of an eminently respectable
+constable when I caught him.</p>
+
+<p>My daughter Mary and her aunt Georgina send kindest
+regard and remembrance. Katey and her husband are
+going to try London this winter, but I rather doubt (for
+they are both delicate) their being able to weather it out.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_243" id="Page_243">[243]</a></span>
+It has been blowing here tremendously for a fortnight, but
+to-day is like a spring day, and plenty of roses are growing
+over the labourers' cottages. The <i>Great Eastern</i> lies at her
+moorings beyond the window where I write these words;
+looks very dull and unpromising. A dark column of smoke
+from Chatham Dockyard, where the iron shipbuilding is in
+progress, has a greater significance in it, I fancy.</p>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Miss
+Dickens.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span style="margin-right: 2em;"><span class="smcap">Gad's Hill Place, Higham by Rochester, Kent</span>,</span><br />
+<i>Tuesday, Nov. 14th, 1865.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='unindent'><span class='smcap'>My dearest Mamie</span>,</div>
+
+<p>As you want to know my views of the Sphinx, here
+they are. But I have only seen it once; and it is so extraordinarily
+well done, that it ought to be observed closely
+several times.</p>
+
+<p>Anyone who attentively notices the flower trick will see
+that the two little high tables hung with drapery cover each
+a trap. Each of those tables, during that trick, hides a
+confederate, who changes the paper cone twice. When the
+cone has been changed as often as is required, the trap is
+closed and the table can be moved.</p>
+
+<p>When the curtain is removed for the performance of the
+Sphinx trick, there is a covered, that is, draped table on the
+stage, which is never seen before or afterwards. In front of
+the middle of it, and between it and the audience, stands one
+of those little draped tables covering a trap; this is a third
+trap in the centre of the stage. The box for the head is
+then upon <span class="smcap">it</span>, and the conjuror takes it off and shows it.
+The man whose head is afterwards shown in that box is, I
+conceive, in the table; that is to say, is lying on his chest in
+the thickness of the table, in an extremely constrained attitude.
+To get him into the table, and to enable him to use<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_244" id="Page_244">[244]</a></span>
+the trap in the table through which his head comes into the
+box, the two hands of a confederate are necessary. That
+confederate comes up a trap, and stands in the space
+afforded by the interval below the stage and the height of the
+little draped table! his back is towards the audience. The
+moment he has assisted the hidden man sufficiently, he closes
+the trap, and the conjuror then immediately removes the
+little draped table, and also the drapery of the larger table;
+when he places the box on the last-named table <i>with the slide
+on</i> for the head to come into it, he stands with his back to
+the audience and his face to the box, and masks the box considerably
+to facilitate the insertion of the head. As soon as
+he knows the head to be in its place, he undraws the slide.
+When the verses have been spoken and the trick is done, he
+loses no time in replacing the slide. The curtain is then
+immediately dropped, because the man cannot otherwise be
+got out of the table, and has no doubt had quite enough of
+it. With kindest regards to all at Penton,</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Ever your most affectionate.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>1866.</h2>
+
+<h3>NARRATIVE.</h3>
+
+
+<div class='unindent'><span class='smcap'>The</span> furnished house hired by Charles Dickens in the spring
+of this year was in Southwick Place, Hyde Park.</div>
+
+<p>Having entered into negotiations with the Messrs.
+Chappell for a series of readings to be given in London,
+in the English provinces, in Scotland and Ireland, Charles
+Dickens had no leisure for more than his usual editorial
+work for "All the Year Round." He contributed four
+parts to the Christmas number, which was entitled,
+"Mugby Junction."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_245" id="Page_245">[245]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>For the future all his English readings were given in
+connection with the Messrs. Chappell, and never in all his
+career had he more satisfactory or more pleasant business
+relations than those connected with these gentlemen.
+Moreover, out of this connection sprang a sincere friendship
+on both sides.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Dolby is so constantly mentioned in future letters,
+that they themselves will tell of the cordial companionship
+which existed between Charles Dickens and this able and
+most obliging "manager."</p>
+
+<p>The letter to "Lily" was in answer to a child's letter
+from Miss Lily Benzon, inviting him to a birthday party.</p>
+
+<p>The play alluded to in the letter to M. Fechter was
+called "A Long Strike," and was performed at the Lyceum
+Theatre.</p>
+
+<p>The "Sultan" mentioned in the letter to Mr. Fitzgerald
+was a noble Irish bloodhound, presented by this gentleman
+to Charles Dickens. The story of the dog's death is told in
+a letter to M. de Cerjat, which we give in the following
+year.</p>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Miss Mary
+Boyle.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span style="margin-right: 2em;"><span class="smcap">Office of "All the Year Round</span>,"</span><br />
+<i>Saturday, Jan. 6th, 1866.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='unindent'><span class='smcap'>My dear Mary</span>,</div>
+
+<p>Feeling pretty certain that I shall never answer your
+letter unless I answer it at once (I got it this morning),
+here goes!</p>
+
+<p>I did not dramatise "The Master of Ravenswood,"
+though I did a good deal towards and about the piece,
+having an earnest desire to put Scott, for once, upon the
+stage in his own gallant manner. It is <i>an enormous success</i>,
+and increases in attraction nightly. I have never seen the
+people in all parts of the house so leaning forward, in lines
+sloping towards the stage, earnestly and intently attractive,
+as while the story gradually unfolds itself. But the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_246" id="Page_246">[246]</a></span>
+astonishing circumstance of all is, that Miss Leclercq (never
+thought of for Lucy till all other Lucies had failed) is
+marvellously good, highly pathetic, and almost unrecognisable
+in person! What note it touches in her, always dumb
+until now, I do not pretend to say, but there is no one on
+the stage who could play the contract scene better, or more
+simply and naturally, and I find it impossible to see it
+without crying! Almost everyone plays well, the whole is
+exceedingly picturesque, and there is scarcely a movement
+throughout, or a look, that is not indicated by Scott. So
+you get a life romance with beautiful illustrations, and I do
+not expect ever again to see a book take up its bed and
+walk in like manner.</p>
+
+<p>I am charmed to learn that you have had a freeze out
+of my ghost story. It rather did give me a shiver up the
+back in the writing. "Dr. Marigold" has just now accomplished
+his two hundred thousand. My only other news
+about myself is that I am doubtful whether to read or not
+in London this season. If I decide to do it at all, I shall
+probably do it on a large scale.</p>
+
+<p>Many happy years to you, my dear Mary. So prays</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+<span style="margin-right: 2em;">Your ever affectionate</span><br />
+Jo.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mr.
+William
+Charles
+Kent.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Gad's Hill</span>, <i>Thursday, Jan. 18th, 1866.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='unindent'><span class='smcap'>My dear Kent</span>,</div>
+
+<p>I cannot tell you how grieved we all are here to
+know that you are suffering again. Your patient tone,
+however, and the hopefulness and forbearance of Ferguson's
+course, gives us some reassurance. Apropos of which latter
+reference I dined with Ferguson at the Lord Mayor's, last
+Tuesday, and had a grimly distracted impulse upon me to
+defy the toast-master and rush into a speech about him and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_247" id="Page_247">[247]</a></span>
+his noble art, when I sat pining under the imbecility of
+constitutional and corporational idiots. I did seize him for a
+moment by the hair of his head (in proposing the Lady
+Mayoress), and derived some faint consolation from the
+company's response to the reference. O! no man will ever
+know under what provocation to contradiction and a savage
+yell of repudiation I suffered at the hands of &mdash;&mdash;, feebly
+complacent in the uniform of Madame Tussaud's own
+military waxers, and almost the worst speaker I ever heard
+in my life! Mary and Georgina, sitting on either side of
+me, urged me to "look pleasant." I replied in expressions
+not to be repeated. Shea (the judge) was just as good and
+graceful, as he (the member) was bad and gawky.</p>
+
+<p>Bulwer's "Lost Tales of Miletus" is a most noble book!
+He is an extraordinary fellow, and fills me with admiration
+and wonder.</p>
+
+<p>It is of no use writing to you about yourself, my dear
+Kent, because you are likely to be tired of that constant
+companion, and so I have gone scratching (with an exceedingly
+bad pen) about and about you. But I come back to
+you to let you know that the reputation of this house as a
+convalescent hospital stands (like the house itself) very
+high, and that testimonials can be produced from credible
+persons who have recovered health and spirits here swiftly.
+Try us, only try us, and we are content to stake the reputation
+of the establishment on the result.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Ever affectionately yours.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mr. Percy
+Fitzgerald.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Gad's Hill</span>, <i>Friday, Feb. 2nd, 1866.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='unindent'><span class='smcap'>My dear Fitzgerald</span>,</div>
+
+<p>I ought to have written to you days and days ago,
+to thank you for your charming book on Charles Lamb, to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_248" id="Page_248">[248]</a></span>
+tell you with what interest and pleasure I read it as soon as
+it came here, and to add that I was honestly affected (far
+more so than your modesty will readily believe) by your
+intimate knowledge of those touches of mine concerning
+childhood.</p>
+
+<p>Let me tell you now that I have not in the least cooled,
+after all, either as to the graceful sympathetic book, or as to
+the part in it with which I am honoured. It has become a
+matter of real feeling with me, and I postponed its expression
+because I couldn't satisfactorily get it out of myself,
+and at last I came to the conclusion that it must be
+left in.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+My dear Fitzgerald, faithfully yours always.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Miss
+Hogarth.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Office of "All the Year Round</span>," <i>Friday, Feb. 9th, 1866.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='unindent'><span class='smcap'>My dearest Georgy</span>,</div>
+
+<p>I found your letter here when I came back on
+Wednesday evening, and was extremely glad to get it.</p>
+
+<p>Frank Beard wrote me word that with such a pulse as
+I described, an examination of the heart was absolutely
+necessary, and that I had better make an appointment with
+him alone for the purpose. This I did. I was not at all
+disconcerted, for I knew well beforehand that the effect
+could not possibly be without that one cause at the bottom
+of it. There seems to be degeneration of some functions of
+the heart. It does not contract as it should. So I have
+got a prescription of iron, quinine, and digitalis, to set it
+a-going, and send the blood more quickly through the
+system. If it should not seem to succeed on a reasonable
+trial, I will then propose a consultation with someone else.
+Of course I am not so foolish as to suppose that all my
+work can have been achieved without <i>some</i> penalty, and I<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_249" id="Page_249">[249]</a></span>
+have noticed for some time a decided change in my buoyancy
+and hopefulness&mdash;in other words, in my usual "tone."</p>
+
+<p>I shall wait to see Beard again on Monday, and shall
+most probably come down that day. If I should not, I
+will telegraph after seeing him. Best love to Mamie.</p>
+
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mrs.
+Brookfield.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span style="margin-right: 2em;"><span class="smcap">Office of "All the Year Round</span>,"</span><br />
+<i>Tuesday, Feb. 20th, 1866.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='unindent'><span class='smcap'>My dear Mrs. Brookfield</span>,</div>
+
+<p>Having gone through your MS. (which I should have
+done sooner, but that I have not been very well), I write
+these few following words about it. Firstly, with a limited
+reference to its unsuitability to these pages. Secondly, with
+a more enlarged reference to the merits of the story itself.</p>
+
+<p>If you will take any part of it and cut it up (in fancy)
+into the small portions into which it would have to be
+divided here for only a month's supply, you will (I think) at
+once discover the impossibility of publishing it in weekly
+parts. The scheme of the chapters, the manner of introducing
+the people, the progress of the interest, the places
+in which the principal places fall, are all hopelessly against
+it. It would seem as though the story were never coming,
+and hardly ever moving. There must be a special design
+to overcome that specially trying mode of publication, and I
+cannot better express the difficulty and labour of it than by
+asking you to turn over any two weekly numbers of "A
+Tale of Two Cities," or "Great Expectations," or Bulwer's
+story, or Wilkie Collins's, or Reade's, or "At the Bar,"
+and notice how patiently and expressly the thing has to be
+planned for presentation in these fragments, and yet for
+afterwards fusing together as an uninterrupted whole.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_250" id="Page_250">[250]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Of the story itself I honestly say that I think highly.
+The style is particularly easy and agreeable, infinitely above
+ordinary writing, and sometimes reminds me of Mrs. Inchbald
+at her best. The characters are remarkably well
+observed, and with a rare mixture of delicacy and truthfulness.
+I observe this particularly in the brother and sister,
+and in Mrs. Neville. But it strikes me that you constantly
+hurry your narrative (and yet without getting on) <i>by telling
+it, in a sort of impetuous breathless way, in your own person,
+when the people should tell it and act it for themselves</i>. My
+notion always is, that when I have made the people to play
+out the play, it is, as it were, their business to do it, and not
+mine. Then, unless you really have led up to a great situation
+like Basil's death, you are bound in art to make more
+of it. Such a scene should form a chapter of itself.
+Impressed upon the reader's memory, it would go far to
+make the fortune of the book. Suppose yourself telling
+that affecting incident in a letter to a friend. Wouldn't
+you describe how you went through the life and stir of the
+streets and roads to the sick-room? Wouldn't you say
+what kind of room it was, what time of day it was, whether
+it was sunlight, starlight, or moonlight? Wouldn't you
+have a strong impression on your mind of how you were
+received, when you first met the look of the dying man,
+what strange contrasts were about you and struck you? I
+don't want you, in a novel, to present <i>yourself</i> to tell such
+things, but I want the things to be there. You make no
+more of the situation than the index might, or a descriptive
+playbill might in giving a summary of the tragedy under
+representation.</p>
+
+<p>As a mere piece of mechanical workmanship, I think all
+your chapters should be shorter; that is to say, that they
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_251" id="Page_251">[251]</a></span>should be subdivided. Also, when you change from narrative
+to dialogue, or <i>vice vers&acirc;</i>, you should make the transition
+more carefully. Also, taking the pains to sit down and
+recall the principal landmarks in your story, you should then
+make them far more elaborate and conspicuous than the
+rest. Even with these changes I do not believe that the
+story would attract the attention due to it, if it were published
+even in such monthly portions as the space of
+"Fraser" would admit of. Even so brightened, it would
+not, to the best of my judgment, express itself piecemeal.
+It seems to me to be so constituted as to require to be read
+"off the reel." As a book in two volumes I think it would
+have good claims to success, and good chances of obtaining
+success. But I suppose the polishing I have hinted at
+(not a meretricious adornment, but positively necessary to
+good work and good art) to have been first thoroughly
+administered.</p>
+
+<p>Now don't hate me if you can help it. I can afford to
+be hated by some people, but I am not rich enough to put
+you in possession of that luxury.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Ever faithfully yours.<br />
+</div>
+
+<p>P.S.&mdash;The MS. shall be delivered at your house to-morrow.
+And your petitioner again prays not to be, etc.</p>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Miss
+Hogarth.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Adelphi, Liverpool</span>, <i>Friday, April 13th, 1866.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='unindent'><span class='smcap'>My dearest Georgy</span>,</div>
+
+<p>The reception at Manchester last night was quite a
+magnificent sight; the whole of the immense audience
+standing up and cheering. I thought them a little slow
+with "Marigold," but believe it was only the attention
+necessary in so vast a place. They gave a splendid burst<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_252" id="Page_252">[252]</a></span>
+at the end. And after "Nickleby" (which went to perfection),
+they set up such a call, that I was obliged to
+go in again. The unfortunate gasman, a very steady
+fellow, got a fall off a ladder and sprained his leg. He
+was put to bed in a public opposite, and was left there,
+poor man.</p>
+
+<p>This is the first very fine day we have had. I have taken
+advantage of it by crossing to Birkenhead and getting some
+air upon the water. It was fresh and beautiful.</p>
+
+<p>I send my best love to Mamie, and hope she is better. I
+am, of course, tired (the pull of "Marigold" upon one's
+energy, in the Free Trade Hall, was great); but I stick to
+my tonic, and feel, all things considered, in very good tone.
+The room here (I mean the hall) being my special favourite
+and extraordinarily easy, is <i>almost</i> a rest!</p>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Miss
+Dickens.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Adelphi, Liverpool</span>, <i>Saturday, April 14th, 1866.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='unindent'><span class='smcap'>My dearest Mamie</span>,</div>
+
+<p>The police reported officially that three thousand
+people were turned away from the hall last night. I doubt
+if they were so numerous as that, but they carried in the
+outer doors and pitched into Dolby with great vigour. I
+need not add that every corner of the place was crammed.
+They were a very fine audience, and took enthusiastically
+every point in "Copperfield" and the "Trial." They made
+the reading a quarter of an hour longer than usual. One man
+advertised in the morning paper that he would give thirty
+shillings (double) for three stalls, but nobody would sell,
+and he didn't get in.</p>
+
+<p>Except that I cannot sleep, I really think myself in
+much better training than I had anticipated. A dozen<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_253" id="Page_253">[253]</a></span>
+oysters and a little champagne between the parts every
+night, constitute the best restorative I have ever yet tried.
+John appears low, but I don't know why. A letter comes
+for him daily; the hand is female; whether Smudger's, or
+a nearer one still and a dearer one, I don't know. So it
+may or may not be the cause of his gloom.</p>
+
+<p>"Miss Emily" of Preston is married to a rich cotton
+lord, rides in open carriages in gorgeous array, and is
+altogether splendid. With this effective piece of news I
+close.</p>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Miss
+Hogarth.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Glasgow</span>, <i>April 17th, 1866.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<p>We arrived here at ten yesterday evening. I don't
+think the journey shook me at all. Dolby provided a superb
+cold collation and "the best of drinks," and we dined in
+the carriage, and I made him laugh all the way.</p>
+
+<p>The let here is very large. Every precaution taken to
+prevent my platform from being captured as it was last
+time; but I don't feel at all sure that it will not be stormed
+at one of the two readings. Wills is to do the genteel
+to-night at the stalls, and Dolby is to stem the shilling tide
+<i>if</i> he can. The poor gasman cannot come on, and we
+have got a new one here who is to go to Edinburgh with
+us. Of Edinburgh we know nothing, but as its first
+night has always been shady, I suppose it will stick to its
+antecedents.</p>
+
+<p>I like to hear about Harness and his freshness. The
+let for the next reading at St. James's is "going," they
+report, "admirably." Lady Russell asked me to dinner
+to-morrow, and I have written her a note to-day. The rest
+has certainly done me good. I slept thoroughly well last<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_254" id="Page_254">[254]</a></span>
+night, and feel fresh. What to-night's work, and every
+night's work this week, may do contrariwise, remains to be
+seen.</p>
+
+<p>I hope Harry's knee may be in the way of mending,
+from what you relate of it.</p>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Miss
+Dickens.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Waterloo Hotel, Edinburgh</span>, <i>Wednesday, April 18th, 1866.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<p>We had a tremendous house again last night at Glasgow;
+and turned away great numbers. Not only that, but they
+were a most brilliant and delicate audience, and took
+"Marigold" with a fine sense and quickness not to be surpassed.
+The shillings pitched into Dolby again, and one
+man writes a sensible letter in one of the papers this morning,
+showing to <i>my</i> satisfaction (?) that they really had,
+through the local agent, some cause of complaint. Nevertheless,
+the shilling tickets are sold for to-morrow, and it
+seems to be out of the question to take any money at the
+doors, the call for all parts is so enormous. The thundering
+of applause last night was quite staggering, and my people
+checked off my reception by the minute hand of a watch,
+and stared at one another, thinking I should never begin. I
+keep quite well, have happily taken to sleeping these last
+three nights; and feel, all things considered, very little
+conscious of fatigue. I cannot reconcile my town medicine
+with the hours and journeys of reading life, and have therefore
+given it up for the time. But for the moment, I think
+I am better without it. What we are doing here I have not
+yet heard. I write at half-past one, and we have been little
+more than an hour in the house. But I am quite prepared
+for the inevitable this first Edinburgh night. Endeavours<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_255" id="Page_255">[255]</a></span>
+have been made (from Glasgow yesterday) to telegraph the
+exact facts out of our local agent; but hydraulic pressure
+wouldn't have squeezed a straight answer out of him.
+"Friday and Saturday doing very well, Wednesday not so
+good." This was all electricity could discover.</p>
+
+<p>I am going to write a line this post to Katie, from whom
+I have a note. I hope Harry's leg will now step out in the
+manner of the famous cork leg in the song.</p>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Miss
+Hogarth.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Edinburgh</span>, <i>Thursday, April 19th, 1866.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<p>The house was more than twice better than any first
+night here previously. They were, as usual here, remarkably
+intelligent, and the reading went <i>brilliantly</i>. I have
+not sent up any newspapers, as they are generally so poorly
+written, that you may know beforehand all the commonplaces
+that they will write. But <i>The Scotsman</i> has so
+pretty an article this morning, and (so far as I know) so
+true a one, that I will try to post it to you, either from here
+or Glasgow. John and Dolby went over early, and Wills
+and I follow them at half-past eleven. It is cold and wet
+here. We have laid half-crown bets with Dolby, that he
+will be assaulted to-night at Glasgow. He has a surprising
+knowledge of what the receipts will be always, and wins
+half-crowns every night. Chang is living in this house.
+John (not knowing it) was rendered perfectly drivelling
+last night, by meeting him on the stairs. The Tartar Dwarf
+is always twining himself upstairs sideways, and drinks a
+bottle of whisky per day, and is reported to be a surprising
+little villain.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_256" id="Page_256">[256]</a></span></p>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Miss
+Dickens.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Waterloo Hotel, Edinburgh</span>, <i>Friday, April 20th, 1866.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<p>No row at Glasgow last night. Great placards were
+posted about the town by the anxious Dolby, announcing
+that no money would be taken at the doors. This kept the
+crowd off. Two files of policemen and a double staff everywhere
+did the rest, and nothing could be better-tempered or
+more orderly. Tremendous enthusiasm with the "Carol"
+and "Trial." I was dead beat afterwards, that reading
+being twenty minutes longer than usual; but plucked up
+again, had some supper, slept well, and am quite right to-day.
+It is a bright day, and the express ride over from
+Glasgow was very pleasant.</p>
+
+<p>Everything is gone here for to-night. But it is difficult
+to describe what the readings have grown to be. The let
+at St. James's Hall is not only immense for next Tuesday,
+but so large for the next reading afterwards, that Chappell
+writes: "That will be the greatest house of the three."
+From Manchester this morning they write: "Send us more
+tickets instantly, for we are sold out and don't know what
+to do with the people." Last night the whole of my money
+under the agreement had been taken. I notice that a great
+bank has broken at Liverpool, which may hurt us there,
+but when last heard of it was going as before. And the
+audience, though so enormous, do somehow express a personal
+affection, which makes them very strange and moving
+to see.</p>
+
+<p>I have a story to answer you and your aunt with. Before
+I left Southwick Place for Liverpool, I received a letter
+from Glasgow, saying, "Your little Emily has been woo'd
+and married and a'! since you last saw her;" and describing
+her house within a mile or two of the city, and asking me<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_257" id="Page_257">[257]</a></span>
+to stay there. I wrote the usual refusal, and supposed
+Mrs. &mdash;&mdash; to be some romantic girl whom I had joked
+with, perhaps at Allison's or where not. On the first night
+at Glasgow I received a bouquet from &mdash;&mdash;, and wore
+one of the flowers. This morning at the Glasgow station,
+&mdash;&mdash; appeared, and proved to be the identical Miss Emily,
+of whose marriage Dolby had told me on our coming through
+Preston. She was attired in magnificent raiment, and
+presented the happy &mdash;&mdash;.</p>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Miss
+Hogarth.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Liverpool</span>, <i>Thursday, April 26th, 1866.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<p>We noticed between London and Rugby (the first
+stoppage) something very odd in our carriage yesterday,
+not so much in its motion as in its sound. We examined it
+as well as we could out of both windows, but could make
+nothing of it. On our arrival at Rugby, it was found to be
+on fire. And as it was in the middle of the train, the train
+had to be broken to get it off into a siding by itself and
+get another carriage on. With this slight exception we
+came down all right.</p>
+
+<p>My voice is much better, I am glad to report, and I
+mean to try Beard's remedy after dinner to-day. This is
+all my present news.</p>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">The same.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Down Hotel, Clifton</span>, <i>Friday, May 11th, 1866.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<p>I received your note before I left Birmingham this
+morning. It has been very heavy work getting up at half-past
+six each morning after a heavy night, and I am not at<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_258" id="Page_258">[258]</a></span>
+all well to-day. We had a tremendous hall at Birmingham
+last night&mdash;two thousand one hundred people. I made a
+most ridiculous mistake. Had "Nickleby" on my list to
+finish with, instead of "Trial." Read "Nickleby" with
+great go, and the people remained. Went back again at
+ten and explained the accident, and said if they liked,
+I would give them the "Trial." They <i>did</i> like, and I had
+another half-hour of it in that enormous place.</p>
+
+<p>This stoppage of Overend and Gurney in the City will
+play the &mdash;&mdash; with all public gaieties, and with all the arts.</p>
+
+<p>My cold is no better. John fell off a platform about ten
+feet high yesterday, and fainted. He looks all the colours
+of the rainbow to-day, but does not seem much hurt beyond
+being puffed up one hand, arm, and side.</p>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Miss Lily
+Benzon.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span style="margin-right: 2em;"><span class="smcap">Gad's Hill Place, Higham by Rochester, Kent</span>,</span><br />
+<i>Monday, June 18th, 1866.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='unindent'><span class='smcap'>My dear Lily</span>,</div>
+
+<p>I am sorry that I cannot come to read to you
+"The Boots at the Holly Tree Inn," as you ask me to do;
+but the truth is, that I am tired of reading at this present
+time, and have come into the country to rest and hear the
+birds sing. There are a good many birds, I daresay, in
+Kensington Palace Gardens, and upon my word and honour
+they are much better worth listening to than I am. So let
+them sing to you as hard as ever they can, while their sweet
+voices last (they will be silent when the winter comes); and
+very likely after you and I have eaten our next Christmas
+pudding and mince-pies, you and I and Uncle Harry may
+all meet together at St. James's Hall; Uncle Harry to bring
+you there, to hear the "Boots;" I to receive you there, and
+read the "Boots;" and you (I hope) to applaud very much,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_259" id="Page_259">[259]</a></span>
+and tell me that you like the "Boots." So, God bless you
+and me, and Uncle Harry, and the "Boots," and long life
+and happiness to us all!</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Your affectionate Friend.<br />
+</div>
+
+<p>P.S.&mdash;There's a flourish!</p>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mr. B. W.
+Procter.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span style="margin-right: 2em;"><span class="smcap">Gad's Hill Place, Higham by Rochester, Kent</span>,</span><br />
+<i>Monday, Aug. 13th, 1866.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='unindent'><span class='smcap'>My dear Procter</span>,</div>
+
+<p>I have read your biography of Charles Lamb with
+inexpressible pleasure and interest. I do not think it
+possible to tell a pathetic story with a more unaffected and
+manly tenderness. And as to the force and vigour of the
+style, if I did not know you I should have made sure that
+there was a printer's error in the opening of your introduction,
+and that the word "seventy" occupied the place of
+"forty."</p>
+
+<p>Let me, my dear friend, most heartily congratulate you
+on your achievement. It is not an ordinary triumph to do
+such justice to the memory of such a man. And I venture
+to add, that the fresh spirit with which you have done it
+impresses me as being perfectly wonderful.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Ever affectionately yours.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Sir James
+Emerson
+Tennent.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Gad's Hill</span>, <i>Monday, Aug. 20th, 1866.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='unindent'><span class='smcap'>My dear Tennent</span>,</div>
+
+<p>I have been very much interested by your extract,
+and am strongly inclined to believe that the founder of the
+Refuge for Poor Travellers meant the kind of man to which
+it refers. Chaucer certainly meant the Pardonere to be a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_260" id="Page_260">[260]</a></span>
+humbug, living on the credulity of the people. After
+describing the sham reliques he carried, he says:</p>
+
+<div class='poem'>
+But with these relikes whawne that he found<br />
+A poure personne dwelling up on lond<br />
+Upon a day he gat him more monnie<br />
+Than that the personne got in monthes time,<br />
+And thus, with fained flattering and japes<br />
+He made the personne, and the people, his apes.<br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='unindent'>And the worthy Watts (founder of the charity) may have
+had these very lines in his mind when he excluded such a man.</div>
+
+<p>When I last heard from my boy he was coming to you,
+and was full of delight and dignity. My midshipman has
+just been appointed to the <i>Bristol</i>, on the West Coast of
+Africa, and is on his voyage out to join her. I wish it was
+another ship and another station. She has been unlucky
+in losing men.</p>
+
+<p>Kindest regard from all my house to yours.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Faithfully yours ever.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">M. Charles
+Fechter.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Gad's Hill</span>, <i>Tuesday, Sept. 4th, 1866.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='unindent'><span class='smcap'>My dear Fechter</span>,</div>
+
+<p>This morning I received the play to the end of the
+telegraph scene, and I have since read it twice.</p>
+
+<p>I clearly see the <i>ground</i> of Mr. Boucicault's two objections;
+but I do not see their <i>force</i>.</p>
+
+<p>First, as to the writing. If the characters did not
+speak in a terse and homely way, their idea and language
+would be inconsistent with their dress and station, and
+they would lose, as characters, before the audience. The
+dialogue seems to be exactly what is wanted. Its simplicity
+(particularly in Mr. Boucicault's part) is often very<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_261" id="Page_261">[261]</a></span>
+effective; and throughout there is an honest, straight-to-the-purpose
+ruggedness in it, like the real life and the
+real people.</p>
+
+<p>Secondly, as to the absence of the comic element. I
+really do not see how more of it could be got into the story,
+and I think Mr. Boucicault underrates the pleasant effect of
+his own part. The very notion of a sailor, whose life is not
+among those little courts and streets, and whose business
+does not lie with the monotonous machinery, but with the
+four wild winds, is a relief to me in reading the play. I
+am quite confident of its being an immense relief to the
+audience when they see the sailor before them, with an
+entirely different bearing, action, dress, complexion even,
+from the rest of the men. I would make him the freshest
+and airiest sailor that ever was seen; and through him I can
+distinctly see my way out of "the Black Country" into
+clearer air. (I speak as one of the audience, mind.) I
+should like something of this contrast to be expressed in
+the dialogue between the sailor and Jew, in the second
+scene of the second act. Again, I feel Widdicomb's part
+(which is charming, and ought to make the whole house cry)
+most agreeable and welcome, much better than any amount
+in such a story, of mere comicality.</p>
+
+<p>It is unnecessary to say that the play is done with a master's
+hand. Its closeness and movement are quite surprising.
+Its construction is admirable. I have the strongest belief
+in its making a great success. But I must add this proviso:
+I never saw a play so dangerously depending in critical
+places on strict natural propriety in the manner and perfection
+in the shaping of the small parts. Those small
+parts cannot take the play up, but they can let it down. I
+would not leave a hair on the head of one of them to the
+chance of the first night, but I would see, to the minutest<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_262" id="Page_262">[262]</a></span>
+particular, the make-up of every one of them at a night
+rehearsal.</p>
+
+<p>Of course you are free to show this note to Mr. Boucicault,
+and I suppose you will do so; let me throw out this suggestion
+to him and you. Might it not ease the way with
+the Lord Chamberlain's office, and still more with the
+audience, when there are Manchester champions in it, if
+instead of "Manchester" you used a fictitious name?
+When I did "Hard Times" I called the scene Coketown.
+Everybody knew what was meant, but every cotton-spinning
+town said it was the other cotton-spinning town.</p>
+
+<p>I shall be up on Saturday, and will come over about
+mid-day, unless you name any other time.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Ever heartily.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mr. Walter
+Thornbury</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">"All the Year Round" Office</span>, <i>Saturday, Sept. 15th, 1866.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='unindent'><span class='smcap'>My dear Thornbury</span>,</div>
+
+<p>Many thanks for your letter.</p>
+
+<p>In reference to your Shakespeare queries, I am not so
+much enamoured of the first and third subjects as I am of
+the Ariosto enquiry, which should be highly interesting.
+But if you have so got the matter in your mind, as that its
+execution would be incomplete and unsatisfactory to you
+unless you write all the three papers, then by all means
+write the three, and I will most gladly take them. For
+some years I have had so much pleasure in reading you,
+that I can honestly warrant myself as what actors call "a
+good audience."</p>
+
+<p>The idea of old stories retold is decidedly a good one.
+I greatly like the notion of that series. Of course you know
+De Quincey's paper on the Ratcliffe Highway murderer?
+Do you know also the illustration (I have it at Gad's Hill),<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_263" id="Page_263">[263]</a></span>
+representing the horrible creature as his dead body lay on a
+cart, with a piece of wood for a pillow, and a stake lying
+by, ready to be driven through him?</p>
+
+<p>I don't <i>quite</i> like the title, "The Social History of
+London." I should better like some title to the effect,
+"The History of London's Social Changes in so many
+Years." Such a title would promise more, and better
+express your intention. What do you think of taking for a
+first title, "London's Changes"? You could then add the
+second title, "Being a History," etc.</p>
+
+<p>I don't at all desire to fix a limit to the series of old
+stories retold. I would state the general intention at the
+beginning of the first paper, and go on like Banquo's
+line.</p>
+
+<p>Don't let your London title remind people, by so much
+as the place of the word "civilisation," of Buckle. It seems
+a ridiculous caution, but the indolent part of the public
+(a large part!) on such points tumble into extraordinary
+mistakes.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Faithfully yours always.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mr. Percy
+Fitzgerald.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Gad's Hill</span>, <i>Tuesday, Nov. 6th, 1866.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='unindent'><span class='smcap'>My dear Fitzgerald</span>,</div>
+
+<p>It is always pleasant to me to hear from you, and I
+hope you will believe that this is not a mere fashion of
+speech.</p>
+
+<p>Concerning the green covers, I find the leaves to be
+budding&mdash;on unquestionable newspaper authority; but,
+upon my soul, I have no other knowledge of their being
+in embryo! Really, I do not see a chance of my settling
+myself to such work until after I have accomplished forty-two
+readings, to which I stand pledged.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_264" id="Page_264">[264]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>I hope to begin this series somewhere about the middle
+of January, in Dublin. Touching the details of the realisation
+of this hope, will you tell me in a line as soon as you can&mdash;<i>Is
+the exhibition room a good room for speaking in?</i></p>
+
+<p>Your mention of the late Sultan touches me nearly.
+He was the finest dog I ever saw, and between him and
+me there was a perfect understanding. But, to adopt the
+popular phrase, it was so very confidential that it "went no
+further." He would fly at anybody else with the greatest
+enthusiasm for destruction. I saw him, muzzled, pound
+into the heart of a regiment of the line; and I have
+frequently seen him, muzzled, hold a great dog down with
+his chest and feet. He has broken loose (muzzled) and
+come home covered with blood, again and again. And yet
+he never disobeyed me, unless he had first laid hold of
+a dog.</p>
+
+<p>You heard of his going to execution, evidently supposing
+the procession to be a party detached in pursuit of something
+to kill or eat? It was very affecting. And also
+of his bolting a blue-eyed kitten, and making me acquainted
+with the circumstance by his agonies of remorse
+(or indigestion)?</p>
+
+<p>I cannot find out that there is anyone in Rochester (a
+sleepy old city) who has anything to tell about Garrick,
+except what is not true. His brother, the wine merchant,
+would be more in Rochester way, I think. How on earth
+do you find time to do all these books?</p>
+
+<p>You make my hair stand on end; an agreeable sensation,
+for I am charmed to find that I have any. Why don't you
+come yourself and look after Garrick? I should be truly
+delighted to receive you.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+My dear Fitzgerald, always faithfully yours.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_265" id="Page_265">[265]</a></span></p>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mr. W. C.
+Macready.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span style="margin-right: 2em;"><span class="smcap">Gad's Hill Place, Higham by Rochester, Kent</span>,</span><br />
+<i>Friday, Dec. 28th, 1866.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='unindent'><span class='smcap'>My dearest Macready</span>,</div>
+
+<p>I have received your letter with the utmost pleasure
+and we all send our most affectionate love to you, Mrs.
+Macready, Katie, Johnny, and the boy of boys. All good
+Christmas and New Year greetings are to be understood as
+included.</p>
+
+<p>You will be interested in knowing that, encouraged by
+the success of summer cricket-matches, I got up a quantity
+of foot-races and rustic sports in my field here on the 26th
+last past: as I have never yet had a case of drunkenness, the
+landlord of The Falstaff had a drinking-booth on the ground.
+All the prizes I gave were in money, too. We had two
+thousand people here. Among the crowd were soldiers,
+navvies, and labourers of all kinds. Not a stake was pulled
+up, or a rope slackened, or one farthing's-worth of damage
+done. To every competitor (only) a printed bill of general
+rules was given, with the concluding words: "Mr. Dickens
+puts every man upon his honour to assist in preserving
+order." There was not a dispute all day, and they went
+away at sunset rending the air with cheers, and leaving
+every flag on a six hundred yards' course as neat as they
+found it when the gates were opened at ten in the morning.
+Surely this is a bright sign in the neighbourhood of such a
+place as Chatham!</p>
+
+<p>"Mugby Junction" turned, yesterday afternoon, the
+extraordinary number of two hundred and fifty thousand!</p>
+
+<p>In the middle of next month I begin a new course of
+forty-two readings. If any of them bring me within reach
+of Cheltenham, with an hour to spare, I shall come on to
+you, even for that hour. More of this when I am afield and
+have my list, which Dolby (for Chappell) is now preparing.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_266" id="Page_266">[266]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Forster and Mrs. Forster were to have come to us next
+Monday, to stay until Saturday. I write "were," because
+I hear that Forster (who had a touch of bronchitis when he
+wrote to me on Christmas Eve) is in bed. Katie, who has
+been ill of low nervous fever, was brought here yesterday
+from London. She bore the journey much better than I
+expected, and so I hope will soon recover. This is my little
+stock of news.</p>
+
+<p>I begin to discover in your riper years, that you have
+been secretly vain of your handwriting all your life. For
+I swear I see no change in it! What it always was since I
+first knew it (a year or two!) it <i>is</i>. This I will maintain
+against all comers.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Ever affectionately, my dearest Macready.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>1867.</h2>
+
+<h3>NARRATIVE.</h3>
+
+
+<div class='unindent'><span class='smcap'>As</span> the London and provincial readings were to be resumed
+early in the year and continued until the end of March,
+Charles Dickens took no house in London this spring. He
+came to his office quarters at intervals, for the series in town;
+usually starting off again, on his country tour, the day after
+a London reading. From some passages in his letters to his
+daughter and sister-in-law during this country course, it
+will be seen that (though he made very light of the fact)
+the great exertion of the readings, combined with incessant
+railway travelling, was beginning to tell upon his health,
+and he was frequently "heavily beaten" after reading at
+his best to an enthusiastic audience in a large hall.</div>
+
+<p>During the short intervals between his journeys, he was
+as constantly and carefully at work upon the business of
+"All the Year Round" as if he had no other work on hand.
+A proof of this is given in a letter dated "5th February."
+It is written to a young man (the son of a friend), who wrote<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_267" id="Page_267">[267]</a></span>
+a long novel when far too juvenile for such a task, and had
+submitted it to Charles Dickens for his opinion, with a view
+to publication. In the midst of his own hard and engrossing
+occupation he read the book, and the letter which he wrote
+on the subject needs no remark beyond this, that the young
+writer received the adverse criticism with the best possible
+sense, and has since, in his literary profession, profited by
+the advice so kindly given.</p>
+
+<p>At this time the proposals to Charles Dickens for reading
+in America, which had been perpetually renewed from the
+time of his first abandoning the idea, became so urgent
+and so tempting, that he found at last he must, at all events,
+give the subject his most serious consideration. He took
+counsel with his two most confidential friends and advisers,
+Mr. John Forster and Mr. W. H. Wills. They were both,
+at first, strongly opposed to the undertaking, chiefly on the
+ground of the trial to his health and strength which it would
+involve. But they could not deny the counterbalancing
+advantages. And, after much deliberation, it was resolved
+that Mr. George Dolby should be sent out by the Messrs.
+Chappell, to take an impression, on the spot, as to the feeling
+of the United States about the Readings. His report as to
+the undoubted enthusiasm and urgency on the other side of
+the Atlantic it was impossible to resist. Even his friends
+withdrew their opposition (though still with misgivings as
+to the effect upon his health, which were but too well
+founded!), and on the 30th September he telegraphed
+"Yes" to America.</p>
+
+<p>The "Alfred" alluded to in a letter from Glasgow
+was Charles Dickens's fourth son, Alfred Tennyson, who
+had gone to Australia two years previously.</p>
+
+<p>We give, in April, the last letter to one of the friends
+for whom Charles Dickens had always a most tender love&mdash;Mr.
+Stanfield. He was then in failing health, and in May
+he died.</p>
+
+<p>Another death which affected him very deeply happened
+this summer. Miss Marguerite Power died in July. She
+had long been very ill, but, until it became impossible for<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_268" id="Page_268">[268]</a></span>
+her to travel, she was a frequent and beloved guest at Gad's
+Hill. The Mrs. Henderson to whom he writes was Miss
+Power's youngest sister.</p>
+
+<p>Before he started for America it was proposed to wish
+him God-speed by giving him a public dinner at the
+Freemasons' Hall. The proposal was most warmly and
+fully responded to. His zealous friend, Mr. Charles Kent,
+willingly undertook the whole work of arrangement of this
+banquet. It took place on the 2nd November, and Lord
+Lytton presided.</p>
+
+<p>On the 8th he left London for Liverpool, accompanied
+by his daughters, his sister-in-law, his eldest son, Mr.
+Arthur Chappell, Mr. Charles Collins, Mr. Wilkie Collins,
+Mr. Kent, and Mr. Wills. The next morning the whole
+party took a final leave of Charles Dickens on board the
+<i>Cuba</i>, which sailed that day.</p>
+
+<p>We give a letter which he wrote to Mr. J. L. Toole on
+the morning of the dinner, thanking him for a parting gift
+and an earnest letter. That excellent comedian was one of
+his most appreciative admirers, and, in return, he had for
+Mr. Toole the greatest admiration and respect.</p>
+
+<p>The Christmas number for this year, "No Thoroughfare,"
+was written by Charles Dickens and Mr. Wilkie
+Collins. It was dramatised by Mr. Collins chiefly. But, in
+the midst of all the work of preparation for departure,
+Charles Dickens gave minute attention to as much of the
+play as could be completed before he left England. It was
+produced, after Christmas, at the Adelphi Theatre, where
+M. Fechter was then acting, under the management of
+Mr. Benjamin Webster.</p>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">M. de
+Cerjat.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span style="margin-right: 2em;"><span class="smcap">Gad's Hill Place, Higham by Rochester, Kent</span>,</span><br />
+<i>New Year's Day, 1867.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='unindent'><span class='smcap'>My dear Cerjat</span>,</div>
+
+<p>Thoroughly determined to be beforehand with "the
+middle of next summer," your penitent friend and remorseful
+correspondent thus addresses you.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_269" id="Page_269">[269]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The big dog, on a day last autumn, having seized a little
+girl (sister to one of the servants) whom he knew, and was
+bound to respect, was flogged by his master, and then sentenced
+to be shot at seven next morning. He went out
+very cheerfully with the half-dozen men told off for the purpose,
+evidently thinking that they were going to be the
+death of somebody unknown. But observing in the procession
+an empty wheelbarrow and a double-barrelled gun,
+he became meditative, and fixed the bearer of the gun with
+his eyes. A stone deftly thrown across him by the village
+blackguard (chief mourner) caused him to look round for
+an instant, and he then fell dead, shot through the heart.
+Two posthumous children are at this moment rolling on the
+lawn; one will evidently inherit his ferocity, and will probably
+inherit the gun. The pheasant was a little ailing
+towards Christmas Day, and was found dead under some
+ivy in his cage, with his head under his wing, on the morning
+of the twenty-seventh of December, one thousand eight
+hundred and sixty-six. I, proprietor of the remains of the
+two deceased, am working hard, getting up "Barbox" and
+"The Boy at Mugby," with which I begin a new series of
+readings in London on the fifteenth. Next morning I believe
+I start into the country. When I read, I <i>don't</i> write. I
+only edit, and have the proof-sheets sent me for the purpose.
+Here are your questions answered.</p>
+
+<p>As to the Reform question, it should have been, and
+could have been, perfectly known to any honest man in
+England that the more intelligent part of the great masses
+were deeply dissatisfied with the state of representation, but
+were in a very moderate and patient condition, awaiting the
+better intellectual cultivation of numbers of their fellows.
+The old insolent resource of assailing them and making the
+most audaciously wicked statements that they are politically<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_270" id="Page_270">[270]</a></span>
+indifferent, has borne the inevitable fruit. The perpetual
+taunt, "Where are they?" has called them out with the
+answer: "Well then, if you <i>must</i> know, here we are."
+The intolerable injustice of vituperating the bribed to an
+assembly of bribers, has goaded their sense of justice
+beyond endurance. And now, what they would have taken
+they won't take, and whatever they are steadily bent upon
+having they will get. Rely upon it, this is the real state of
+the case. As to your friend "Punch," you will find him begin
+to turn at the very selfsame instant when the new game
+shall manifestly become the losing one. You may notice his
+shoes pinching him a little already.</p>
+
+<p>My dear fellow, I have no more power to stop that
+mutilation of my books than you have. It is as certain as
+that every inventor of anything designed for the public
+good, and offered to the English Government, becomes <i>ipso
+facto</i> a criminal, to have his heart broken on the circumlocutional
+wheel. It is as certain as that the whole Crimean
+story will be retold, whenever this country again goes
+to war. And to tell the truth, I have such a very small
+opinion of what the great genteel have done for us, that I
+am very philosophical indeed concerning what the great
+vulgar may do, having a decided opinion that they can't do
+worse.</p>
+
+<p>This is the time of year when the theatres do best, there
+being still numbers of people who make it a sort of religion
+to see Christmas pantomimes. Having my annual
+houseful, I have, as yet, seen nothing. Fechter has neither
+pantomime nor burlesque, but is doing a new version of the
+old "Trente Ans de la Vie d'un Joueur." I am afraid he
+will not find his account in it. On the whole, the theatres,
+except in the articles of scenery and pictorial effect, are
+poor enough. But in some of the smaller houses there are<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_271" id="Page_271">[271]</a></span>
+actors who, if there were any dramatic head-quarters as a
+school, might become very good. The most hopeless
+feature is, that they have the smallest possible idea of an
+effective and harmonious whole, each "going in" for
+himself or herself. The music-halls attract an immense
+public, and don't refine the general taste. But such things
+as they do are well done of their kind, and always briskly
+and punctually.</p>
+
+<p>The American yacht race is the last sensation. I hope
+the general interest felt in it on this side will have a
+wholesome interest on that. It will be a woeful day when
+John and Jonathan throw their caps into the ring. The
+French Emperor is indubitably in a dangerous state. His
+Parisian popularity wanes, and his army are discontented
+with him. I hear on high authority that his secret police
+are always making discoveries that render him desperately
+uneasy.</p>
+
+<p>You know how we have been swindling in these parts.
+But perhaps you don't know that Mr. &mdash;&mdash;, the "eminent"
+contractor, before he fell into difficulties settled <i>one
+million of money</i> on his wife. Such a good and devoted
+husband!</p>
+
+<p>My daughter Katie has been very ill of nervous fever.
+On the 27th of December she was in a condition to be
+brought down here (old high road and post-horses), and has
+been steadily getting better ever since. Her husband is
+here too, and is on the whole as well as he ever is or ever
+will be, I fear.</p>
+
+<p>We played forfeit-games here, last night, and then pool.
+For a billiard-room has been added to the house since you
+were here. Come and play a match with me.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Always affectionately.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_272" id="Page_272">[272]</a></span></p>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Miss
+Hogarth.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Adelphi Hotel, Liverpool</span>, <i>Monday, Jan. 21st, 1867.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='unindent'><span class='smcap'>My dearest Georgy</span>,</div>
+
+<p>First I send you my most affectionate wishes for
+many, many happy returns of your birthday. That done,
+from my heart of hearts, I go on to my small report of
+myself.</p>
+
+<p>The readings have produced such an immense effect here
+that we are coming back for two more in the middle of
+February. "Marigold" and the "Trial," on Friday night,
+and the "Carol," on Saturday afternoon, were a perfect
+furore; and the surprise about "Barbox" has been amusingly
+great. It is a most extraordinary thing, after the
+enormous sale of that Christmas number, that the provincial
+public seems to have combined to believe that it <i>won't</i>
+make a reading. From Wolverhampton and Leeds we have
+exactly the same expression of feelings <i>beforehand</i>. Exactly
+as I made "Copperfield"&mdash;always to the poorest houses I
+had with Headland, and against that luminary's entreaty&mdash;so
+I should have to make this, if I hadn't "Marigold"
+always in demand.</p>
+
+<p>It being next to impossible for people to come out at
+night with horses, we have felt the weather in the stalls,
+and expect to do so through this week. The half-crown
+and shilling publics have crushed to their places most
+splendidly. The enthusiasm has been unbounded. On
+Friday night I quite astonished myself; but I was taken so
+faint afterwards that they laid me on a sofa at the hall for
+half an hour. I attribute it to my distressing inability to
+sleep at night, and to nothing worse.</p>
+
+<p>Scott does very well indeed. As a dresser he is perfect.
+In a quarter of an hour after I go into the retiring-room,
+where all my clothes are airing and everything is set out<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_273" id="Page_273">[273]</a></span>
+neatly in its own allotted space, I am ready; and he then
+goes softly out, and sits outside the door. In the morning
+he is equally punctual, quiet, and quick. He has his
+needles and thread, buttons, and so forth, always at hand;
+and in travelling he is very systematic with the luggage.
+What with Dolby and what with this skilful valet, everything
+is made as easy to me as it possibly <i>can</i> be, and
+Dolby would do anything to lighten the work, and does
+everything.</p>
+
+<p>There is great distress here among the poor (four
+thousand people relieved last Saturday at one workhouse),
+and there is great anxiety concerning <i>seven mail-steamers
+some days overdue</i>. Such a circumstance as this last has
+never been known. It is supposed that some great revolving
+storm has whirled them all out of their course. One
+of these missing ships is an American mail, another an
+Australian mail.</p>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<i>Same Afternoon.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<p>We have been out for four hours in the bitter east wind,
+and walking on the sea-shore, where there is a broad strip
+of great blocks of ice. My hands are so rigid that I write
+with great difficulty.</p>
+
+<p>We have been constantly talking of the terrible Regent's
+Park accident. I hope and believe that nearly the worst of
+it is now known.</p>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Miss
+Dickens.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Chester</span>, <i>Tuesday, Jan. 22nd, 1867.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='unindent'><span class='smcap'>My dearest Mamie</span>,</div>
+
+<p>We came over here from Liverpool at eleven this
+forenoon. There was a heavy swell in the Mersey breaking
+over the boat; the cold was nipping, and all the roads we
+saw as we came along were wretched. We find a very<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_274" id="Page_274">[274]</a></span>
+moderate let here; but I am myself rather surprised to
+know that a hundred and twenty stalls have made up their
+minds to the undertaking of getting to the hall. This seems
+to be a very nice hotel, but it is an extraordinarily cold one.
+Our reading for to-night is "Marigold" and "Trial." With
+amazing perversity the local agent said to Dolby: "They
+hoped that Mr. Dickens <i>might</i> have given them 'The Boy
+at Mugby.'"</p>
+
+<p>Barton, the gasman who succeeded the man who sprained
+his leg, sprained <i>his</i> leg yesterday!! And that, not at his
+work, but in running downstairs at the hotel. However, he
+has hobbled through it so far, and I hope will hobble on, for
+he knows his work.</p>
+
+<p>I have seldom seen a place look more hopelessly frozen
+up than this place does. The hall is like a Methodist chapel
+in low spirits, and with a cold in its head. A few blue people
+shiver at the corners of the streets. And this house, which
+is outside the town, looks like an ornament on an immense
+twelfth cake baked for 1847.</p>
+
+<p>I am now going to the fire to try to warm myself, but
+have not the least expectation of succeeding. The sitting-room
+has two large windows in it, down to the ground and
+facing due east. The adjoining bedroom (mine) has also
+two large windows in it, down to the ground and facing due
+east. The very large doors are opposite the large windows,
+and I feel as if I were something to eat in a pantry.</p>
+
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Miss
+Hogarth.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Hen and Chickens, Birmingham</span>, <i>Thursday, Jan. 24th, 1867.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<p>At Chester we read in a snowstorm and a fall of ice. I
+think it was the worst weather I ever saw. Nevertheless,
+the people were enthusiastic. At Wolverhampton last night
+the thaw had thoroughly set in, and it rained heavily. We<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_275" id="Page_275">[275]</a></span>
+had not intended to go back there, but have arranged to do so
+on the day after Ash Wednesday. Last night I was again
+heavily beaten. We came on here after the reading (it is
+only a ride of forty minutes), and it was as much as I could
+do to hold out the journey. But I was not faint, as at
+Liverpool; I was only exhausted. I am all right this
+morning; and to-night, as you know, I have a rest. I
+trust that Charley Collins is better, and that Mamie is
+strong and well again. Yesterday I had a note from Katie,
+which seemed hopeful and encouraging.</p>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Miss
+Dickens.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Hen and Chickens, Birmingham</span>, <i>Thursday, Jan. 24th, 1867.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<p>Since I wrote to your aunt just now, I have received
+your note addressed to Wolverhampton. We left the men
+there last night, and they brought it on with them at noon
+to-day.</p>
+
+<p>The maimed gasman's foot is much swollen, but he
+limps about and does his work. I have doctored him up
+with arnica. During the "Boy" last night there was an
+escape of gas from the side of my top batten, which caught
+the copper-wire and was within a thread of bringing down
+the heavy reflector into the stalls. It was a very ticklish
+matter, though the audience knew nothing about it. I saw
+it, and the gasman and Dolby saw it, and stood at that side
+of the platform in agonies. We all three calculated that
+there would be just time to finish and save it; when the gas
+was turned out the instant I had done, the whole thing was
+at its very last and utmost extremity. Whom it would
+have tumbled on, or what might have been set on fire, it is
+impossible to say.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_276" id="Page_276">[276]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>I hope you rewarded your police escort on Tuesday
+night. It was the most tremendous night I ever saw at
+Chester.</p>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Miss
+Dickens.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Leeds</span>, <i>Friday, Feb. 1st, 1867.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<p>We got here prosperously, and had a good (but not
+great) house for "Barbox" and "Boy" last night. For
+"Marigold" and "Trial," to-night, everything is gone.
+And I even have my doubts of the possibility of Dolby's
+cramming the people in. For "Marigold" and "Trial"
+at Manchester, to-morrow, we also expect a fine hall.</p>
+
+<p>I shall be at the office for next Wednesday. If Charley
+Collins should have been got to Gad's, I will come there for
+that day. If not, I suppose we had best open the official
+bower again.</p>
+
+<p>This is a beastly place, with a very good hotel. Except
+Preston, it is one of the nastiest places I know. The room
+is like a capacious coal cellar, and is incredibly filthy; but
+for sound it is perfect.</p>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote"><small>Anonymous.</small></div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Office of "All the Year Round</span>," <i>Tuesday, Feb. 5th, 1867.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='unindent'><span class='smcap'>Dear Sir</span>,</div>
+
+<p>I have looked at the larger half of the first volume
+of your novel, and have pursued the more difficult points of
+the story through the other two volumes.</p>
+
+<p>You will, of course, receive my opinion as that of an
+individual writer and student of art, who by no means claims
+to be infallible.</p>
+
+<p>I think you are too ambitious, and that you have not
+sufficient knowledge of life or character to venture on so
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_277" id="Page_277">[277]</a></span>comprehensive an attempt. Evidences of inexperience in
+every way, and of your power being far below the situations
+that you imagine, present themselves to me in almost every
+page I have read. It would greatly surprise me if you
+found a publisher for this story, on trying your fortune in
+that line, or derived anything from it but weariness and
+bitterness of spirit.</p>
+
+<p>On the evidence thus put before me, I cannot even
+entirely satisfy myself that you have the faculty of authorship
+latent within you. If you have not, and yet pursue a
+vocation towards which you have no call, you cannot choose
+but be a wretched man. Let me counsel you to have the
+patience to form yourself carefully, and the courage to
+renounce the endeavour if you cannot establish your case
+on a very much smaller scale. You see around you every
+day, how many outlets there are for short pieces of fiction
+in all kinds. Try if you can achieve any success within
+these modest limits (I have practised in my time what I
+preach to you), and in the meantime put your three volumes
+away.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Faithfully yours.<br />
+</div>
+
+<p>P.S.&mdash;Your MS. will be returned separately from this
+office.</p>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Miss
+Hogarth.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Liverpool</span>, <i>Friday, Feb. 15th, 1867.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<p>My short report of myself is that we had an enormous
+turn-away last night, and do not doubt about having a cram
+to-night. The day has been very fine, and I have turned it
+to the wholesomest account by walking on the sands at New
+Brighton all the morning. I am not quite right, but believe
+it to be an effect of the railway shaking. There is no doubt
+of the fact that, after the Staplehurst experience, it tells<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_278" id="Page_278">[278]</a></span>
+more and more, instead of (as one might have expected) less
+and less.</p>
+
+<p>The charming room here greatly lessens the fatigue of
+this fatiguing week. I read last night with no more exertion
+than if I had been at Gad's, and yet to eleven hundred
+people, and with astonishing effect. It is "Copperfield"
+to-night, and Liverpool is the "Copperfield"
+stronghold.</p>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Miss
+Dickens.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Glasgow</span>, <i>Sunday, Feb. 17th, 1867.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<p>We arrived here this morning at our time to the moment,
+five minutes past ten. We turned away great numbers on
+both nights at Liverpool; and Manchester last night was a
+splendid spectacle. They cheered to that extent after it was
+over, that I was obliged to huddle on my clothes (for I was
+undressing to prepare for the journey), and go back
+again.</p>
+
+<p>After so heavy a week, it <i>was</i> rather stiff to start on this
+long journey at a quarter to two in the morning; but I got
+more sleep than I ever got in a railway-carriage before, and
+it really was not tedious. The travelling was admirable,
+and a wonderful contrast to my friend the Midland.</p>
+
+<p>I am not by any means knocked up, though I have, as I
+had in the last series of readings, a curious feeling of soreness
+all round the body, which I suppose to arise from the
+great exertion of voice. It is a mercy that we were not both
+made really ill at Liverpool. On Friday morning I was taken
+so faint and sick, that I was obliged to leave the table. On
+the same afternoon the same thing happened to Dolby. We
+then found that a part of the hotel close to us was dismantled
+for painting, and that they were at that moment<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_279" id="Page_279">[279]</a></span>
+painting a green passage leading to our rooms, with a most
+horrible mixture of white lead and arsenic. On pursuing
+the enquiry, I found that the four lady book-keepers in the
+bar were all suffering from the poison.</p>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Miss
+Hogarth.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Bridge of Allan</span>, <i>Tuesday, Feb. 19th, 1867.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<p>I was very glad to get your letter before leaving Glasgow
+this morning. This is a poor return for it, but the post goes
+out early, and we come in late.</p>
+
+<p>Yesterday morning I was so unwell that I wrote to
+Frank Beard, from whom I shall doubtless hear to-morrow.
+I mention it, only in case you should come in his way, for I
+know how perversely such things fall out. I felt it a little
+more exertion to read afterwards, and I passed a sleepless
+night after that again; but otherwise I am in good force
+and spirits to-day. I may say, in the best force.</p>
+
+<p>The quiet of this little place is sure to do me good. The
+little inn in which we are established seems a capital house
+of the best country sort.</p>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Miss
+Dickens.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Glasgow</span>, <i>Thursday, Feb. 21st, 1867.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<p>After two days' rest at the Bridge of Allan I am in
+renewed force, and have nothing to complain of but inability
+to sleep. I have been in excellent air all day since Tuesday
+at noon, and made an interesting walk to Stirling yesterday,
+and saw its lions, and (strange to relate) was not bored
+by them. Indeed, they left me so fresh that I knocked at
+the gate of the prison, presented myself to the governor,
+and took Dolby over the jail, to his unspeakable interest.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_280" id="Page_280">[280]</a></span>
+We then walked back again to our excellent country
+inn.</p>
+
+<p>Enclosed is a letter from Alfred, which you and your
+aunt will be interested in reading, and which I meant to
+send you sooner but forgot it. Wonderful as it is to mention,
+the sun shines here to-day! But to counterbalance
+that phenomenon I am in close hiding from &mdash;&mdash;, who has
+christened his infant son in my name, and, consequently,
+haunts the building. He and Dolby have already nearly
+come into collision, in consequence of the latter being
+always under the dominion of the one idea that he is bound
+to knock everybody down who asks for me.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+<div class="blockquot"><p>The "Jewish lady," wishing to mark her "appreciation
+of Mr. Dickens's nobility of character," presented him with
+a copy of Benisch's Hebrew and English Bible, with this
+inscription: "Presented to Charles Dickens, in grateful and
+admiring recognition of his having exercised the noblest
+quality man can possess&mdash;that of atoning for an injury as
+soon as conscious of having inflicted it."</p>
+
+<p>The acknowledgment of the gift is the following letter:</p></div>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Jewish
+Lady.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Bradford, Yorkshire</span>, <i>Friday, March 1st, 1867.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='unindent'><span class='smcap'>My dear Mrs. &mdash;&mdash;</span>,</div>
+
+<p>I am working through a series of readings, widely
+dispersed through England, Scotland, and Ireland, and am
+so constantly occupied that it is very difficult for me to write
+letters. I have received your highly esteemed note (forwarded
+from my home in Kent), and should have replied to
+it sooner but that I had a hope of being able to get home
+and see your present first. As I have not been able to do
+so, however, and am hardly likely to do so for two months<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_281" id="Page_281">[281]</a></span>
+to come, I delay no longer. It is safely awaiting me on my
+own desk in my own quiet room. I cannot thank you for it
+too cordially, and cannot too earnestly assure you that I
+shall always prize it highly. The terms in which you send
+me that mark of your remembrance are more gratifying to
+me than I can possibly express to you; for they assure me
+that there is nothing but goodwill left between you and me
+and a people for whom I have a real regard, and to whom I
+would not wilfully have given an offence or done an injustice
+for any worldly consideration.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Believe me, very faithfully yours.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Miss
+Hogarth.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Newcastle-on-Tyne</span>, <i>Wednesday, March 6th, 1867.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<p>The readings have made an immense effect in this place,
+and it is remarkable that although the people are individually
+rough, collectively they are an unusually tender and
+sympathetic audience; while their comic perception is quite
+up to the high London standard. The atmosphere is so
+very heavy that yesterday we escaped to Tynemouth for a
+two hours' sea walk. There was a high north wind blowing
+and a magnificent sea running. Large vessels were being
+towed in and out over the stormy bar, with prodigious
+waves breaking on it; and spanning the restless uproar of
+the waters was a quiet rainbow of transcendent beauty.
+The scene was quite wonderful. We were in the full enjoyment
+of it when a heavy sea caught us, knocked us over,
+and in a moment drenched us, and filled even our pockets.
+We had nothing for it but to shake ourselves together (like
+Doctor Marigold) and dry ourselves as well as we could by
+hard walking in the wind and sunshine! But we were wet
+through for all that when we came back here to dinner
+after half an hour's railway ride.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_282" id="Page_282">[282]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>I am wonderfully well, and quite fresh and strong.
+Have had to doctor Dolby for a bad cold; have not caught
+it (yet), and have set him on his legs again.</p>
+
+<p>Scott is striking the tents and loading the baggages, so
+I must deliver up my writing-desk. We meet, please God,
+on Tuesday.</p>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Miss
+Hogarth.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Shelbourne Hotel, Dublin</span>, <i>Friday, March 15th, 1867.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<p>We made our journey through an incessant snowstorm
+on Wednesday night; at last got snowed up among the
+Welsh mountains in a tremendous storm of wind, came to
+a stop, and had to dig the engine out. We went to bed at
+Holyhead at six in the morning of Thursday, and got aboard
+the packet at two yesterday afternoon. It blew hard, but
+as the wind was right astern, we only rolled and did not
+pitch much. As I walked about on the bridge all the four
+hours, and had cold salt beef and biscuit there and brandy-and-water,
+you will infer that my Channel training has not
+worn out.</p>
+
+<p>Our "business" here is <i>very bad</i>, though at Belfast it is
+enormous. There is no doubt that great alarm prevails
+here. This hotel is constantly filling and emptying as
+families leave the country, and set in a current to the
+steamers. There is apprehension of some disturbance
+between to-morrow night and Monday night (both inclusive),
+and I learn this morning that all the drinking-shops
+are to be closed from to-night until Tuesday. It is
+rumoured here that the Liverpool people are very uneasy
+about some apprehended disturbance there at the same
+time. Very likely you will know more about this than I
+do, and very likely it may be nothing. There is no doubt<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_283" id="Page_283">[283]</a></span>
+whatever that alarm prevails, and the manager of this
+hotel, an intelligent German, is very gloomy on the subject.
+On the other hand, there is feasting going on, and I have
+been asked to dinner-parties by divers civil and military
+authorities.</p>
+
+<p>Don't <i>you</i> be uneasy, I say once again. You may be
+absolutely certain that there is no cause for it. We are
+splendidly housed here, and in great comfort.</p>
+
+<p>Love to Charley and Katey.</p>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Miss
+Dickens.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Shelbourne Hotel, Dublin</span>, <i>Saturday, March 16th, 1867.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<p>I daresay you know already that I held many councils
+in London about coming to Ireland at all, and was much
+against it. Everything looked as bad here as need be, but
+we did very well last night after all.</p>
+
+<p>There is considerable alarm here beyond all question,
+and great depression in all kinds of trade and commerce.
+To-morrow being St. Patrick's Day, there are apprehensions
+of some disturbance, and croakers predict that it will come
+off between to-night and Monday night. Of course there
+are preparations on all sides, and large musters of soldiers
+and police, though they are kept carefully out of sight.
+One would not suppose, walking about the streets, that any
+disturbance was impending; and yet there is no doubt that
+the materials of one lie smouldering up and down the city
+and all over the country. [I have a letter from Mrs. Bernal
+Osborne this morning, describing the fortified way in which
+she is living in her own house in the County Tipperary.]</p>
+
+<p>You may be quite sure that your venerable parent will
+take good care of himself. If any riot were to break out,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_284" id="Page_284">[284]</a></span>
+I should immediately stop the readings here. Should all
+remain quiet, I begin to think they will be satisfactorily
+remunerative after all. At Belfast, we shall have an
+enormous house. I read "Copperfield" and "Bob" here
+on Monday; "Marigold" and "Trial" at Belfast, on
+Wednesday; and "Carol" and "Trial" here, on Friday.
+This is all my news, except that I am in perfect force.</p>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Miss
+Hogarth.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Shelbourne Hotel, Dublin</span>, <i>Sunday, March 17th, 1867.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<p>Everything remains in appearance perfectly quiet here.
+The streets are gay all day, now that the weather is improved,
+and singularly quiet and deserted at night. But
+the whole place is secretly girt in with a military force.
+To-morrow night is supposed to be a critical time; but
+in view of the enormous preparations, I should say that
+the chances are at least one hundred to one against any
+disturbance.</p>
+
+<p>I cannot make sure whether I wrote to you yesterday,
+and told you that we had done very well at the first reading
+after all, even in money. The reception was prodigious,
+and the readings are the town talk. But I rather think
+I did actually write this to you. My doubt on the subject
+arises from my having deliberated about writing on a
+Saturday.</p>
+
+<p>The most curious, and for facilities of mere destruction,
+such as firing houses in different quarters, the most dangerous
+piece of intelligence imparted to me on authority
+is, that the Dublin domestic men-servants as a class are all
+Fenians.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_285" id="Page_285">[285]</a></span></p>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Miss
+Hogarth.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Belfast</span>, <i>Wednesday, March 20th, 1867.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<p>The post goes out at twelve, and I have only time to
+report myself. The snow not lying between this and Dublin,
+we got here yesterday to our time, after a cold but pleasant
+journey. Fitzgerald came on with us. I had a really charming
+letter from Mrs. Fitzgerald, asking me to stay there.
+She must be a perfectly unaffected and genuine lady. There
+are kind messages to you and Mary in it. I have sent it on
+to Mary, who will probably in her turn show it to you. We
+had a wonderful crowd at Dublin on Monday, and the greatest
+appreciation possible. We have a good let, in a large hall,
+here to-night. But I am perfectly convinced that the worst
+part of the Fenian business is to come yet.</p>
+
+<p>All about the Fitzgeralds and everything else when we
+meet.</p>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Miss
+Dickens.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Belfast</span>, <i>Thursday, March 21st, 1867.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<p>In spite of public affairs and dismal weather, we are
+doing wonders in Ireland.</p>
+
+<p>That the conspiracy is a far larger and more important
+one than would seem from what it has done yet, there is no
+doubt. I have had a good deal of talk with a certain
+colonel, whose duty it has been to investigate it, day and
+night, since last September. That it will give a world of
+trouble, and cost a world of money, I take to be (after what
+I have thus learned) beyond all question. One regiment
+has been found to contain five hundred Fenian soldiers
+every man of whom was sworn in the barrack-yard. How
+information is swiftly and secretly conveyed all over the
+country, the Government with all its means and money<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_286" id="Page_286">[286]</a></span>
+cannot discover; but every hour it is found that instructions,
+warnings, and other messages are circulated from end to
+end of Ireland. It is a very serious business indeed.</p>
+
+<p>I have just time to send this off, and to report myself
+quite well except for a slight cold.</p>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Miss
+Hogarth.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Norwich</span>, <i>Friday, March 29th, 1867.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<p>The reception at Cambridge last night was something
+to be proud of in such a place. The colleges
+mustered in full force from the biggest guns to the smallest,
+and went far beyond even Manchester in the roars of
+welcome and the rounds of cheers. All through the
+readings, the whole of the assembly, old men as well as
+young, and women as well as men, took everything with a
+heartiness of enjoyment not to be described. The place
+was crammed, and the success the most brilliant I have
+ever seen.</p>
+
+<p>What we are doing in this sleepy old place I don't
+know, but I have no doubt it is mild enough.</p>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mr. Walter
+Thornbury</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span style="margin-right: 2em;"><span class="smcap">Office of "All the Year Round</span>,"</span><br />
+<i>Monday, April 1st, 1867.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='unindent'><span class='smcap'>My dear Thornbury</span>,</div>
+
+<p>I am very doubtful indeed about "Vaux," and have
+kept it out of the number in consequence. The mere
+details of such a rascal's proceedings, whether recorded by
+himself or set down by the Reverend Ordinary, are not
+wholesome for a large audience, and are scarcely justifiable
+(I think) as claiming to be a piece of literature. I can
+understand Barrington to be a good subject, as involving
+the representation of a period, a style of manners, an order<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_287" id="Page_287">[287]</a></span>
+of dress, certain habits of street life, assembly-room life,
+and coffee-room life, etc.; but there is a very broad distinction
+between this and mere Newgate Calendar. The
+latter would assuredly damage your book, and be protested
+against to me. I have a conviction of it, founded on
+constant observation and experience here.</p>
+
+<p>Your kind invitation is extremely welcome and acceptable
+to me, but I am sorry to add that I must not go
+a-visiting. For this reason: So incessantly have I been
+"reading," that I have not once been at home at Gad's
+Hill since last January, and am little likely to get there
+before the middle of May. Judge how the master's eye
+must be kept on the place when it does at length get a look
+at it after so long an absence! I hope you will descry in
+this a reason for coming to me again, instead of my coming
+to you.</p>
+
+<p>The extinct prize-fighters, as a body, I take to be a
+good subject, for much the same reason as George Barrington.
+Their patrons were a class of men now extinct too, and the
+whole ring of those days (not to mention Jackson's rooms
+in Bond Street) is a piece of social history. Now Vaux
+is not, nor is he even a phenomenon among thieves.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Faithfully yours always.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mr.
+Clarkson
+Stanfield,
+R.A.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span style="margin-right: 2em;"><span class="smcap">Gad's Hill Place, Higham by Rochester</span>,</span><br />
+<i>Thursday, April 18th, 1867.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='unindent'><span class='smcap'>My dear Stanny</span>,</div>
+
+<p>The time of year reminds me how the months have
+gone, since I last heard from you through Mrs. Stanfield.</p>
+
+<p>I hope you have not thought me unmindful of you in the
+meanwhile. I have been almost constantly travelling and
+reading. England, Ireland, and Scotland have laid hold
+of me by turns, and I have had no rest. As soon as I had<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_288" id="Page_288">[288]</a></span>
+finished this kind of work last year, I had to fall to work
+upon "All the Year Round" and the Christmas number. I
+was no sooner quit of that task, and the Christmas season
+was but run out to its last day, when I was tempted into
+another course of fifty readings that are not yet over. I am
+here now for two days, and have not seen the place since
+Twelfth Night. When a reading in London has been done,
+I have been brought up for it from some great distance, and
+have next morning been carried back again. But the fifty
+will be "paid out" (as we say at sea) by the middle of May,
+and then I hope to see you.</p>
+
+<p>Reading at Cheltenham the other day, I saw Macready,
+who sent his love to you. His face was much more massive
+and as it used to be, than when I saw him previous to his
+illness. His wife takes admirable care of him, and is on
+the happiest terms with his daughter Katie. His boy by
+the second marriage is a jolly little fellow, and leads a far
+easier life than the children you and I remember, who used
+to come in at dessert and have each a biscuit and a glass of
+water, in which last refreshment I was always convinced
+that they drank, with the gloomiest malignity, "Destruction
+to the gormandising grown-up company!"</p>
+
+<p>I hope to look up your latest triumphs on the day of the
+Academy dinner. Of course as yet I have had no opportunity
+of even hearing of what anyone has done. I have
+been (in a general way) snowed up for four months. The
+locomotive with which I was going to Ireland was dug out
+of the snow at midnight, in Wales. Both passages across
+were made in a furious snowstorm. The snow lay ankle-deep
+in Dublin, and froze hard at Belfast. In Scotland it
+slanted before a perpetual east wind. In Yorkshire, it
+derived novelty from thunder and lightning. Whirlwinds
+everywhere I don't mention.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_289" id="Page_289">[289]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>God bless you and yours. If I look like some weather-beaten
+pilot when we meet, don't be surprised. Any mahogany-faced
+stranger who holds out his hand to you will
+probably turn out, on inspection, to be the old original
+Dick.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Ever, my dear Stanny, your faithful and affectionate.<br />
+</div>
+
+<p>P.S.&mdash;I wish you could have been with me (of course in
+a snowstorm) one day on the pier at Tynemouth. There
+was a very heavy sea running, and a perfect fleet of screw
+merchantmen were plunging in and out on the turn of the
+tide at high-water. Suddenly there came a golden horizon,
+and a most glorious rainbow burst out, arching one large
+ship, as if she were sailing direct for heaven. I was so
+enchanted by the scene, that I became oblivious of a few
+thousand tons of water coming on in an enormous roller,
+and was knocked down and beaten by its spray when it
+broke, and so completely wetted through and through, that
+the very pockets in my pocket-book were full of sea.</p>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mr. George
+Stanfield.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span style="margin-right: 2em;"><span class="smcap">Office of "All the Year Round</span>,"</span><br />
+<i>Sunday, May 19th, 1867.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='center'>
+<small>ON THE DEATH OF HIS FATHER.</small><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='unindent'><span class='smcap'>My dear George</span>,</div>
+
+<p>When I came up to the house this afternoon and saw
+what had happened, I had not the courage to ring, though
+I had thought I was fully prepared by what I heard when I
+called yesterday. No one of your father's friends can ever
+have loved him more dearly than I always did, or can have
+better known the worth of his noble character.</p>
+
+<p>It is idle to suppose that I can do anything for you;
+and yet I cannot help saying that I am staying here for<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_290" id="Page_290">[290]</a></span>
+some days, and that if I could, it would be a much greater
+relief to me than it could be a service to you.</p>
+
+<p>Your poor mother has been constantly in my thoughts
+since I saw the quiet bravery with which she preserved her
+composure. The beauty of her ministration sank into my
+heart when I saw him for the last time on earth. May God
+be with her, and with you all, in your great loss.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Affectionately yours always.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mr. W. H.
+Wills.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<i>Thursday, June 6th, 1867.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='unindent'><span class='smcap'>My dear Wills</span>,</div>
+
+<p>I cannot tell you how warmly I feel your letter, or
+how deeply I appreciate the affection and regard in which
+it originates. I thank you for it with all my heart.</p>
+
+<p>You will not suppose that I make light of any of your
+misgivings if I present the other side of the question. Every
+objection that you make strongly impresses me, and will be
+revolved in my mind again and again.</p>
+
+<p>When I went to America in '42, I was so much younger,
+but (I think) very much weaker too. I had had a painful
+surgical operation performed shortly before going out, and
+had had the labour from week to week of "Master Humphrey's
+Clock." My life in the States was a life of continual
+speech-making (quite as laborious as reading), and I was less
+patient and more irritable then than I am now. My idea of
+a course of readings in America is, that it would involve far
+less travelling than you suppose, that the large first-class
+rooms would absorb the whole course, and that the receipts
+would be very much larger than your estimate, unless the
+demand for the readings is <span class="smcap">enormously exaggerated on all
+hands</span>. There is considerable reason for this view of the
+case. And I can hardly think that all the speculators who<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_291" id="Page_291">[291]</a></span>
+beset, and all the private correspondents who urge me, are
+in a conspiracy or under a common delusion.</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>I shall never rest much while my faculties last, and
+(if I know myself) have a certain something in me that
+would still be active in rusting and corroding me, if I
+flattered myself that I was in repose. On the other hand,
+I think that my habit of easy self-abstraction and withdrawal
+into fancies has always refreshed and strengthened
+me in short intervals wonderfully. I always seem to myself
+to have rested far more than I have worked; and I do
+really believe that I have some exceptional faculty of accumulating
+young feelings in short pauses, which obliterates a
+quantity of wear and tear.</p>
+
+<p>My worldly circumstances (such a large family considered)
+are very good. I don't want money. All my
+possessions are free and in the best order. Still, at fifty-five
+or fifty-six, the likelihood of making a very great addition
+to one's capital in half a year is an immense consideration....
+I repeat the phrase, because there should be something
+large to set against the objections.</p>
+
+<p>I dine with Forster to-day, to talk it over. I have no
+doubt he will urge most of your objections and particularly
+the last, though American friends and correspondents he
+has, have undoubtedly staggered him more than I ever
+knew him to be staggered on the money question. Be
+assured that no one can present any argument to me which
+will weigh more heartily with me than your kind words,
+and that whatever comes of my present state of abeyance, I
+shall never forget your letter or cease to be grateful for it.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Ever, my dear Wills, faithfully yours.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_292" id="Page_292">[292]</a></span></p>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mr. W. H.
+Wills.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span style="margin-right: 2em;"><span class="smcap">Gad's Hill Place, Higham by Rochester, Kent</span>,</span><br />
+<i>Sunday, June 13th, 1867.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='unindent'><span class='smcap'>My dear Wills</span>,</div>
+
+<p>I have read the first three numbers of Wilkie's
+story this morning, and have gone minutely through the
+plot of the rest to the last line. It gives a series of "narratives,"
+but it is a very curious story, wild, and yet domestic,
+with excellent character in it, and great mystery. It is
+prepared with extraordinary care, and has every chance of
+being a hit. It is in many respects much better than anything
+he has done. The question is, how shall we fill up
+the blank between Mabel's progress and Wilkie? What
+do you think of proposing to Fitzgerald to do a story
+three months long? I daresay he has some unfinished or
+projected something by him.</p>
+
+<p>I have an impression that it was not Silvester who tried
+Eliza Fenning, but Knowles. One can hardly suppose
+Thornbury to make such a mistake, but I wish you would
+look into the Annual Register. I have added a final paragraph
+about the unfairness of the judge, whoever he was.
+I distinctly recollect to have read of his "putting down" of
+Eliza Fenning's father when the old man made some
+miserable suggestion in his daughter's behalf (this is not
+noticed by Thornbury), and he also stopped some suggestion
+that a knife thrust into a loaf adulterated with alum would
+present the appearance that these knives presented. But I
+may have got both these points from looking up some
+pamphlets in Upcott's collection which I once had.</p>
+
+<p>Your account of your journey reminds me of one of the
+latest American stories, how a traveller by stage-coach said
+to the driver: "Did you ever see a snail, sir?" "Yes,
+sir." "Where did you meet him, sir?" "I <i>didn't</i> meet<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_293" id="Page_293">[293]</a></span>
+him, sir!" "Wa'al, sir, I think you did, if you'll excuse
+me, for I'm damned if you ever overtook him."</p>
+
+<p>Ever faithfully.</p>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mrs.
+Henderson.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Gad's Hill</span>, <i>Thursday, July 4th, 1867.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='unindent'><span class='smcap'>My dear Mrs. Henderson</span>,</div>
+
+<p>I was more shocked than surprised by the receipt of
+your mother's announcement of our poor dear Marguerite's
+death. When I heard of the consultation, and recalled
+what had preceded it and what I have seen here, my hopes
+were very slight.</p>
+
+<p>Your letter did not reach me until last night, and thus I
+could not avoid remaining here to-day, to keep an American
+appointment of unusual importance. You and your mother
+both know, I think, that I had a great affection for
+Marguerite, that we had many dear remembrances together,
+and that her self-reliance and composed perseverance had
+awakened my highest admiration in later times. No one
+could have stood by her grave to-day with a better knowledge
+of all that was great and good in her than I have, or
+with a more loving remembrance of her through all her
+phases since she first came to London a pretty timid
+girl.</p>
+
+<p>I do not trouble your mother by writing to her separately.
+It is a sad, sad task to write at all. God help us!</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Faithfully yours.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mr. Percy
+Fitzgerald.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Gad's Hill</span>, <i>July 21st, 1867.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='unindent'><span class='smcap'>My dear Fitzgerald</span>,</div>
+
+<p>I am heartily glad to get your letter, and shall be
+thoroughly well pleased to study you again in the pages of
+A. Y. R.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_294" id="Page_294">[294]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>I have settled nothing yet about America, but am going
+to send Dolby out on the 3rd of next month to survey the
+land, and come back with a report on some heads whereon
+I require accurate information. Proposals (both from
+American and English speculators) of a very tempting
+nature have been repeatedly made to me; but I cannot
+endure the thought of binding myself to give so many
+readings there whether I like it or no; and if I go at all,
+am bent on going with Dolby single-handed.</p>
+
+<p>I have been doing two things for America; one, the little
+story to which you refer; the other, four little papers for a
+child's magazine. I like them both, and think the latter a
+queer combination of a child's mind with a grown-up joke.
+I have had them printed to assure correct printing in the
+United States. You shall have the proof to read, with the
+greatest pleasure. On second thoughts, why shouldn't I
+send you the children's proof by this same post? I will,
+as I have it here, send it under another cover. When you
+return it, you shall have the short story.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Believe me, always heartily yours.</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mr. Percy
+Fitzgerald.</div>
+
+<div class='center'><small>EXTRACT.</small></div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<i>July 28th, 1867.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<p>I am glad you like the children, and particularly glad
+you like the pirate. I remember very well when I had a
+general idea of occupying that place in history at the same
+age. But I loved more desperately than Boldheart.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_295" id="Page_295">[295]</a></span></p>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Miss
+Hogarth.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Adelphi Hotel, Liverpool</span>, <i>Friday Night, Aug. 2nd, 1867.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='unindent'><span class='smcap'>My dearest Georgy</span>,</div>
+
+<p>I cannot get a boot on&mdash;wear a slipper on my left
+foot, and consequently am here under difficulties. My foot
+is occasionally painful, but not very. I don't think it worth
+while consulting anybody about it as yet. I make out so
+many reasons against supposing it to be gouty, that I really
+do not think it is.</p>
+
+<p>Dolby begs me to send all manner of apologetic messages
+for his going to America. He is very cheerful and hopeful,
+but evidently feels the separation from his wife and child
+very much. His sister<a name="FNanchor_17_17" id="FNanchor_17_17"></a><a href="#Footnote_17_17" class="fnanchor">[17]</a> was at Euston Square this morning,
+looking very well. Sainton too, very light and jovial.</p>
+
+<p>With the view of keeping myself and my foot quiet, I
+think I will not come to Gad's Hill until Monday. If I
+don't appear before, send basket to Gravesend to meet me,
+leaving town by the 12.10 on Monday. This is important,
+as I couldn't walk a quarter of a mile to-night for five
+hundred pounds.</p>
+
+<p>Love to all at Gad's.</p>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mr. W. H.
+Wills.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Gad's Hill</span>, <i>Monday, Sept. 2nd, 1867.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='unindent'><span class='smcap'>My dear Wills</span>,</div>
+
+<p>Like you, I was shocked when this new discovery
+burst upon me on Friday, though, unlike you, I never could
+believe in &mdash;&mdash;, solely (I think) because, often as I have
+tried him, I never found him standing by my desk when I
+was writing a letter without trying to read it.</p>
+
+<p>I fear there is no doubt that since &mdash;&mdash;'s discharge,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_296" id="Page_296">[296]</a></span>
+he (&mdash;&mdash;) has stolen money at the readings. A case of an
+abstracted shilling seems to have been clearly brought home
+to him by Chappell's people, and they know very well what
+<i>that</i> means. I supposed a very clear keeping off from
+Anne's husband (whom I recommended for employment to
+Chappell) to have been referable only to &mdash;&mdash;; but now I
+see how hopeless and unjust it would be to expect belief
+from him with two such cases within his knowledge.</p>
+
+<p>But don't let the thing spoil your holiday. If we try to
+do our duty by people we employ, by exacting their proper
+service from them on the one hand, and treating them with
+all possible consistency, gentleness, and consideration on the
+other, we know that we do right. Their doing wrong cannot
+change our doing right, and that should be enough for us.</p>
+
+<p>So I have given <i>my</i> feathers a shake, and am all right
+again. Give <i>your</i> feathers a shake, and take a cheery flutter
+into the air of Hertfordshire.</p>
+
+<p>Great reports from Dolby and also from Fields! But I
+keep myself quite calm, and hold my decision in abeyance
+until I shall have book, chapter, and verse before me.
+Dolby hoped he could leave Uncle Sam on the 11th of this
+month.</p>
+
+<p>Sydney has passed as a lieutenant, and appeared at home
+yesterday, all of a sudden, with the consequent golden garniture
+on his sleeve, which I, God forgive me, stared at
+without the least idea that it meant promotion.</p>
+
+<p>I am glad you see a certain unlikeness to anything in
+the American story. Upon myself it has made the strangest
+impression of reality and originality!! And I feel as if I
+had read something (by somebody else), which I should
+never get out of my mind!!! The main idea of the narrator's
+position towards the other people was the idea that
+I <i>had</i> for my next novel in A. Y. R. But it is very curious<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_297" id="Page_297">[297]</a></span>
+that I did not in the least see how to begin his state of
+mind until I walked into Hoghton Towers one bright April
+day with Dolby.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Faithfully ever.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mr. F. D.
+Finlay.</div>
+
+<div class='center'><br /><br />
+<small>CONTRADICTING A NEWSPAPER REPORT OF HIS BEING IN A CRITICAL STATE OF HEALTH.</small><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br />
+<span style="margin-right: 2em;"><span class="smcap">Gad's Hill Place, Higham by Rochester, Kent</span>,</span><br />
+<i>Tuesday, Sept. 3rd, 1867.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<p>This is to certify that the undersigned victim of a
+periodical paragraph-disease, which usually breaks out once
+in every seven years (proceeding to England by the overland
+route to India and per Cunard line to America, where it
+strikes the base of the Rocky Mountains, and, rebounding to
+Europe, perishes on the steppes of Russia), is <i>not</i> in a
+"critical state of health," and has <i>not</i> consulted "eminent
+surgeons," and never was better in his life, and is <i>not</i>
+recommended to proceed to the United States for "cessation
+from literary labour," and has not had so much as a
+headache for twenty years.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+<span class="smcap">Charles Dickens</span>.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">M. Charles
+Fechter.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span style="margin-right: 4em;"><span class="smcap">"All the Year Round" Office</span>,</span><br />
+<i>Monday, Sept. 16th, 1867.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='unindent'><span class='smcap'>My dear Fechter</span>,</div>
+
+<p>Going over the prompt-book carefully, I see one
+change in your part to which (on Lytton's behalf) I
+positively object, as I am quite certain he would not
+consent to it. It is highly injudicious besides, as striking
+out the best known line in the play.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_298" id="Page_298">[298]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Turn to your part in Act III., the speech beginning</p>
+
+<div class='poem'>
+<span style="margin-left: 12em;">Pauline,<i>by pride</i></span><br />
+<i>Angels have fallen ere thy time:</i> by pride&mdash;&mdash;<br />
+</div>
+
+<p>You have made a passage farther on stand:</p>
+
+<div class='poem'>
+<span style="margin-left: 10em;"><i>Then did I seek to rise</i></span><br />
+<i>Out of my mean estate. Thy bright image, etc.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<p>I must stipulate for your restoring it thus:</p>
+
+<div class='poem'>
+<span style="margin-left: 10em;">Then did I seek to rise</span><br />
+Out of the prison of my mean estate;<br />
+And, with such jewels as the exploring mind<br />
+Brings from the caves of knowledge, buy my ransom<br />
+From those twin jailers of the daring heart&mdash;<br />
+Low birth and iron fortune. Thy bright image, etc. etc.<br />
+</div>
+
+<p>The last figure has been again and again quoted; is
+identified with the play; is fine in itself; and above all,
+I <span class="smcap">know</span> that Lytton would not let it go. In writing to him
+to-day, fully explaining the changes in detail, and saying
+that I disapprove of nothing else, I have told him that I
+notice this change and that I immediately let you know
+that it must not be made.</p>
+
+<p>(There will not be a man in the house from any newspaper
+who would not detect mutilations in that speech,
+moreover.)</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Ever.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Miss
+Hogarth.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<i>Monday, Sept. 30th, 1867.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='unindent'><span class='smcap'>My dearest Georgy</span>,</div>
+
+<p>The telegram is despatched to Boston: "Yes. Go
+ahead." After a very anxious consultation with Forster,
+and careful heed of what is to be said for and against, I
+have made up my mind to see it out. I do not expect as<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_299" id="Page_299">[299]</a></span>
+much money as the calculators estimate, but I cannot set
+the hope of a large sum of money aside.</p>
+
+<p>I am so nervous with travelling and anxiety to decide
+something, that I can hardly write. But I send you these
+few words as my dearest and best friend.</p>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Miss
+Dickens.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span style="margin-right: 2em;"><span class="smcap">Office of "All the Year Round," No. 26, Wellington Street, Strand,</span></span><br />
+<span style="margin-right: 4em;"><span class="smcap">London, W.C.,</span></span><br />
+<i>Monday, Sept. 30th, 1867.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='unindent'><span class='smcap'>My dearest Mamie</span>,</div>
+
+<p>You will have had my telegram that I go to America.
+After a long discussion with Forster, and consideration of
+what is to be said on both sides, I have decided to go
+through with it. I doubt the profit being as great as the
+calculation makes it, but the prospect is sufficiently alluring
+to turn the scale on the American side.</p>
+
+<p>Unless I telegraph to the contrary, I will come to
+Gravesend (send basket there) by 12 train on Wednesday.
+Love to all.</p>
+
+<p>We have telegraphed "Yes" to Boston.</p>
+
+<p>I begin to feel myself drawn towards America, as Darnay,
+in the "Tale of Two Cities," was attracted to the Loadstone
+Rock, Paris.</p>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mr.
+William
+Charles
+Kent.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+26, <span class="smcap">Wellington Street</span>, <i>Saturday, Oct. 19th, 1867.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='unindent'><span class='smcap'>My dear Kent</span>,</div>
+
+<p>In the midst of the great trouble you are taking in
+the cause of your undersigned affectionate friend, I hope the
+reading of the enclosed may be a sort of small godsend. Of
+course it is very strictly private. The printers are not yet<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_300" id="Page_300">[300]</a></span>
+trusted with the name, but the name will be, "No Thoroughfare."
+I have done the greater part of it; may you find it
+interesting!</p>
+
+<p>My solicitor, a man of some mark and well known, is
+anxious to be on the Committee:</p>
+
+<div class='poem'>
+Frederic Ouvry, Esquire,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">66, Lincoln's Inn Fields.</span><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Ever affectionately yours.<br />
+</div>
+
+<p>P.S.&mdash;My sailor son!</p>
+
+<p>I forgot him!!</p>
+
+<p>Coming up from Portsmouth for the dinner!!!</p>
+
+<p>Der&mdash;er&mdash;oo not cur&mdash;ur&mdash;urse me, I implore.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Penitently.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mrs.
+Power.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Gad's Hill</span>, <i>Wednesday, Oct. 23rd, 1867.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='unindent'><span class='smcap'>My dear Mrs. Power</span>,</div>
+
+<p>I have a sad pleasure in the knowledge that our dear
+Marguerite so remembered her old friend, and I shall preserve
+the token of her remembrance with loving care. The
+sight of it has brought back many old days.</p>
+
+<p>With kind remembrance to Mrs. Henderson,</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Believe me always, very faithfully yours.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mr. J. L.
+Toole.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span style="margin-right: 2em;"><span class="smcap">Gad's Hill Place, Higham by Rochester, Kent</span>,</span><br />
+<i>Saturday, Nov. 2nd, 1867.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='unindent'><span class='smcap'>My dear Mr. Toole</span>,</div>
+
+<p>I heartily thank you for your elegant token of
+remembrance, and for your earnest letter. Both have
+afforded me real pleasure, and the first-named shall go with
+me on my journey.</p>
+
+<p>Let me take this opportunity of saying that on receipt<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_301" id="Page_301">[301]</a></span>
+of your letter concerning to-day's dinner, I immediately
+forwarded your request to the honorary secretary. I hope
+you will understand that I could not, in delicacy, otherwise
+take part in the matter.</p>
+
+<p>Again thanking you most cordially,</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Believe me, always faithfully yours.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mr. W. H.
+Wills.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+26, <span class="smcap">Wellington Street</span>, <i>Sunday, Nov. 3rd, 1867.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='unindent'><span class='smcap'>My dear Wills</span>,</div>
+
+<p>If you were to write me many such warm-hearted
+letters as you send this morning, my heart would fail me!
+There is nothing that so breaks down my determination, or
+shows me what an iron force I put upon myself, and how
+weak it is, as a touch of true affection from a tried friend.</p>
+
+<p>All that you so earnestly say about the goodwill and
+devotion of all engaged, I perceived and deeply felt last
+night. It moved me even more than the demonstration
+itself, though I do suppose it was the most brilliant ever
+seen. When I got up to speak, but for taking a desperate
+hold of myself, I should have lost my sight and voice and
+sat down again.</p>
+
+<p>God bless you, my dear fellow. I am, ever and ever,</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Your affectionate.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">The Hon.
+Mrs.
+Watson.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span style="margin-right: 2em;"><span class="smcap">Office of "All the Year Round</span>,"</span><br />
+<i>Tuesday, Nov. 5th, 1867.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='unindent'><span class='smcap'>My dear Mrs. Watson</span>,</div>
+
+<p>A thousand thanks for your kind letter, and many
+congratulations on your having successfully attained a
+dignity which I never allow to be mentioned in my presence.
+Charley's children are instructed from their tenderest<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_302" id="Page_302">[302]</a></span>
+months only to know me as "Wenerables," which they
+sincerely believe to be my name, and a kind of title that I
+have received from a grateful country.</p>
+
+<p>Alas! I cannot have the pleasure of seeing you before I
+presently go to Liverpool. Every moment of my time is
+preoccupied. But I send you my sincere love, and am
+always truthful to the dear old days, and the memory of
+one of the dearest friends I ever loved.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Affectionately yours.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Miss
+Dickens.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span style="margin-right: 2em;"><span class="smcap">Aboard the "Cuba," Queenstown Harbour</span>,</span><br />
+<i>Sunday, Nov. 10th, 1867.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='unindent'><span class='smcap'>My dearest Mamie</span>,</div>
+
+<p>We arrived here at seven this morning, and shall
+probably remain awaiting our mail, until four or five this
+afternoon. The weather in the passage here was delightful,
+and we had scarcely any motion beyond that of the screw.</p>
+
+<p>We are nearly but not quite full of passengers. At
+table I sit next the captain, on his right, on the outside of
+the table and close to the door. My little cabin is big enough
+for everything but getting up in and going to bed in. As
+it has a good window which I can leave open all night, and
+a door which I can set open too, it suits my chief requirements
+of it&mdash;plenty of air&mdash;admirably. On a writing-slab
+in it, which pulls out when wanted, I now write in a majestic
+manner.</p>
+
+<p>Many of the passengers are American, and I am already
+on the best terms with nearly all the ship.</p>
+
+<p>We began our voyage yesterday a very little while after
+you left us, which was a great relief. The wind is S.E. this
+morning, and if it would keep so we should go along nobly.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_303" id="Page_303">[303]</a></span>
+My dearest love to your aunt, and also to Katie and all the
+rest. I am in very good health, thank God, and as well as
+possible.</p>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Miss
+Hogarth.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span style="margin-right: 2em;"><span class="smcap">Aboard the "Cuba," Five Days out</span>,</span><br />
+<i>Wednesday, Nov. 13th, 1867.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='unindent'><span class='smcap'>My dearest Georgy</span>,</div>
+
+<p>As I wrote to Mamie last, I now write to you, or
+mean to do it, if the motion of the ship will let me.</p>
+
+<p>We are very nearly halfway to-day. The weather was
+favourable for us until yesterday morning, when we got a
+head-wind which still stands by us. We have rolled and
+pitched, of course; but on the whole have been wonderfully
+well off. I have had headache and have felt faint once or
+twice, <i>but have not been sick at all</i>. My spacious cabin is
+very noisy at night, as the most important working of the
+ship goes on outside my window and over my head; but it
+is very airy, and if the weather be bad and I can't open the
+window, I can open the door all night. If the weather be
+fine (as it is now), I can open both door and window, and
+write between them. Last night, I got a foot-bath under
+the dignified circumstances of sitting on a camp-stool in my
+cabin, and having the bath (and my feet) in the passage outside.
+The officers' quarters are close to me, and, as I know
+them all, I get reports of the weather and the way we are
+making when the watch is changed, and I am (as I usually
+am) lying awake. The motion of the screw is at its slightest
+vibration in my particular part of the ship. The silent
+captain, reported gruff, is a very good fellow and an honest
+fellow. Kelly has been ill all the time, and not of the
+slightest use, and is ill now. Scott always cheerful, and
+useful, and ready; a better servant for the kind of work<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_304" id="Page_304">[304]</a></span>
+there never can have been. Young Lowndes has been fearfully
+sick until mid-day yesterday. His cabin is pitch dark,
+and full of blackbeetles. He shares mine until nine o'clock
+at night, when Scott carries him off to bed. He also dines
+with me in my magnificent chamber. This passage in
+winter time cannot be said to be an enjoyable excursion, but
+I certainly am making it under the best circumstances. (I
+find Dolby to have been enormously popular on board, and
+to have known everybody and gone everywhere.)</p>
+
+<p>So much for my news, except that I have been constantly
+reading, and find that "Pierra" that Mrs. Hogge
+sent me by Katie to be a very remarkable book, not only
+for its grim and horrible story, but for its suggestion of
+wheels within wheels, and sad human mysteries. Baker's
+second book not nearly so good as his first, but his first
+anticipated it.</p>
+
+<p>We hope to get to Halifax either on Sunday or Monday,
+and to Boston either on Tuesday or Wednesday. The glass
+is rising high to-day, and everybody on board is hopeful of
+an easterly wind.</p>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Miss
+Hogarth.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<i>Saturday, 16th.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<p>Last Thursday afternoon a heavy gale of wind sprang
+up and blew hard until dark, when it seemed to lull. But
+it then came on again with great violence, and blew tremendously
+all night. The noise, and the rolling and plunging
+of the ship, were awful. Nobody on board could get
+any sleep, and numbers of passengers were rolled out of
+their berths. Having a side-board to mine to keep me in,
+like a baby, I lay still. But it was a dismal night indeed,
+and it was curious to see the change it had made in the
+faces of all the passengers yesterday. It cannot be denied
+that these winter crossings are very trying and startling;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_305" id="Page_305">[305]</a></span>
+while the personal discomfort of not being able to wash,
+and the miseries of getting up and going to bed, with what
+small means there are all sliding, and sloping, and slopping
+about, are really in their way distressing.</p>
+
+<p>This forenoon we made Cape Race, and are now running
+along at full speed with the land beside us. Kelly still
+useless, and positively declining to show on deck. Scott,
+with an eight-day-old moustache, more super like than ever.
+My foot (I hope from walking on the boarded deck) in a
+very shy condition to-day, and rather painful. I shaved this
+morning for the first time since Liverpool; dodging at the
+glass, very much like Fechter's imitation of &mdash;&mdash;. The white
+cat that came off with us in the tender a general favourite.
+She belongs to the daughter of a Southerner, returning
+with his wife and family from a two-years' tour in Europe.</p>
+
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<i>Sunday, 17th.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<p>At four o'clock this morning we got into bad weather
+again, and the state of things at breakfast-time was unutterably
+miserable. Nearly all the passengers in their
+berths&mdash;no possibility of standing on deck&mdash;sickness and
+groans&mdash;impracticable to pass a cup of tea from one pair of
+hands to another. It has slightly moderated since (between
+two and three in the afternoon I write), and the sun is
+shining, but the rolling of the ship surpasses all imagination
+or description.</p>
+
+<p>We expect to be at Halifax about an hour after midnight,
+and this letter shall be posted there, to make certain of
+catching the return mail on Wednesday. Boston is only
+thirty hours from Halifax.</p>
+
+<p>Best love to Mamie, and to Katie and Charley. I know
+you will report me and my love to Forster and Mrs. Forster.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_306" id="Page_306">[306]</a></span>
+I write with great difficulty, wedged up in a corner, and
+having my heels on the paper as often as the pen. Kelly
+worse than ever, and Scott better than ever.</p>
+
+<p>My desk and I have just arisen from the floor.</p>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Miss
+Dickens.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Parker House, Boston</span>, <i>Thursday, Nov. 21st, 1867.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<p>I arrived here on Tuesday night, after a very slow
+passage from Halifax against head-winds. All the tickets
+for the first four readings here (all yet announced) were
+sold immediately on their being issued.</p>
+
+<p>You know that I begin on the 2nd of December with
+"Carol" and "Trial"? Shall be heartily glad to begin to
+count the readings off.</p>
+
+<p>This is an immense hotel, with all manner of white
+marble public passages and public rooms. I live in a
+corner high up, and have a hot and cold bath in my bedroom
+(communicating with the sitting-room), and comforts
+not in existence when I was here before. The cost of living
+is enormous, but happily we can afford it. I dine to-day
+with Longfellow, Emerson, Holmes, and Agassiz. Longfellow
+was here yesterday. Perfectly white in hair and
+beard, but a remarkably handsome and notable-looking man.
+The city has increased enormously in five-and-twenty years.
+It has grown more mercantile&mdash;is like Leeds mixed with
+Preston, and flavoured with New Brighton; but for smoke
+and fog you substitute an exquisitely bright light air. I
+found my rooms beautifully decorated (by Mrs. Fields)
+with choice flowers, and set off by a number of good books.
+I am not much persecuted by people in general, as Dolby
+has happily made up his mind that the less I am exhibited
+for nothing the better. So our men sit outside the room
+door and wrestle with mankind.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_307" id="Page_307">[307]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>We had speech-making and singing in the saloon of the
+<i>Cuba</i> after the last dinner of the voyage. I think I have
+acquired a higher reputation from drawing out the captain,
+and getting him to take the second in "All's Well," and
+likewise in "There's not in the wide world" (your parent
+taking first), than from anything previously known of me
+on these shores. I hope the effect of these achievements
+may not dim the lustre of the readings. We also sang (with
+a Chicago lady, and a strong-minded woman from I don't
+know where) "Auld Lang Syne," with a tender melancholy,
+expressive of having all four been united from our cradles.
+The more dismal we were, the more delighted the company
+were. Once (when we paddled i' the burn) the captain took
+a little cruise round the compass on his own account, touching
+at the "Canadian Boat Song," and taking in supplies at
+"Jubilate," "Seas between us braid ha' roared," and
+roared like the seas themselves. Finally, I proposed the
+ladies in a speech that convulsed the stewards, and we closed
+with a brilliant success. But when you dine with Mr. Forster,
+ask him to read to you how we got on at church in a heavy
+sea. Hillard has just been in and sent his love "to those
+dear girls." He has grown much older. He is now District
+Attorney of the State of Massachusetts, which is a very good
+office. Best love to your aunt and Katie, and Charley and
+all his house, and all friends.</p>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Miss
+Hogarth.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Parker House, Boston</span>, <i>Monday, Nov. 25th, 1867.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<p>I cannot remember to whom I wrote last, but it will not
+much matter if I make a mistake; this being generally to
+report myself so well, that I am constantly chafing at not
+having begun to-night instead of this night week.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_308" id="Page_308">[308]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The tickets being all sold for next week, and no other
+announcement being yet made, there is nothing new in that
+way to tell of. Dolby is over at New York, where we are
+at our wits' end how to keep tickets out of the hands of
+speculators. Morgan is staying with me; came yesterday
+to breakfast, and goes home to-morrow. Fields and Mrs.
+Fields also dined yesterday. She is a very nice woman,
+with a rare relish for humour and a most contagious laugh.
+The Bostonians having been duly informed that I wish to
+be quiet, really leave me as much so as I should be in
+Manchester or Liverpool. This I cannot expect to last elsewhere;
+but it is a most welcome relief here, as I have all
+the readings to get up. The people are perfectly kind and
+perfectly agreeable. If I stop to look in at a shop-window,
+a score of passers-by stop; and after I begin to read, I
+cannot expect in the natural course of things to get off so
+easily. But I every day take from seven to ten miles in
+peace.</p>
+
+<p>Communications about readings incessantly come in
+from all parts of the country. We take no offer whatever,
+lying by with our plans until after the first series in
+New York, and designing, if we make a furore there, to
+travel as little as possible. I fear I shall have to take
+Canada at the end of the whole tour. They make such
+strong representations from Montreal and Toronto, and
+from Nova Scotia&mdash;represented by St. John's and Halifax&mdash;of
+the slight it would be to them, if I wound up with the
+States, that I am shaken.</p>
+
+<p>It is sad to see Longfellow's house (the house in which his
+wife was burnt) with his young daughters in it, and the
+shadow of that terrible story. The young undergraduates
+of Cambridge (he is a professor there) have made a representation
+to him that they are five hundred strong, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_309" id="Page_309">[309]</a></span>
+cannot get one ticket. I don't know what is to be done for
+them; I suppose I must read there somehow. We are all
+in the clouds until I shall have broken ground in New
+York, as to where readings will be possible and where
+impossible.</p>
+
+<p>Agassiz is one of the most natural and jovial of men. I
+go out a-visiting as little as I can, but still have to dine, and
+what is worse, sup pretty often. Socially, I am (as I was
+here before) wonderfully reminded of Edinburgh when I had
+many friends in it.</p>
+
+<p>Your account and Mamie's of the return journey to
+London gave me great pleasure. I was delighted with
+your report of Wilkie, and not surprised by Chappell's
+coming out gallantly.</p>
+
+<p>My anxiety to get to work is greater than I can express,
+because time seems to be making no movement towards
+home until I shall be reading hard. Then I shall begin to
+count and count and count the upward steps to May.</p>
+
+<p>If ever you should be in a position to advise a traveller
+going on a sea voyage, remember that there is some mysterious
+service done to the bilious system when it is shaken,
+by baked apples. Noticing that they were produced on
+board the <i>Cuba</i>, every day at lunch and dinner, I thought I
+would make the experiment of always eating them freely.
+I am confident that they did wonders, not only at the
+time, but in stopping the imaginary pitching and rolling
+after the voyage is over, from which many good amateur
+sailors suffer. I have hardly had the sensation at all,
+except in washing of a morning. At that time I still hold
+on with one knee to the washing-stand, and could swear
+that it rolls from left to right. The <i>Cuba</i> does not return
+until Wednesday, the 4th December. You may suppose
+that every officer on board is coming on Monday, and that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_310" id="Page_310">[310]</a></span>
+Dolby has provided extra stools for them. His work is
+very hard indeed. Cards are brought to him every minute
+in the day; his correspondence is immense; and he is jerked
+off to New York, and I don't know where else, on the
+shortest notice and the most unreasonable times. Moreover,
+he has to be at "the bar" every night, and to "liquor up
+with all creation" in the small hours. He does it all with
+the greatest good humour, and flies at everybody who waylays
+the Chief, furiously. We have divided our men into
+watches, so that one always sits outside the drawing-room
+door. Dolby knows the whole Cunard line, and as we could
+not get good English gin, went out in a steamer yesterday
+and got two cases (twenty-four bottles) out of Cunard
+officers. Osgood and he were detached together last evening
+for New York, whence they telegraph every other hour
+about some new point in this precious sale of tickets. So
+distracted a telegram arrived at three that I have telegraphed
+back, "Explain yourselves," and am now waiting
+for the explanation. I think you know that Osgood is a
+partner in Ticknor and Fields'.</p>
+
+<p>Tuesday morning.&mdash;Dolby has come back from New
+York, where the prospects seem immense. We sell tickets
+there next Friday and Saturday, and a tremendous rush
+is expected.</p>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mr.
+Charles
+Dickens.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Parker House, Boston, U.S.</span>, <i>Saturday, Nov. 30th, 1867.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='unindent'><span class='smcap'>My dear Charley</span>,</div>
+
+<p>You will have heard before now how fortunate I was
+on my voyage, and how I was not sick for a moment.
+These screws are tremendous ships for carrying on, and for
+rolling, and their vibration is rather distressing. But my<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_311" id="Page_311">[311]</a></span>
+little cabin, being for'ard of the machinery, was in the best
+part of the vessel, and I had as much air in it, night and
+day, as I chose. The saloon being kept absolutely without
+air, I mostly dined in my own den, in spite of my
+being allotted the post of honour on the right hand of the
+captain.</p>
+
+<p>The tickets for the first four readings here (the only
+readings announced) were all sold immediately, and many
+are now re-selling at a large premium. The tickets for
+the first four readings in New York (the only readings
+announced there also) were on sale yesterday, and were all
+sold in a few hours. The receipts are very large indeed;
+but engagements of any kind and every kind I steadily
+refuse, being resolved to take what is to be taken myself.
+Dolby is nearly worked off his legs, is now at New York,
+and goes backwards and forwards between this place and
+that (about the distance from London to Liverpool, though
+they take nine hours to do it) incessantly. Nothing can
+exceed his energy and good humour, and he is extremely
+popular everywhere. My great desire is to avoid much
+travelling, and to try to get the people to come to me,
+instead of my going to them. If I can effect this to any
+moderate extent, I shall be saved a great deal of knocking
+about. My original purpose was not to go to Canada at
+all; but Canada is so up in arms on the subject that I think
+I shall be obliged to take it at last. In that case I should
+work round to Halifax, Nova Scotia, and then take the
+packet for home.</p>
+
+<p>As they don't seem (Americans who have heard me on
+their travels excepted) to have the least idea here of what
+the readings are like, and as they are accustomed to mere
+readings out of a book, I am inclined to think the excitement
+will increase when I shall have begun. Everybody<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_312" id="Page_312">[312]</a></span>
+is very kind and considerate, and I have a number of old
+friends here, at the Bar and connected with the University.
+I am now negotiating to bring out the dramatic version of
+"No Thoroughfare" at New York. It is quite upon the
+cards that it may turn up trumps.</p>
+
+<p>I was interrupted in that place by a call from my old
+secretary in the States, Mr. Putnam. It was quite affecting
+to see his delight in meeting his old master again. And
+when I told him that Anne was married, and that I had
+(unacknowledged) grandchildren, he laughed and cried
+together. I suppose you don't remember Longfellow,
+though he remembers you in a black velvet frock very well.
+He is now white-haired and white-bearded, but remarkably
+handsome. He still lives in his old house, where his beautiful
+wife was burnt to death. I dined with him the other day,
+and could not get the terrific scene out of my imagination.
+She was in a blaze in an instant, rushed into his arms with
+a wild cry, and never spoke afterwards.</p>
+
+<p>My love to Bessie, and to Mekitty, and all the babbies.
+I will lay this by until Tuesday morning, and then add a
+final line to it.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Ever, my dear Charley, your affectionate Father.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<i>Tuesday, Dec. 3rd, 1867.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<p>Success last night beyond description or exaggeration.
+The whole city is quite frantic about it to-day, and it is
+impossible that prospects could be more brilliant.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_313" id="Page_313">[313]</a></span></p>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Miss
+Dickens.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Parker House, Boston</span>, <i>Sunday, Dec. 1st, 1867.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<p>I received yours of the 18th November, yesterday. As
+I left Halifax in the <i>Cuba</i> that very day, you probably saw
+us telegraphed in <i>The Times</i> on the 19th.</p>
+
+<p>Dolby came back from another run to New York, this
+morning. The receipts are very large indeed, far exceeding
+our careful estimate made at Gad's. I think
+you had best in future (unless I give you intimation to the
+contrary) address your letters to me, at the Westminster
+Hotel, Irving Place, New York City. It is a more central
+position than this, and we are likely to be much more there
+than here. I am going to set up a brougham in New York,
+and keep my rooms at that hotel. The account of Matilda
+is a very melancholy one, and really distresses me. What
+she must sink into, it is sad to consider. However, there
+was nothing for it but to send her away, that is quite
+clear.</p>
+
+<p>They are said to be a very quiet audience here, appreciative
+but not demonstrative. I shall try to change their
+character a little.</p>
+
+<p>I have been going on very well. A horrible custom obtains
+in these parts of asking you to dinner somewhere at half-past
+two, and to supper somewhere else about eight. I have
+run this gauntlet more than once, and its effect is, that there
+is no day for any useful purpose, and that the length of the
+evening is multiplied by a hundred. Yesterday I dined
+with a club at half-past two, and came back here at half-past
+eight, with a general impression that it was at least two
+o'clock in the morning. Two days before I dined with
+Longfellow at half-past two, and came back at eight, supposing
+it to be midnight. To-day we have a state dinner-party<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_314" id="Page_314">[314]</a></span>
+in our rooms at six, Mr. and Mrs. Fields, and Mr.
+and Mrs. Bigelow. (He is a friend of Forster's, and was
+American Minister in Paris). There are no negro waiters
+here, all the servants are Irish&mdash;willing, but not able. The
+dinners and wines are very good. I keep our own rooms
+well ventilated by opening the windows, but no window is
+ever opened in the halls or passages, and they are so overheated
+by a great furnace, that they make me faint and
+sick. The air is like that of a pre-Adamite ironing-day in
+full blast. Your respected parent is immensely popular in
+Boston society, and its cordiality and unaffected heartiness
+are charming. I wish I could carry it with me.</p>
+
+<p>The leading New York papers have sent men over for
+to-morrow night with instructions to telegraph columns of
+descriptions. Great excitement and expectation everywhere.
+Fields says he has looked forward to it so long that he knows
+he will die at five minutes to eight.</p>
+
+<p>At the New York barriers, where the tickets are on sale
+and the people ranged as at the Paris theatres, speculators
+went up and down offering "twenty dollars for anybody's
+place." The money was in no case accepted. One man sold
+two tickets for the second, third, and fourth night for "one
+ticket for the first, fifty dollars" (about seven pounds ten
+shillings), "and a brandy cocktail," which is an iced bitter
+drink. The weather has been rather muggy and languid
+until yesterday, when there was the coldest wind blowing
+that I ever felt. In the night it froze very hard, and to-day
+the sky is beautiful.</p>
+
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<i>Tuesday, Dec. 3rd.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<p>Most magnificent reception last night, and most signal
+and complete success. Nothing could be more triumphant.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_315" id="Page_315">[315]</a></span>
+The people will hear of nothing else and talk of nothing
+else. Nothing that was ever done here, they all agree,
+evoked any approach to such enthusiasm. I was quite as
+cool and quick as if I were reading at Greenwich, and went
+at it accordingly. Tell your aunt, with my best love, that
+I have this morning received hers of the 21st, and that I
+will write to her next. That will be from New York. My
+love to Mr. and Mrs. Hulkes and the boy, and to Mr. and
+Mrs. Malleson.<a name="FNanchor_18_18" id="FNanchor_18_18"></a><a href="#Footnote_18_18" class="fnanchor">[18]</a></p>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Miss
+Hogarth.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Boston</span>, <i>Wednesday, Dec. 4th, 1867.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<p>I find that by going off to the <i>Cuba</i> myself this morning
+I can send you the enclosed for Mary Boyle (I don't know
+how to address her), whose usual flower for my button-hole
+was produced in the most extraordinary manner here last
+Monday night! All well and prosperous. "Copperfield"
+and "Bob" last night; great success.</p>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Miss Mary
+Boyle.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Boston</span>, <i>December 4th, 1867.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='unindent'><span class='smcap'>My dear Meery</span>,</div>
+
+<p>You can have no idea of the glow of pleasure and
+amazement with which I saw your remembrance of me
+lying on my dressing-table here last Monday night. Whosoever
+undertook that commission accomplished it to a
+miracle. But you must go away four thousand miles, and
+have such a token conveyed to <i>you</i>, before you can quite
+appreciate the feeling of receiving it. Ten thousand loving
+thanks.</p>
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_316" id="Page_316">[316]</a></span></p>
+<p>Immense success here, and unbounded enthusiasm. My
+largest expectations far surpassed.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+<span style="margin-right: 2em;">Ever your affectionate</span><br />
+Jo.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Miss
+Dickens.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span style="margin-right: 2em;"><span class="smcap">Westminster Hotel, Irving Place, New York City</span>,</span><br />
+<i>Wednesday, Dec 11th, 1867.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<p>Amazing success here. A very fine audience; <i>far better
+than that at Boston</i>. Great reception. Great, "Carol" and
+"Trial," on the first night; still greater, "Copperfield"
+and "Bob," on the second. Dolby sends you a few papers
+by this post. You will see from their tone what a success
+it is.</p>
+
+<p>I cannot pay this letter, because I give it at the latest
+moment to the mail-officer, who is going on board the
+Cunard packet in charge of the mails, and who is staying
+in this house. We are now selling (at the hall) the tickets
+for the four readings of next week. At nine o'clock this
+morning there were two thousand people in waiting, and
+they had begun to assemble in the bitter cold as early as
+two o'clock. All night long Dolby and our man have been
+stamping tickets. (Immediately over my head, by-the-bye,
+and keeping me awake.) This hotel is quite as quiet as
+Mivart's, in Brook Street. It is not very much larger.
+There are American hotels close by, with five hundred bedrooms,
+and I don't know how many boarders; but this is
+conducted on what is called "the European principle," and
+is an admirable mixture of a first-class French and English
+house. I keep a very smart carriage and pair; and if you
+were to behold me driving out, furred up to the moustache,
+with furs on the coach-boy and on the driver, and with an<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_317" id="Page_317">[317]</a></span>
+immense white, red, and yellow striped rug for a covering,
+you would suppose me to be of Hungarian or Polish
+nationality.</p>
+
+<p>Will you report the success here to Mr. Forster with my
+love, and tell him he shall hear from me by next mail?</p>
+
+<p>Dolby sends his kindest regards. He is just come in
+from our ticket sales, and has put such an immense untidy
+heap of paper money on the table that it looks like a family
+wash. He hardly ever dines, and is always tearing about
+at unreasonable hours. He works very hard.</p>
+
+<p>My best love to your aunt (to whom I will write next),
+and to Katie, and to both the Charleys, and all the Christmas
+circle, not forgetting Chorley, to whom give my special
+remembrance. You may get this by Christmas Day. <i>We</i>
+shall have to keep it travelling from Boston here; for I
+read at Boston on the 23rd and 24th, and here again on
+the 26th.</p>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Miss
+Hogarth.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span style="margin-right: 2em;"><span class="smcap">Westminster Hotel, Irving Place, New York City</span>,</span><br />
+<i>Monday, Dec. 16th, 1867.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<p>We have been snowed up here, and the communication
+with Boston is still very much retarded. Thus we have
+received no letters by the Cunard steamer that came in last
+Wednesday, and are in a grim state of mind on that
+subject.</p>
+
+<p>Last night I was getting into bed just at twelve o'clock,
+when Dolby came to my door to inform me that the house
+was on fire (I had previously smelt fire for two hours). I
+got Scott up directly, told him to pack the books and
+clothes for the readings first, dressed, and pocketed my
+jewels and papers, while Dolby stuffed himself out with
+money. Meanwhile the police and firemen were in the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_318" id="Page_318">[318]</a></span>
+house, endeavouring to find where the fire was. For some
+time it baffled their endeavours, but at last, bursting out
+through some stairs, they cut the stairs away, and traced it
+to its source in a certain fire-grate. By this time the hose
+was laid all through the house from a great tank on the
+roof, and everybody turned out to help. It was the oddest
+sight, and people had put the strangest things on! After
+a little chopping and cutting with axes and handing about
+of water, the fire was confined to a dining-room in which it
+had originated, and then everybody talked to everybody
+else, the ladies being particularly loquacious and cheerful.
+And so we got to bed again at about two.</p>
+
+<p>The excitement of the readings continues unabated, the
+tickets for readings are sold as soon as they are ready, and
+the public pay treble prices to the speculators who buy
+them up. They are a wonderfully fine audience, even
+better than Edinburgh, and almost, if not quite, as good as
+Paris.</p>
+
+<p>Dolby continues to be the most unpopular man in
+America (mainly because he can't get four thousand people
+into a room that holds two thousand), and is reviled in print
+daily. Yesterday morning a newspaper proclaims of him:
+"Surely it is time that the pudding-headed Dolby retired
+into the native gloom from which he has emerged." He
+takes it very coolly, and does his best. Mrs. Morgan sent
+me, the other night, I suppose the finest and costliest basket
+of flowers ever seen, made of white camellias, yellow roses,
+pink roses, and I don't know what else. It is a yard and a
+half round at its smallest part.</p>
+
+<p>I must bring this to a close, as I have to go to the hall
+to try an enlarged background.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_319" id="Page_319">[319]</a></span></p>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Miss
+Hogarth.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Boston</span>, <i>Sunday, Dec. 22nd, 1867.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<p>Coming here from New York last night (after a detestable
+journey), I was delighted to find your letter of the 6th.
+I read it at my ten o'clock dinner with the greatest interest
+and pleasure, and then we talked of home till we went to
+bed.</p>
+
+<p>Our tour is now being made out, and I hope to be able
+to send it in my next letter home, which will be to Mamie,
+from whom I have <i>not</i> heard (as you thought I had) by the
+mail that brought out yours. After very careful consideration
+I have reversed Dolby's original plan, and have decided
+on taking Baltimore, Washington, Cincinnati, <i>Chicago</i> (!),
+St. Louis, and a few other places nearer here, instead of
+staying in New York. My reason is that we are doing
+immensely, both at New York and here, and that I am sure
+it is in the peculiar character of the people to prize a thing
+the more the less easily attainable it is made. Therefore, I
+want, by absence, to get the greatest rush and pressure upon
+the five farewell readings in New York in April. All our
+announced readings are already crammed.</p>
+
+<p>When we got here last Saturday night, we found that
+Mrs. Fields had not only garnished the rooms with flowers,
+but also with holly (with real red berries) and festoons of
+moss dependent from the looking-glasses and picture
+frames. She is one of the dearest little women in the
+world. The homely Christmas look of the place quite
+affected us. Yesterday we dined at her house, and there
+was a plum-pudding, brought on blazing, and not to be
+surpassed in any house in England. There is a certain
+Captain Dolliver, belonging to the Boston Custom House,
+who came off in the little steamer that brought me ashore<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_320" id="Page_320">[320]</a></span>
+from the <i>Cuba</i>. He took it into his head that he would
+have a piece of English mistletoe brought out in this
+week's Cunard, which should be laid upon my breakfast-table.
+And there it was this morning. In such affectionate
+touches as this, these New England people are especially
+amiable.</p>
+
+<p>As a general rule, you may lay it down that whatever
+you see about me in the papers is not true. But although
+my voyage out was of that highly hilarious description that
+you first made known to me, you may <i>generally</i> lend a
+more believing ear to the Philadelphia correspondent of
+<i>The Times</i>. I don't know him, but I know the source
+from which he derives his information, and it is a very
+respectable one.</p>
+
+<p>Did I tell you in a former letter from here, to tell Anne,
+with her old master's love, that I had seen Putnam, my old
+secretary? Grey, and with several front teeth out, but I
+would have known him anywhere. He is coming to
+"Copperfield" to-night, accompanied by his wife and
+daughter, and is in the seventh heaven at having his tickets
+given him.</p>
+
+<p>Our hotel in New York was on fire <i>again</i> the other
+night. But fires in this country are quite matters of course.
+There was a large one there at four this morning, and I
+don't think a single night has passed since I have been
+under the protection of the Eagle, but I have heard the fire
+bells dolefully clanging all over the city.</p>
+
+<p>Dolby sends his kindest regard. His hair has become
+quite white, the effect, I suppose, of the climate. He is so
+universally hauled over the coals (for no reason on earth),
+that I fully expect to hear him, one of these nights, assailed
+with a howl when he precedes me to the platform steps.
+You may conceive what the low newspapers are here, when<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_321" id="Page_321">[321]</a></span>
+one of them yesterday morning had, as an item of news,
+the intelligence: "Dickens's Readings. The chap calling
+himself Dolby got drunk last night, and was locked up in a
+police-station for fighting an Irishman." I don't find that
+anybody is shocked by this liveliness.</p>
+
+<p>My love to all, and to Mrs. Hulkes and the boy. By-the-bye,
+when we left New York for this place, Dolby called
+my amazed attention to the circumstance that Scott was
+leaning his head against the side of the carriage and weeping
+bitterly. I asked him what was the matter, and he replied:
+"The owdacious treatment of the luggage, which was more
+outrageous than a man could bear." I told him not to make
+a fool of himself; but they do knock it about cruelly. I
+think every trunk we have is already broken.</p>
+
+<p>I must leave off, as I am going out for a walk in a bright
+sunlight and a complete break-up of the frost and snow. I
+am much better than I have been during the last week, but
+have a cold.</p>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Miss
+Dickens.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span style="margin-right: 2em;"><span class="smcap">Westminster Hotel, Irving Place, New York City</span>,</span><br />
+<i>Thursday, Dec. 26th, 1867.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<p>I got your aunt's last letter at Boston yesterday,
+Christmas Day morning, when I was starting at eleven
+o'clock to come back to this place. I wanted it very much,
+for I had a frightful cold (English colds are nothing to those
+of this country), and was exceedingly depressed and miserable.
+Not that I had any reason but illness for being so,
+since the Bostonians had been quite astounding in their
+demonstrations. I never saw anything like them on
+Christmas Eve. But it is a bad country to be unwell<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_322" id="Page_322">[322]</a></span>
+and travelling in; you are one of say a hundred people
+in a heated car, with a great stove in it, and all the little
+windows closed, and the hurrying and banging about are
+indescribable. The atmosphere is detestable, and the
+motion often all but intolerable. However, we got our
+dinner here at eight o'clock, and plucked up a little, and
+I made some hot gin punch to drink a merry Christmas
+to all at home in. But it must be confessed that we were
+both very dull. I have been in bed all day until two
+o'clock, and here I am now (at three o'clock) a little better.
+But I am not fit to read, and I must read to-night. After
+watching the general character pretty closely, I became
+quite sure that Dolby was wrong on the length of the stay
+and the number of readings we had proposed in this place.
+I am quite certain that it is one of the national peculiarities
+that what they want must be difficult of attainment. I
+therefore a few days ago made a <i>coup d'&eacute;tat</i>, and altered
+the whole scheme. We shall go to Philadelphia, Baltimore,
+Washington, also some New England towns between Boston
+and this place, away to the falls of Niagara, and off far
+west to Chicago and St. Louis, before coming back for ten
+farewell readings here, preceded by farewells at Boston,
+leaving Canada altogether. This will not prolong the list
+beyond eighty-four readings, the exact original number,
+and will, please God, work it all out in April. In my next,
+I daresay, I shall be able to send the exact list, so that you
+may know every day where we are. There has been a
+great storm here for a few days, and the streets, though
+wet, are becoming passable again. Dolby and Osgood are
+out in it to-day on a variety of business, and left in grave
+and solemn state. Scott and the gasman are stricken with
+dumb concern, not having received one single letter from
+home since they left. What their wives can have done with<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_323" id="Page_323">[323]</a></span>
+the letters they take it for granted they have written, is
+their stormy speculation at the door of my hall dressing-room
+every night.</p>
+
+<p>If I do not send a letter to Katie by this mail, it will be
+because I shall probably be obliged to go across the water
+to Brooklyn to-morrow to see a church, in which it is proposed
+that I shall read!!! Horrible visions of being put in
+the pulpit already beset me. And whether the audience
+will be in pews is another consideration which greatly disturbs
+my mind. No paper ever comes out without a leader
+on Dolby, who of course reads them all, and never can
+understand why I don't, in which he is called all the bad
+names in (and not in) the language.</p>
+
+<p>We always call him P. H. Dolby now, in consequence of
+one of these graceful specimens of literature describing him
+as the "pudding-headed."</p>
+
+<p>I fear that when we travel he will have to be always
+before me, so that I may not see him six times in as many
+weeks. However, I shall have done a fourth of the whole
+this very next week!</p>
+
+<p>Best love to your aunt, and the boys, and Katie, and
+Charley, and all true friends.</p>
+
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<i>Friday.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<p>I managed to read last night, but it was as much as I
+could do. To-day I am so very unwell, that I have sent for
+a doctor; he has just been, and is in doubt whether I shall
+not have to stop reading for a while.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_324" id="Page_324">[324]</a></span></p>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Miss
+Dickens.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span style="margin-right: 2em;"><span class="smcap">Westminster Hotel, Irving Place, New York</span>,</span><br />
+<i>Monday, Dec. 30th, 1867.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<p>I am getting all right again. I have not been well,
+been very low, and have been obliged to have a doctor; a
+very agreeable fellow indeed, who soon turned out to be an
+old friend of Olliffe's.<a name="FNanchor_19_19" id="FNanchor_19_19"></a><a href="#Footnote_19_19" class="fnanchor">[19]</a> He has set me on my legs and taken
+his leave "professionally," though he means to give me a
+call now and then.</p>
+
+<p>In the library at Gad's is a bound book, "Remarkable
+Criminal Trials," translated by Lady Duff Gordon, from
+the original by Fauerbach. I want that book, and a
+copy of Praed's poems, to be sent out to Boston, care of
+Ticknor and Fields. If you will give the "Criminal
+Trials" to Wills, and explain my wish, and ask him to buy
+a copy of Praed's poems and add it to the parcel, he will
+know how to send the packet out. I think the "Criminal
+Trials" book is in the corner book-case, by the window,
+opposite the door.</p>
+
+<p>No news here. All going on in the regular way. I
+read in that church I told you of, about the middle of
+January. It is wonderfully seated for two thousand people,
+and is as easy to speak in as if they were two hundred.
+The people are seated in pews, and we let the pews. I stood
+on a small platform from which the pulpit will be removed
+for the occasion!! I emerge from the vestry!!! Philadelphia,
+Baltimore, and another two nights in Boston will
+follow this coming month of January. On Friday next I
+shall have read a fourth of my whole list, besides having
+had twelve days' holiday when I first came out. So please
+God I shall soon get to the half, and so begin to work
+hopefully round.</p>
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_325" id="Page_325">[325]</a></span></p>
+<p>I suppose you were at the Adelphi on Thursday night
+last. They are pirating the bill as well as the play here,
+everywhere. I have registered the play as the property of
+an American citizen, but the law is by no means clear that
+I established a right in it by so doing; and of course the
+pirates knew very well that I could not, under existing circumstances,
+try the question with them in an American
+court of law. Nothing is being played here scarcely that is
+not founded on my books&mdash;"Cricket," "Oliver Twist,"
+"Our Mutual Friend," and I don't know what else, every
+night. I can't get down Broadway for my own portrait;
+and yet I live almost as quietly in this hotel, as if I were at
+the office, and go in and out by a side door just as I might
+there.</p>
+
+<p>I go back to Boston on Saturday to read there on
+Monday and Tuesday. Then I am back here, and keep within
+six or seven hours' journey of hereabouts till February.
+My further movements shall be duly reported as the details
+are arranged.</p>
+
+<p>I shall be curious to know who were at Gad's Hill on
+Christmas Day, and how you (as they say in this country)
+"got along." It is exceedingly cold here again, after two
+or three quite spring days.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>1868.</h2>
+
+<h3>NARRATIVE.</h3>
+
+
+<div class='unindent'><span class='smcap'>Charles Dickens</span> remained in America through the winter,
+returning home from New York in the <i>Russia</i>, on the 19th
+of April. His letters show how entirely he gave himself up
+to the business of the readings, how severely his health<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_326" id="Page_326">[326]</a></span>
+suffered from the climate, and from the perpetual travelling
+and hard work, and yet how he was able to battle through
+to the end. These letters are also full of allusions to the
+many kind and dear friends who contributed so largely to
+the pleasure of this American visit, and whose love and
+attention gave a touch of <i>home</i> to his private life, and left
+such affection and gratitude in his heart as he could never
+forget. Many of these friends paid visits to Gad's Hill; the
+first to come during this summer being Mr. Longfellow,
+his daughters, and Mr. Appleton, brother-in-law of Mr.
+Longfellow, and Mr. and Mrs. Charles Eliot Norton, of
+Cambridge.</div>
+
+<p>For the future, there were to be no more Christmas
+numbers of "All the Year Round." Observing the extent
+to which they were now copied in all directions, Charles
+Dickens supposed them likely to become tiresome to the
+public, and so determined that in his journal they should
+be discontinued.</p>
+
+<p>While still in America, he made an agreement with the
+Messrs. Chappell to give a series of farewell readings in
+England, to commence in the autumn of this year. So, in
+October, Charles Dickens started off again for a tour in the
+provinces. He had for some time been planning, by way of
+a novelty for this series, a reading from the murder in
+"Oliver Twist," but finding it so very horrible, he was
+fearful of trying its effect for the first time on a public
+audience. It was therefore resolved, that a trial of it
+should be made to a limited private audience in St. James's
+Hall, on the evening of the 18th of November. This trial
+proved eminently successful, and "The Murder from Oliver
+Twist" became one of the most popular of his selections.
+But the physical exertion it involved was far greater than
+that of any of his previous readings, and added immensely
+to the excitement and exhaustion which they caused him.</p>
+
+<p>One of the first letters of the year from America is
+addressed to Mr. Samuel Cartwright, of surgical and
+artistic reputation, and greatly esteemed by Charles Dickens,
+both in his professional capacity and as a private friend.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_327" id="Page_327">[327]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The letter written to Mrs. Cattermole, in May, tells of
+the illness of Mr. George Cattermole. This dear old friend,
+so associated with Charles Dickens and his works, died soon
+afterwards, and the letter to his widow shows that Charles
+Dickens was exerting himself in her behalf.</p>
+
+<p>The play of "No Thoroughfare" having been translated
+into French under the title of "L'Ab&icirc;me," Charles Dickens
+went over to Paris to be present at the first night of its
+production.</p>
+
+<p>On the 26th of September, his youngest son, Edward
+Bulwer Lytton (the "Plorn" so often mentioned), started
+for Australia, to join his brother Alfred Tennyson, who was
+already established there. It will be seen by his own words
+how deeply and how sadly Charles Dickens felt this parting.
+In October of this year, his son Henry Fielding entered
+Trinity Hall, Cambridge, as an undergraduate.</p>
+
+<p>The Miss Forster mentioned in the letter to his sister-in-law,
+and for whom the kind and considerate arrangements
+were suggested, was a sister of Mr. John Forster, and a
+lady highly esteemed by Charles Dickens. The illness from
+which she was then suffering was a fatal one. She died in
+this same year, a few days before Christmas.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. J. C. Parkinson, to whom a letter is addressed,
+was a gentleman holding a Government appointment, and
+contributing largely to journalism and periodical literature.</p>
+
+<p>As our last letter for this year, we give one which
+Charles Dickens wrote to his youngest son on his departure
+for Australia.</p>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Miss
+Hogarth.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span style="margin-right: 2em;"><span class="smcap">Westminster Hotel, Irving Place, New York</span>,</span><br />
+<i>Friday, Jan. 3rd, 1868.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='unindent'><span class='smcap'>My dearest Georgy</span>,</div>
+
+<p>I received yours of the 19th from Gad's and the office
+this morning. I read here to-night, and go back to Boston
+to-morrow, to read there Monday and Tuesday.</p>
+
+<p>To-night, I read out the first quarter of my list. Our<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_328" id="Page_328">[328]</a></span>
+houses have been very fine here, but have never quite recovered
+the Dolby uproar. It seems impossible to devise
+any scheme for getting the tickets into the people's hands
+without the intervention of speculators. The people <i>will
+not</i> help themselves; and, of course, the speculators and all
+other such prowlers throw as great obstacles in Dolby's way
+(an Englishman's) as they possibly can. He may be a little
+injudicious into the bargain. Last night, for instance, he
+met one of the "ushers" (who show people to their seats)
+coming in with Kelly. It is against orders that anyone employed
+in front should go out during the readings, and he
+took this man to task in the British manner. Instantly the
+free and independent usher put on his hat and walked off.
+Seeing which, all the other free and independent ushers (some
+twenty in number) put on <i>their</i> hats and walked off, leaving
+us absolutely devoid and destitute of a staff for to-night.
+One has since been improvised; but it was a small matter
+to raise a stir and ill will about, especially as one of our men
+was equally in fault.</p>
+
+<p>We have a regular clerk, a Bostonian whose name is
+Wild. He, Osgood, Dolby, Kelly, Scott, George the gasman,
+and perhaps a boy or two, constitute my body-guard.
+It seems a large number of people, but the business cannot
+be done with fewer. The speculators buying the front seats
+to sell at a premium (and we have found instances of this
+being done by merchants in good position!), and the public
+perpetually pitching into Dolby for selling them back seats,
+the result is that they won't have the back seats, send back
+their tickets, write and print volumes on the subject, and
+deter others from coming.</p>
+
+<p>You may get an idea of the staff's work, by what is in
+hand now. They are preparing, numbering, and stamping
+six thousand tickets for Philadelphia, and eight thousand<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_329" id="Page_329">[329]</a></span>
+tickets for Brooklyn. The moment those are done,
+another eight thousand tickets will be wanted for Baltimore,
+and probably another six thousand for Washington.
+This in addition to the correspondence, advertisements,
+accounts, travellings, and the mighty business of the reading
+four times a week.</p>
+
+<p>The Cunard steamers being now removed from Halifax,
+I have decided <i>not</i> to go there, or to St. John's, New
+Brunswick. And as there would be a perfect uproar if I
+picked out such a place in Canada as Quebec or Montreal,
+and excluded those two places (which would guarantee
+three hundred pounds a night), and further, as I don't want
+places, having more than enough for my list of eighty-four,
+I have finally resolved not to go to Canada either. This
+will enable me to embark for home in April instead of
+May.</p>
+
+<p>Tell Plorn, with my love, that I think he will find himself
+much interested at that college,<a name="FNanchor_20_20" id="FNanchor_20_20"></a><a href="#Footnote_20_20" class="fnanchor">[20]</a> and that it is very likely
+he may make some acquaintances there that will thereafter
+be pleasant and useful to him. Sir Sydney Dacres is the
+best of friends. I have a letter from Mrs. Hulkes by this
+post, wherein the boy encloses a violet, now lying on the
+table before me. Let her know that it arrived safely, and
+retaining its colour. I took it for granted that Mary would
+have asked Chorley for Christmas Day, and am very glad
+she ultimately did so. I am sorry that Harry lost his prize,
+but believe it was not his fault. Let <i>him</i> know <i>that</i>, with
+my love. I would have written to him by this mail in answer
+to his, but for other occupation. Did I tell you that my
+landlord made me a drink (brandy, rum, and snow the
+principal ingredients) called a "Rocky Mountain sneezer"?
+Or that the favourite drink before you get up is an "eye-opener"?<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_330" id="Page_330">[330]</a></span>
+Or that Roberts (second landlord), no sooner
+saw me on the night of the first fire, than, with his property
+blazing, he insisted on taking me down into a roomful of hot
+smoke to drink brandy and water with him? We have not
+been on fire again, by-the-bye, more than once.</p>
+
+<p>There has been another fall of snow, succeeded by a
+heavy thaw. I have laid down my sledge, and taken up my
+carriage again, in consequence. I am nearly all right, but
+cannot get rid of an intolerable cold in the head. No more
+news.</p>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Miss
+Hogarth.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Parker House, Boston, U.S.</span>, <i>Jan. 4th, 1868.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<p>I write to you by this opportunity, though I really have
+nothing to tell you. The work is hard and the climate is
+hard. We made a tremendous hit last night with "Nickleby"
+and "Boots," which the Bostonians certainly on the whole
+appreciate more than "Copperfield"! Dolby is always going
+about with an immense bundle that looks like a sofa cushion,
+but it is in reality paper money; and always works like a
+Trojan. His business at night is a mere nothing, for these
+people are so accustomed to take care of themselves, that
+one of these immense audiences will fall into their places
+with an ease amazing to a frequenter of St. James's Hall.
+And the certainty with which they are all in, before I go
+on, is a very acceptable mark of respect. I must add, too,
+that although there is a conventional familiarity in the use
+of one's name in the newspapers as "Dickens," "Charlie,"
+and what not, I do not in the least see that familiarity in
+the writers themselves. An inscrutable tone obtains in
+journalism, which a stranger cannot understand. If I say
+in common courtesy to one of them, when Dolby introduces,
+"I am much obliged to you for your interest in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_331" id="Page_331">[331]</a></span>
+me," or so forth, he seems quite shocked, and has a bearing
+of perfect modesty and propriety. I am rather inclined to
+think that they suppose their printed tone to be the public's
+love of smartness, but it is immensely difficult to make out.
+All I can as yet make out is, that my perfect freedom
+from bondage, and at any moment to go on or leave off,
+or otherwise do as I like, is the only safe position to
+occupy.</p>
+
+<p>Again; there are two apparently irreconcilable contrasts
+here. Down below in this hotel every night are the bar
+loungers, dram drinkers, drunkards, swaggerers, loafers,
+that one might find in a Boucicault play. Within half an
+hour is Cambridge, where a delightful domestic life&mdash;simple,
+self-respectful, cordial, and affectionate&mdash;is seen in
+an admirable aspect. All New England is primitive and
+puritanical. All about and around it is a puddle of mixed
+human mud, with no such quality in it. Perhaps I may in
+time sift out some tolerably intelligible whole, but I certainly
+have not done so yet. It is a good sign, may be, that it all
+seems immensely more difficult to understand than it was
+when I was here before.</p>
+
+<p>Felton left two daughters. I have only seen the eldest,
+a very sensible, frank, pleasant girl of eight-and-twenty,
+perhaps, rather like him in the face. A striking-looking
+daughter of Hawthorn's (who is also dead) came into my
+room last night. The day has slipped on to three o'clock,
+and I must get up "Dombey" for to-night. Hence this
+sudden break off. Best love to Mamie, and to Katie and
+Charley Collins.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_332" id="Page_332">[332]</a></span></p>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mr. W.
+Wilkie
+Collins.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Westminster Hotel, New York</span>, <i>Sunday, Jan. 12th, 1868.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='unindent'><span class='smcap'>My dear Wilkie</span>,</div>
+
+<p>First, of the play.<a name="FNanchor_21_21" id="FNanchor_21_21"></a><a href="#Footnote_21_21" class="fnanchor">[21]</a> I am truly delighted to learn
+that it made so great a success, and I hope I may yet
+see it on the Adelphi boards. You have had a world
+of trouble and work with it, but I hope will be repaid
+in some degree by the pleasure of a triumph. Even for
+the alteration at the end of the fourth act (of which you
+tell me in your letter received yesterday), I was fully prepared,
+for I <span class="smcap">could not</span> see the original effect in the reading
+of the play, and <span class="smcap">could not</span> make it go. I agree with
+Webster in thinking it best that Obenreizer should die on
+the stage; but no doubt that point is disposed of. In reading
+the play before the representation, I felt that it was too
+long, and that there was a good deal of unnecessary explanation.
+Those points are, no doubt, disposed of too by
+this time.</p>
+
+<p>We shall do nothing with it on this side. Pirates are
+producing their own wretched versions in all directions,
+thus (as Wills would say) anticipating and glutting "the
+market." I registered one play as the property of Ticknor
+and Fields, American citizens. But, besides that the law
+on the point is extremely doubtful, the manager of the
+Museum Theatre, Boston, instantly announced his version.
+(You may suppose what it is and how it is done, when I tell
+you that it was playing within ten days of the arrival out
+of the Christmas number.) Thereupon, Ticknor and Fields
+gave him notice that he mustn't play it. Unto which he
+replied, that he meant to play it and would play it. Of
+course he knew very well that if an injunction were applied
+for against him, there would be an immediate howl against<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_333" id="Page_333">[333]</a></span>
+my persecution of an innocent, and he played it. Then
+the noble host of pirates rushed in, and it is being done,
+in some mangled form or other, everywhere.</p>
+
+<p>It touches me to read what you write of your poor mother.
+But, of course, at her age, each winter counts heavily. Do
+give her my love, and tell her that I asked you about her.</p>
+
+<p>I am going on here at the same great rate, but am
+always counting the days that lie between me and home. I
+got through the first fourth of my readings on Friday,
+January 3rd. I leave for two readings at Philadelphia
+this evening.</p>
+
+<p>Being at Boston last Sunday, I took it into my head to
+go over the medical school, and survey the holes and corners
+in which that extraordinary murder was done by Webster.
+There was the furnace&mdash;stinking horribly, as if the dismembered
+pieces were still inside it&mdash;and there are all the
+grim spouts, and sinks, and chemical appliances, and what
+not. At dinner, afterwards, Longfellow told me a terrific
+story. He dined with Webster within a year of the murder,
+one of a party of ten or twelve. As they sat at their wine,
+Webster suddenly ordered the lights to be turned out, and
+a bowl of some burning mineral to be placed on the table,
+that the guests might see how ghostly it made them look.
+As each man stared at all the rest in the weird light, all
+were horrified to see Webster <i>with a rope round his neck</i>,
+holding it up, over the bowl, with his head jerked on one
+side, and his tongue lolled out, representing a man being
+hanged!</p>
+
+<p>Poking into his life and character, I find (what I would
+have staked my head upon) that he was always a cruel man.</p>
+
+<p>So no more at present from,</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+My dear Wilkie, yours ever affectionately.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_334" id="Page_334">[334]</a></span></p>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Miss
+Hogarth.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Westminster Hotel, New York</span>, <i>Sunday, Jan. 12th, 1868.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<p>As I am off to Philadelphia this evening, I may as well
+post my letter here. I have scarcely a word of news. My
+cold steadily refuses to leave me; but otherwise I am as
+right as one can hope to be under this heavy work. My
+New York readings are over (except four farewell nights in
+April), and I look forward to the relief of being out of
+my hardest hall. Last Friday night, though it was only
+"Nickleby" and "Boots," I was again dead beat at the
+end, and was once more laid upon a sofa. But the faintness
+went off after a little while. We have now cold,
+bright, frosty weather, without snow&mdash;the best weather
+for me.</p>
+
+<p>Having been in great trepidation about the play, I am
+correspondingly elated by the belief that it really <i>is</i> a success.
+No doubt the unnecessary explanations will have been taken
+out, and the flatness of the last act fetched up. At some
+points I could have done wonders to it, in the way of
+screwing it up sharply and picturesquely, if I could have
+rehearsed it. Your account of the first night interested me
+immensely, but I was afraid to open the letter until Dolby
+rushed in with the opened <i>Times</i>.</p>
+
+<p>On Wednesday I come back here for my four church
+readings at Brooklyn. Each evening an enormous ferryboat
+will convey me and my state carriage (not to mention
+half-a-dozen waggons, and any number of people, and a few
+score of horses) across the river, and will bring me back
+again. The sale of tickets there was an amazing scene.
+The noble army of speculators are now furnished (this is
+literally true, and I am quite serious), each man with a straw
+mattress, a little bag of bread and meat, two blankets, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_335" id="Page_335">[335]</a></span>
+a bottle of whisky. With this outfit <i>they lie down in line
+on the pavement</i> the whole night before the tickets are sold,
+generally taking up their position at about ten. It being
+severely cold at Brooklyn, they made an immense bonfire in
+the street&mdash;a narrow street of wooden houses!&mdash;which the
+police turned out to extinguish. A general fight then took
+place, out of which the people farthest off in the line rushed
+bleeding when they saw a chance of displacing others near
+the door, and put their mattresses in those places, and then
+held on by the iron rails. At eight in the morning Dolby
+appeared with the tickets in a portmanteau. He was
+immediately saluted with a roar of "Halloa, Dolby! So
+Charley has let you have the carriage, has he, Dolby!
+How is he, Dolby! Don't drop the tickets, Dolby! Look
+alive, Dolby!" etc. etc. etc., in the midst of which he
+proceeded to business, and concluded (as usual) by giving
+universal dissatisfaction.</p>
+
+<p>He is now going off upon a little journey "to look over
+the ground and cut back again." This little journey (to
+Chicago) is fifteen hundred miles on end, by railway, and
+back again!</p>
+
+<p>We have an excellent gasman, who is well up to that
+department. We have enlarged the large staff by another
+clerk, yet even now the preparation of such an immense
+number of new tickets constantly, and the keeping and
+checking of the accounts, keep them hard at it. And they
+get so oddly divided! Kelly is at Philadelphia, another
+man at Baltimore, two others are stamping tickets at the
+top of this house, another is cruising over New England,
+and Osgood will come on duty to-morrow (when Dolby
+starts off) to pick me up after the reading, and take me to
+the hotel, and mount guard over me, and bring me back
+here. You see that even such wretched domesticity as<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_336" id="Page_336">[336]</a></span>
+Dolby and self by a fireside is broken up under these
+conditions.</p>
+
+<p>Dolby has been twice poisoned, and Osgood once.
+Morgan's sharpness has discovered the cause. When the
+snow is deep upon the ground, and the partridges cannot
+get their usual food, they eat something (I don't know
+what, if anybody does) which does not poison <i>them</i>, but
+which poisons the people who eat them. The symptoms,
+which last some twelve hours, are violent sickness, cold
+perspiration, and the formation of some detestable mucus in
+the stomach. You may infer that partridges have been
+banished from our bill of fare. The appearance of our
+sufferers was lamentable in the extreme.</p>
+
+<p>Did I tell you that the severity of the weather, and the
+heat of the intolerable furnaces, dry the hair and break the
+nails of strangers? There is not a complete nail in the
+whole British suite, and my hair cracks again when I brush
+it. (I am losing my hair with great rapidity, and what I
+don't lose is getting very grey.)</p>
+
+<p>The <i>Cuba</i> will bring this. She has a jolly new captain&mdash;Moody,
+of the <i>Java</i>&mdash;and her people rushed into the
+reading, the other night, captain-headed, as if I were their
+peculiar property. Please God I shall come home in her,
+in my old cabin; leaving here on the 22nd of April, and
+finishing my eighty-fourth reading on the previous night!
+It is likely enough that I shall read and go straight on
+board.</p>
+
+<p>I think this is all my poor stock of intelligence. By-the-bye,
+on the last Sunday in the old year, I lost my old
+year's pocket-book, "which," as Mr. Pepys would add,
+"do trouble me mightily." Give me Katie's new address;
+I haven't got it.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_337" id="Page_337">[337]</a></span></p>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Miss
+Dickens.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Philadelphia</span>, <i>Monday, Jan. 13th, 1868.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<p>I write you this note, a day later than your aunt's,
+not because I have anything to add to the little I have told
+her, but because you may like to have it.</p>
+
+<p>We arrived here last night towards twelve o'clock, more
+than an hour after our time. This is one of the immense
+American hotels (it is called the Continental); but I find
+myself just as quiet here as elsewhere. Everything is very
+good indeed, the waiter is German, and the greater part
+of the house servants seem to be coloured people. The
+town is very clean, and the day as blue and bright as a fine
+Italian day. But it freezes very hard. All the tickets
+being sold here for six nights (three visits of two nights
+each), the suite complain of want of excitement already,
+having been here ten hours! Mr. and Mrs. Barney
+Williams, with a couple of servants, and a pretty little
+child-daughter, were in the train each night, and I talked
+with them a good deal. They are reported to have made
+an enormous fortune by acting among the Californian
+gold-diggers. My cold is no better, for the cars are so
+intolerably hot, that I was often obliged to go and stand
+upon the break outside, and then the frosty air was biting
+indeed. The great man of this place is one Mr. Childs, a
+newspaper proprietor, and he is so exactly like Mr. Esse in
+all conceivable respects except being an inch or so taller,
+that I was quite confounded when I saw him waiting for me
+at the station (always called dep&ocirc;t here) with his carriage.
+During the last two or three days, Dolby and I have been
+making up accounts, which are excellently kept by Mr.
+Osgood, and I find them amazing, quite, in their results.</p>
+
+<p>I was very much interested in the home accounts of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_338" id="Page_338">[338]</a></span>
+Christmas Day. I think I have already mentioned that we
+were in very low spirits on that day. I began to be unwell
+with my cold that morning, and a long day's travel did not
+mend the matter. We scarcely spoke (except when we ate
+our lunch), and sat dolefully staring out of window. I had
+a few affectionate words from Chorley, dated from my room,
+on Christmas morning, and will write him, probably by this
+mail, a brief acknowledgment. I find it necessary (so
+oppressed am I with this American catarrh, as they call it)
+to dine at three o'clock instead of four, that I may have
+more time to get voice, so that the days are cut short, and
+letter-writing is not easy.</p>
+
+<p>My best love to Katie, and to Charley, and to our
+Charley, and to all friends. If I could only get to the point
+of being able to hold my head up and dispense with my
+pocket-handkerchief for five minutes, I should be all right.</p>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mr.
+Charles
+Dickens.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span style="margin-right: 2em;"><span class="smcap">Westminster Hotel, Irving Place, New York</span>,</span><br />
+<i>Wednesday, Jan. 15th, 1868.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='unindent'><span class='smcap'>My dear Charley</span>,</div>
+
+<p>Finding your letter here this afternoon on my return
+from Philadelphia (where I have been reading two nights),
+I take advantage of a spare half-hour in which to answer it
+at once, though it will not leave here until Saturday. I had
+previously heard of the play, and had <i>The Times</i>. It was a
+great relief and delight to me, for I had no confidence in its
+success; being reduced to the confines of despair by its
+length. If I could have rehearsed it, I should have taken
+the best part of an hour out of it. Fechter must be very
+fine, and I should greatly like to see him play the part.</p>
+
+<p>I have not been very well generally, and am oppressed
+(and I begin to think that I probably shall be until I leave)<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_339" id="Page_339">[339]</a></span>
+by a true American cold, which I hope, for the comfort of
+human nature, may be peculiar to only one of the four
+quarters of the world. The work, too, is very severe. But
+I am going on at the same tremendous rate everywhere.
+The staff, too, has had to be enlarged. Dolby was at Baltimore
+yesterday, is at Washington to-day, and will come back
+in the night, and start away again on Friday. We find it
+absolutely necessary for him to go on ahead. We have not
+printed or posted a single bill here, and have just sold ninety
+pounds' worth of paper we had got ready for bills. In such
+a rush a short newspaper advertisement is all we want.
+"Doctor Marigold" made a great hit here, and is looked
+forward to at Boston with especial interest. I go to Boston
+for another fortnight, on end, the 24th of February. The
+railway journeys distress me greatly. I get out into the open
+air (upon the break), and it snows and blows, and the train
+bumps, and the steam flies at me, until I am driven in again.</p>
+
+<p>I have finished here (except four farewell nights in
+April), and begin four nights at Brooklyn, on the opposite
+side of the river, to-night; and thus oscillate between
+Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Washington, and then cut into
+New England, and so work my way back to Boston for a
+fortnight, after which come Chicago, Cincinnati, Detroit
+and Cleveland, and Buffalo, and then Philadelphia, Boston,
+and New York farewells. I will not pass my original bound
+of eighty-four readings in all. My mind was made up as
+to that long ago. It will be quite enough. Chicago is some
+fifteen hundred miles from here. What with travelling,
+and getting ready for reading, and reading, the days are
+pretty fully occupied. Not the less so because I rest very
+indifferently at night.</p>
+
+<p>The people are exceedingly kind and considerate, and
+desire to be most hospitable besides. But I cannot accept<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_340" id="Page_340">[340]</a></span>
+hospitality, and never go out, except at Boston, or I should
+not be fit for the labour. If Dolby holds out well to the
+last it will be a triumph, for he has to see everybody, drink
+with everybody, sell all the tickets, take all the blame, and
+go beforehand to all the places on the list. I shall not see
+him after to-night for ten days or a fortnight, and he will
+be perpetually on the road during the interval. When he
+leaves me, Osgood, a partner in Ticknor and Fields' publishing
+firm, mounts guard over me, and has to go into
+the hall from the platform door every night, and see how
+the public are seating themselves. It is very odd to see
+how hard he finds it to look a couple of thousand people in
+the face, on which head, by-the-bye, I notice the papers
+to take "Mr. Dickens's extraordinary composure" (their
+great phrase) rather ill, and on the whole to imply that it
+would be taken as a suitable compliment if I would stagger
+on to the platform and instantly drop, overpowered by the
+spectacle before me.</p>
+
+<p>Dinner is announced (by Scott, with a stiff neck and a
+sore throat), and I must break off with love to Bessie and
+the incipient Wenerableses. You will be glad to hear of
+your distinguished parent that Philadelphia has discovered
+that "he is not like the descriptions we have read of him at
+the little red desk. He is not at all foppish in appearance.
+He wears a heavy moustache and a Vandyke beard, and
+looks like a well-to-do Philadelphian gentleman."</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Ever, my dear Charley, your affectionate Father.<br />
+</div>
+
+<p>P.S.&mdash;Your paper is remarkably good. There is not the
+least doubt that you can write constantly for A. Y. R. I
+am very pleased with it.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_341" id="Page_341">[341]</a></span></p>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Miss
+Dickens.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Westminster Hotel, New York</span>, <i>Friday, Jan, 18th, 1868.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<p>This will be but a very short report, as I must get out
+for a little exercise before dinner.</p>
+
+<p>My "true American catarrh" (the people seem to have
+a national pride in it) sticks to me, but I am otherwise
+well. I began my church readings last night, and it was
+very odd to see the pews crammed full of people, all in a
+broad roar at the "Carol" and "Trial."</p>
+
+<p>Best love to all. I have written Charley a few lines by
+this mail, and also Chorley.</p>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Miss
+Hogarth.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Westminster Hotel, New York</span>, <i>Tuesday, Jan. 21st, 1868.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<p>I finished my church to-night. It is Mrs. Stowe's
+brother's, and a most wonderful place to speak in. We had
+it enormously full last night ("Marigold" and "Trial"),
+but it scarcely required an effort. Mr. Ward Beecher (Mrs.
+Stowe's brother's name) being present in his pew. I sent
+to invite him to come round before he left; and I found
+him to be an unostentatious, straightforward, and agreeable
+fellow.</p>
+
+<p>My cold sticks to me, and I can scarcely exaggerate
+what I sometimes undergo from sleeplessness. The day
+before yesterday I could get no rest until morning, and
+could not get up before twelve. This morning the same. I
+rarely take any breakfast but an egg and a cup of tea, not
+even toast or bread-and-butter. My dinner at three, and a
+little quail or some such light thing when I come home at
+night, is my daily fare. At the Hall I have established the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_342" id="Page_342">[342]</a></span>
+custom of taking an egg beaten up in sherry before going
+in, and another between the parts. I think that pulls me
+up; at all events, I have since had no return of faintness.</p>
+
+<p>As the men work very hard, and always with their
+hearts cheerfully in the business, I cram them into and
+outside of the carriage, to bring them back from Brooklyn
+with me. The other night, Scott (with a portmanteau
+across his knees and a wideawake hat low down upon his
+nose) told me that he had presented himself for admission
+in the circus (as good as Franconi's, by-the-bye), and had
+been refused. "The only theayter," he said in a melancholy
+way, "as I was ever in my life turned from the door
+of." Says Kelly: "There must have been some mistake,
+Scott, because George and me went, and we said, 'Mr.
+Dickens's staff,' and they passed us to the best seats in the
+house. Go again, Scott." "No, I thank you, Kelly," says
+Scott, more melancholy than before, "I'm not a-going to
+put myself in the position of being refused again. It's the
+only theayter as I was ever turned from the door of, and
+it shan't be done twice. But it's a beastly country!"
+"Scott," interposed Majesty, "don't you express your
+opinions about the country." "No, sir," says Scott, "I
+never do, please, sir, but when you are turned from the
+door of the only theayter you was ever turned from,
+sir, and when the beasts in railway cars spits tobacco
+over your boots, you (privately) find yourself in a beastly
+country."</p>
+
+<p>I expect shortly to get myself snowed up on some railway
+or other, for it is snowing hard now, and I begin to
+move to-morrow. There is so much floating ice in the
+river that we are obliged to leave a pretty wide margin of
+time for getting over the ferry to read. The dinner is
+coming in, and I must leave off.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_343" id="Page_343">[343]</a></span></p>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Miss
+Dickens.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Philadelphia</span>, <i>Thursday, Jan. 23rd, 1868.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<p>When I wrote to your aunt by the last mail, I accidentally
+omitted to touch upon the question of helping
+Anne. So I will begin in this present writing with
+reference to her sad position. I think it will be best for
+you to be guided by an exact knowledge of her <i>wants</i>.
+Try to ascertain from herself what means she has, whether
+her sick husband gets what he ought to have, whether she
+is pinched in the articles of necessary clothing, bedding, or
+the like of that; add to this intelligence your own observation
+of the state of things about her, and supply what
+she most wants, and help her where you find the greatest
+need. The question, in the case of so old and faithful a
+servant, is not one of so much or so little money on my
+side, but how <i>most efficiently</i> to ease her mind and help <i>her</i>.
+To do this at once kindly and sensibly is the only consideration
+by which you have to be guided. Take <i>carte blanche</i>
+from me for all the rest.</p>
+
+<p>My Washington week is the first week in February,
+beginning on Monday, 3rd. The tickets are sold, and the
+President is coming, and the chief members of the Cabinet,
+and the leaders of parties, and so forth, are coming; and,
+as the Holly Tree Boots says: "That's where it is, don't
+you see!"</p>
+
+<p>In my Washington doubts I recalled Dolby for conference,
+and he joined me yesterday afternoon, and we have
+been in great discussion ever since on the possibility of
+giving up the Far West, and avoiding such immense distances
+and fatigues as would be involved in travelling to
+Chicago and Cincinnati. We have sketched another tour
+for the last half of March, which would be infinitely easier<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_344" id="Page_344">[344]</a></span>
+for me, though on the other hand less profitable, the places
+and the halls being smaller. The worst of it is, that everybody
+one advises with has a monomania respecting Chicago.
+"Good heaven, sir," the great Philadelphian authority said
+to me this morning, "if you don't read in Chicago, the
+people will go into fits." In reference to fatigue, I
+answered: "Well, I would rather they went into fits than I
+did." But he didn't seem to see it at all. &mdash;&mdash; alone
+constantly writes me: "Don't go to the West; you can get
+what you want so much more easily." How we shall finally
+decide, I don't yet know. My Brooklyn church has been
+an immense success, and I found its minister was a bachelor,
+a clever, unparsonic, and straightforward man, and a man
+with a good knowledge of art into the bargain.</p>
+
+<p>We are not a bit too soon here, for the whole country is
+beginning to be stirred and shaken by the presidential
+election, and trade is exceedingly depressed, and will be
+more so. Fanny Kemble lives near this place, but had
+gone away a day before my first visit here. <i>She</i> is going to
+read in February or March. Du Chaillu has been lecturing
+out West about the gorilla, and has been to see me; I saw
+the Cunard steamer <i>Persia</i> out in the stream, yesterday,
+beautifully smart, her flags flying, all her steam up, and she
+only waiting for her mails to slip away. She gave me a
+horrible touch of home-sickness.</p>
+
+<p>When the 1st of March arrives, and I can say "next
+month," I shall begin to grow brighter. A fortnight's
+reading in Boston, too (last week of February and first
+week of March), will help me on gaily, I hope (the work so
+far off tells). It is impossible for the people to be more
+affectionately attached to a third, I really believe, than
+Fields and his wife are to me; and they are a landmark in
+the prospect.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_345" id="Page_345">[345]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Dolby sends kindest regards, and wishes it to be known
+that he has not been bullied lately. We do <i>not</i> go West at
+all, but take the easier plan.</p>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Miss
+Hogarth.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Baltimore</span>, <i>Wednesday, Jan. 29th, 1868.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<p>As I have an hour to spare, before starting to Philadelphia,
+I begin my letter this morning. It has been
+snowing hard for four-and-twenty hours, though this place
+is as far south as Valentia in Spain; and Dolby, being on
+his way to New York, has a good chance of being snowed
+up somewhere.</p>
+
+<p>They are a bright responsive people here, and very
+pleasant to read to. I have rarely seen so many fine faces
+in an audience. I read here in a charming little opera-house
+built by a society of Germans, quite a delightful
+place for the purpose. I stand on the stage, with a drop
+curtain down, and my screen before it. The whole scene
+is very pretty and complete, and the audience have a "ring"
+in them that sounds in the ear. I go from here to Philadelphia
+to read to-morrow night and Friday, come through
+here again on Saturday on my way to Washington, come
+back here on Saturday week for two finishing nights, then
+go to Philadelphia for two farewells, and so turn my back
+on the southern part of the country. Distances and
+travelling have obliged us to reduce the list of readings by
+two, leaving eighty-two in all. Of course we afterwards
+discovered that we had finally settled the list on a Friday!
+I shall be halfway through it at Washington, of course, on
+a Friday also, and my birthday!<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_346" id="Page_346">[346]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Dolby and Osgood, who do the most ridiculous things to
+keep me in spirits (I am often very heavy, and rarely sleep
+much), have decided to have a walking-match at Boston, on
+Saturday, February 29th. Beginning this design in joke,
+they have become tremendously in earnest, and Dolby has
+actually sent home (much to his opponent's terror) for
+a pair of seamless socks to walk in. Our men are hugely
+excited on the subject, and continually make bets on "the
+men." Fields and I are to walk out six miles, and "the
+men" are to turn and walk round us. Neither of them has
+the least idea what twelve miles at a pace is. Being requested
+by both to give them "a breather" yesterday, I
+gave them a stiff one of five miles over a bad road in the
+snow, half the distance uphill. I took them at a pace
+of four miles and a half an hour, and you never beheld such
+objects as they were when we got back; both smoking like
+factories, and both obliged to change everything before
+they could come to dinner. They have the absurdest ideas
+of what are tests of walking power, and continually get up
+in the maddest manner and see <i>how high they can kick</i> the
+wall! The wainscot here, in one place, is scored all over
+with their pencil-marks. To see them doing this&mdash;Dolby, a
+big man, and Osgood, a very little one, is ridiculous beyond
+description.</p>
+
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Philadelphia</span>, <i>Same Night.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<p>We came on here through a snowstorm all the way, but
+up to time. Fanny Kemble (who begins to read shortly) is
+coming to "Marigold" and "Trial" to-morrow night. I
+have written her a note, telling her that if it will at all assist
+<i>her</i> movements to know <i>mine</i>, my list is at her service.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_347" id="Page_347">[347]</a></span>
+Probably I shall see her to-morrow. Tell Mamie (to whom I
+will write next), with my love, that I found her letter of the
+10th of this month awaiting me here. The <i>Siberia</i> that
+brought it is a new Cunarder, and made an unusually slow
+passage out. Probably because it would be dangerous to
+work new machinery too fast on the Atlantic.</p>
+
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<i>Thursday, 30th.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<p>My cold still sticks to me. The heat of the railway
+cars and their unventilated condition invariably brings it
+back when I think it going. This morning my head is
+as stuffed and heavy as ever! A superb sledge and four
+horses have been offered me for a ride, but I am afraid to
+take it, lest I should make the "true American catarrh"
+worse, and should get hoarse. So I am going to give
+Osgood another "breather" on foot instead.</p>
+
+<p>The communication with New York is not interrupted,
+so we consider the zealous Dolby all right. You may
+imagine what his work is, when you hear that he goes three
+times to every place we visit. Firstly, to look at the hall,
+arrange the numberings, and make five hundred acquaintances,
+whom he immediately calls by their christian-names;
+secondly, to sell the tickets&mdash;a very nice business, requiring
+great tact and temper; thirdly, with me. He will probably
+turn up at Washington next Sunday, but only for a little
+while; for as soon as I am on the platform on Monday
+night, he will start away again, probably to be seen no
+more until we pass through New York in the middle of
+February.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_348" id="Page_348">[348]</a></span></p>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mr.
+Samuel
+Cartwright</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Baltimore</span>, <i>Wednesday, Jan. 29th, 1868.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='unindent'><span class='smcap'>My dear Cartwright</span>,</div>
+
+<p>As I promised to report myself to you from this side
+of the Atlantic, and as I have some leisure this morning, I
+am going to lighten my conscience by keeping my word.</p>
+
+<p>I am going on at a great pace and with immense success.
+Next week, at Washington, I shall, please God, have got
+through half my readings. The remaining half are all
+arranged, and they will carry me into the third week of
+April. It is very hard work, but it is brilliantly paid. The
+changes that I find in the country generally (this place is
+the least changed of any I have yet seen) exceed my utmost
+expectations. I had been in New York a couple of days
+before I began to recognise it at all; and the handsomest
+part of Boston was a black swamp when I saw it five-and-twenty
+years ago. Considerable advances, too, have been
+made socially. Strange to say, the railways and railway
+arrangements (both exceedingly defective) seem to have
+stood still while all other things have been moving.</p>
+
+<p>One of the most comical spectacles I have ever seen in
+my life was "church," with a heavy sea on, in the saloon of
+the Cunard steamer coming out. The officiating minister,
+an extremely modest young man, was brought in between
+two big stewards, exactly as if he were coming up to the
+scratch in a prize-fight. The ship was rolling and pitching
+so, that the two big stewards had to stop and watch their
+opportunity of making a dart at the reading-desk with their
+reverend charge, during which pause he held on, now by
+one steward and now by the other, with the feeblest expression
+of countenance and no legs whatever. At length they
+made a dart at the wrong moment, and one steward was
+immediately beheld alone in the extreme perspective, while<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_349" id="Page_349">[349]</a></span>
+the other and the reverend gentleman <i>held on by the mast</i>
+in the middle of the saloon&mdash;which the latter embraced with
+both arms, as if it were his wife. All this time the congregation
+was breaking up into sects and sliding away; every
+sect (as in nature) pounding the other sect. And when at
+last the reverend gentleman had been tumbled into his place,
+the desk (a loose one, put upon the dining-table) deserted
+from the church bodily, and went over to the purser. The
+scene was so extraordinarily ridiculous, and was made so
+much more so by the exemplary gravity of all concerned in
+it, that I was obliged to leave before the service began.</p>
+
+<p>This is one of the places where Butler carried it with so
+high a hand in the war, and where the ladies used to spit
+when they passed a Northern soldier. It still wears, I fancy,
+a look of sullen remembrance. (The ladies are remarkably
+handsome, with an Eastern look upon them, dress with a
+strong sense of colour, and make a brilliant audience.) The
+ghost of slavery haunts the houses; and the old, untidy,
+incapable, lounging, shambling black serves you as a free
+man. Free of course he ought to be; but the stupendous
+absurdity of making him a voter glares out of every roll of
+his eye, stretch of his mouth, and bump of his head. I
+have a strong impression that the race must fade out of the
+States very fast. It never can hold its own against a
+striving, restless, shifty people. In the penitentiary here,
+the other day, in a room full of all blacks (too dull to be
+taught any of the work in hand), was one young brooding
+fellow, very like a black rhinoceros. He sat glowering at
+life, as if it were just endurable at dinner time, until four of
+his fellows began to sing, most unmelodiously, a part song.
+He then set up a dismal howl, and pounded his face on
+a form. I took him to have been rendered quite desperate
+by having learnt anything. I send my kind regard to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_350" id="Page_350">[350]</a></span>
+Mrs. Cartwright, and sincerely hope that she and you have no
+new family distresses or anxieties. My standing address is
+the Westminster Hotel, Irving Place, New York City. And
+I am always, my dear Cartwright,</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Cordially yours.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Miss
+Dickens.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Philadelphia</span>, <i>Friday, Jan. 31st, 1868.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<p>Since writing to your aunt I have received yours of
+the 7th, and am truly glad to have the last news of you
+confirmed by yourself.</p>
+
+<p>From a letter Wilkie has written to me, it seems there
+can be no doubt that the "No Thoroughfare" drama is a
+real, genuine, and great success. It is drawing immensely,
+and seems to "go" with great effect and applause.</p>
+
+<p>"Doctor Marigold" here last night (for the first time)
+was an immense success, and all Philadelphia is going to
+rush at once for tickets for the two Philadelphian farewells
+the week after next. The tickets are to be sold to-morrow,
+and great excitement is anticipated in the streets. Dolby
+not being here, a clerk will sell, and will probably wish
+himself dead before he has done with it.</p>
+
+<p>It appears to me that Chorley<a name="FNanchor_22_22" id="FNanchor_22_22"></a><a href="#Footnote_22_22" class="fnanchor">[22]</a> writes to you on the
+legacy question because he wishes you to understand that
+there is no danger of his changing his mind, and at the
+bottom I descry an honest desire to pledge himself as
+strongly as possible. You may receive it in that better
+spirit, or I am much mistaken. Tell your aunt, with my
+best love, that I wrote to Chauncey weeks ago, in answer
+to a letter from him. I am now going out in a sleigh (and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_351" id="Page_351">[351]</a></span>
+four) with unconceivable dignity and grandeur; mentioning
+which reminds me that I am informed by trusty scouts
+that &mdash;&mdash; intends to waylay me at Washington, and may
+even descend upon me in the train to-morrow.</p>
+
+<p>Best love to Katie, the two Charleys, and all.</p>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Miss
+Dickens.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Washington</span>, <i>Tuesday, Feb. 4th, 1868.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<p>I began here last night with great success. The hall
+being small, the prices were raised to three dollars each
+ticket. The audience was a superior one, composed of the
+foremost public men and their families. At the end of the
+"Carol" they gave a great break out, and applauded, I really
+believe, for five minutes. You would suppose them to be
+Manchester shillings instead of Washington half-sovereigns.
+Immense enthusiasm.</p>
+
+<p>A devoted adherent in this place (an Englishman) had
+represented to Dolby that if I were taken to an hotel here
+it would be impossible to secure me a minute's rest, and he
+undertook to get one Wheleker, a German, who keeps a
+little V&eacute;rey's, to furnish his private dining-rooms for the
+illustrious traveller's reception. Accordingly here we are,
+on the first and second floor of a small house, with no one
+else in it but our people, a French waiter, and a very good
+French cuisine. Perfectly private, in the city of all the
+world (I should say) where the hotels are intolerable,
+and privacy the least possible, and quite comfortable.
+"Wheleker's Restaurant" is our rather undignified address
+for the present week.</p>
+
+<p>I dined (against my rules) with Charles Sumner on
+Sunday, he having been an old friend of mine. Mr.
+Secretary Staunton (War Minister) was there. He is a man<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_352" id="Page_352">[352]</a></span>
+of a very remarkable memory, and famous for his acquaintance
+with the minutest details of my books. Give him any
+passage anywhere, and he will instantly cap it and go on
+with the context. He was commander-in-chief of all the
+Northern forces concentrated here, and never went to sleep
+at night without first reading something from my books,
+which were always with him. I put him through a pretty
+severe examination, but he was better up than I was.</p>
+
+<p>The gas was very defective indeed last night, and I
+began with a small speech, to the effect that I must trust
+to the brightness of their faces for the illumination of
+mine; this was taken greatly. In the "Carol," a most
+ridiculous incident occurred all of a sudden. I saw a dog
+look out from among the seats into the centre aisle, and look
+very intently at me. The general attention being fixed on
+me, I don't think anybody saw the dog; but I felt so sure
+of his turning up again and barking, that I kept my eye
+wandering about in search of him. He was a very comic
+dog, and it was well for me that I was reading a very comic
+part of the book. But when he bounced out into the centre
+aisle again, in an entirely new place (still looking intently
+at me) and tried the effect of a bark upon my proceedings,
+I was seized with such a paroxysm of laughter, that it communicated
+itself to the audience, and we roared at one
+another loud and long.</p>
+
+<p>The President has sent to me twice, and I am going to
+see him to-morrow. He has a whole row for his family
+every night. Dolby rejoined his chief yesterday morning,
+and will probably remain in the august presence until
+Sunday night. He and Osgood, "training for the match,"
+are ludicrous beyond belief. I saw them just now coming
+up a street, each trying to pass the other, and immediately
+fled. Since I have been writing this, they have burst in at<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_353" id="Page_353">[353]</a></span>
+the door and sat down on the floor to blow. Dolby is now
+writing at a neighbouring table, with his bald head smoking
+as if he were on fire. Kelly (his great adherent) asked me,
+when he was last away, whether it was quite fair that I
+should take Mr. Osgood out for "breathers" when Mr.
+Dolby had no such advantage. I begin to expect that half
+Boston will turn out on the 29th to see the match. In
+which case it will be unspeakably droll.</p>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Miss
+Hogarth.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span style="margin-right: 2em;"><span class="smcap">Washington</span>, <i>my Birthday</i>, 1868.</span><br />
+(<i>And my cold worse than ever.</i>)<br />
+</div>
+
+<p>This will be but a short letter, as I have been to see the
+President this morning, and have little time before the post
+goes. He had sent a gentleman to me, most courteously
+begging me to make my own appointment, and I did so. A
+man of very remarkable appearance indeed, of tremendous
+firmness of purpose. Not to be turned or trifled with.</p>
+
+<p>As I mention my cold's being so bad, I will add that I
+have never had anything the matter with me since I came
+here <i>but</i> the cold. It is now in my throat, and slightly on
+my chest. It occasions me great discomfort, and you would
+suppose, seeing me in the morning, that I could not possibly
+read at night. But I have always come up to the
+scratch, have not yet missed one night, and have gradually
+got used to that. I had got much the better of it; but the
+dressing-room at the hall here is singularly cold and draughty,
+and so I have slid back again.</p>
+
+<p>The papers here having written about this being my
+birthday, the most exquisite flowers came pouring in at
+breakfast time from all sorts of people. The room is covered
+with them, made up into beautiful bouquets, and arranged<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_354" id="Page_354">[354]</a></span>
+in all manner of green baskets. Probably I shall find plenty
+more at the hall to-night. This is considered the dullest
+and most apathetic place in America. <i>My</i> audiences have
+been superb.</p>
+
+<p>I mentioned the dog on the first night here. Next night
+I thought I heard (in "Copperfield") a suddenly suppressed
+bark. It happened in this wise: Osgood, standing
+just within the door, felt his leg touched, and looking down
+beheld the dog staring intently at me, and evidently just
+about to bark. In a transport of presence of mind and
+fury, he instantly caught him up in both hands and threw
+him over his own head out into the entry, where the check-takers
+received him like a game at ball. Last night he came
+again <i>with another dog;</i> but our people were so sharply on
+the look-out for him that he didn't get in. He had
+evidently promised to pass the other dog free.</p>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Miss
+Dickens.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Baltimore, U.S.</span>, <i>Tuesday, Feb. 11th, 1868.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<p>The weather has been desperately severe, and my cold
+quite as bad as ever. I couldn't help laughing at myself
+on my birthday at Washington. It was observed as much
+as though I were a little boy. Flowers and garlands (of
+the most exquisite kind) bloomed all over the room; letters
+radiant with good wishes poured in; a shirt pin, a handsome
+silver travelling bottle, a set of gold shirt studs, and a
+set of gold sleeve links were on the dinner-table. After
+"Boots," at night, the whole audience rose and remained
+(Secretaries of State, President's family, Judges of Supreme
+Court, and so forth) standing and cheering until I went
+back to the table and made them a little speech. On the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_355" id="Page_355">[355]</a></span>
+same august day of the year I was received by the President,
+a man with a very remarkable and determined face. Each
+of us looked at each other very hard, and each of us
+managed the interview (I think) to the satisfaction of the
+other. In the outer room was sitting a certain sunburnt
+General Blair, with many evidences of the war upon him.
+He got up to shake hands with me, and then I found he
+had been out in the prairie with me five-and-twenty years
+ago. That afternoon my "catarrh" was in such a state
+that Charles Sumner, coming in at five o'clock and finding
+me covered with mustard poultice, and apparently voiceless,
+turned to Dolby and said: "Surely, Mr. Dolby, it is impossible
+that he can read to-night." Says Dolby: "Sir, I have
+told the dear Chief so four times to-day, and I have been
+very anxious. But you have no idea how he will change when
+he gets to the little table." After five minutes of the little
+table, I was not (for the time) even hoarse. The frequent
+experience of this return of force when it is wanted saves
+me a vast amount of anxiety.</p>
+
+<p>I wish you would get from Homan and report to me, as
+near as he can make, an approximate estimate is the right
+term in the trade, I believe, of the following work:</p>
+
+<p>1. To re-cover, with red leather, all the dining-room
+chairs.</p>
+
+<p>2. To ditto, with green leather, all the library chairs
+and the couch.</p>
+
+<p>3. To provide and lay down new <i>Brussels</i> carpets in
+the front spare and the two top spares. Quality of carpet,
+quality of yours and mine.</p>
+
+<p>I have some doubts about the state of the hall floor-cloth,
+and also the floor-cloth in the dining-room. Will you
+and your aunt carefully examine both (calling in Homan
+too, if necessary), <i>and report to me?</i><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_356" id="Page_356">[356]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>It would seem that "No Thoroughfare" has really
+developed as a drama into an amazing success. I begin to
+think that I shall see it. Dolby is away this morning, to
+conquer or die in a terrific struggle with the Mayor of
+Newhaven (where I am to read next week), who has assailed
+him on a charge of false play in selling tickets. Osgood,
+my other keeper, stands at the table to take me out,
+and have a "breather" for the walking-match, so I must
+leave off.</p>
+
+<p>Think of my dreaming of Mrs. Bouncer each night!!!</p>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mr. Henry
+Fielding
+Dickens.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Baltimore, U.S.</span>, <i>Tuesday, Feb. 11th, 1868.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='unindent'><span class='smcap'>My dear Harry</span>,</div>
+
+<p>I should have written to you before now, but for
+constant and arduous occupation.</p>
+
+<p>In reference to the cricket club's not being what it
+might be, I agree with you in the main. There are some
+things to be considered, however, which you have hardly
+taken into account. The first thing to be avoided is, the
+slightest appearance of patronage (one of the curses of
+England). The second thing to be avoided is, the deprival
+of the men of their just right to manage their own affairs.
+I would rather have no club at all, than have either of these
+great mistakes made. The way out of them is this: Call
+the men together, and explain to them that the club might
+be larger, richer, and better. Say that you think that more
+of the neighbouring gentlemen could be got to be playing
+members. That you submit to them that it would be
+better to have a captain who could correspond with them,
+and talk to them, and in some sort manage them; and that,
+being perfectly acquainted with the game, and having long<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_357" id="Page_357">[357]</a></span>
+played it at a great public school, you propose yourself as
+captain, for the foregoing reasons. That you propose to
+them to make the subscription of the gentlemen members
+at least double that of the working men, for no other reason
+than that the gentlemen can afford it better; but that both
+classes of members shall have exactly the same right of
+voting equally in all that concerns the club. Say that
+you have consulted me upon the matter, and that I am
+of these opinions, and am ready to become chairman of
+the club, and to preside at their meetings, and to overlook
+its business affairs, and to give it five pounds a
+year, payable at the commencement of each season. Then,
+having brought them to this point, draw up the club's
+rules and regulations, amending them where they want
+amendment.</p>
+
+<p>Discreetly done, I see no difficulty in this. But it can
+only be honourably and hopefully done by having the men
+together. And I would not have them at The Falstaff, but
+in the hall or dining-room&mdash;the servants' hall, an excellent
+place. Whatever you do, let the men ratify; and let them
+feel their little importance, and at once perceive how much
+better the business begins to be done.</p>
+
+<p>I am very glad to hear of the success of your reading,
+and still more glad that you went at it in downright earnest.
+I should never have made my success in life if I had been
+shy of taking pains, or if I had not bestowed upon the
+least thing I have ever undertaken exactly the same
+attention and care that I have bestowed upon the greatest.
+Do everything at your best. It was but this last year
+that I set to and learned every word of my readings; and
+from ten years ago to last night, I have never read to an
+audience but I have watched for an opportunity of striking
+out something better somewhere. Look at such of my<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_358" id="Page_358">[358]</a></span>
+manuscripts as are in the library at Gad's, and think of the
+patient hours devoted year after year to single lines.</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>The weather is very severe here, and the work is very
+hard. Dolby, having been violently pitched into by the
+Mayor of Newhaven (a town at which I am to read next
+week), has gone bodily this morning with defiant written
+instructions from me to inform the said mayor that, if he fail
+to make out his case, he (Dolby) is to return all the money
+taken, and to tell him that I will not set foot in his jurisdiction;
+whereupon the Newhaven people will probably
+fall upon the mayor in his turn, and lead him a pleasant
+life.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Ever, my dear Harry, your affectionate Father.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Miss
+Hogarth.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Philadelphia</span>, <i>Thursday, Feb. 13th, 1868.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<p>We have got into an immense difficulty with the people
+of Newhaven. I have a strong suspicion that one of our
+men (who sold there) has been speculating all this while,
+and that he must have put front seats in his pockets,
+and sold back ones. He denies what the mayor charges,
+but the mayor holds on grimly. Dolby set off from Baltimore
+as soon as we found out what was amiss, to examine
+and report; but some new feature of difficulty must have
+come out, for this morning he telegraphs from New York
+(where he had to sleep last night on his way to Newhaven),
+that he is coming back for further consultation with the
+Chief. It will certainly hurt us, and will of course be distorted
+by the papers into all manner of shapes. My suspicion
+<i>may not</i> be correct, but I have an instinctive belief<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_359" id="Page_359">[359]</a></span>
+that it is. We shall probably have the old New York row
+(and loss) over again, unless I can catch this mayor tripping
+in an assertion.</p>
+
+<p>In this very place, we are half-distracted by the speculators.
+They have been holding out for such high prices,
+that the public have held out too; and now (frightened at
+what they have done) the speculators are trying to sell their
+worst seats at half the cost price, so that we are in the
+ridiculous situation of having sold the room out, and yet not
+knowing what empty seats there may be. <i>We</i> could sell at
+our box-office to any extent; but <i>we</i> can't buy back of the
+speculators, because we informed the public that all the
+tickets were gone. And if we bought <i>under</i> our own price
+and <i>sold</i> at our own price, we should at once be in treaty
+with the speculators, and should be making money by it!
+Dolby, the much bullied, will come back here presently, half
+bereft of his senses; and I should be half bereft of mine, if
+the situation were not comically disagreeable.</p>
+
+<p>Nothing will induce the people to believe in the farewells.
+At Baltimore on Tuesday night (a very brilliant night indeed),
+they asked as they came out: "When will Mr. Dickens read
+here again?" "Never." "Nonsense! Not come back,
+after such houses as these? Come. Say when he'll read
+again." Just the same here. We could as soon persuade
+them that I am the President, as that I am going to read
+here, for the last time, to-morrow night.</p>
+
+<p>There is a child of the Barney Williams's in this house&mdash;a
+little girl&mdash;to whom I presented a black doll when I was
+here last. I have seen her eye at the keyhole since I began
+writing this, and I think she and the doll are outside still.
+"When you sent it up to me by the coloured boy," she said
+after receiving it (coloured boy is the term for black waiter),
+"I gave such a cream that ma came running in and creamed<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_360" id="Page_360">[360]</a></span>
+too, 'cos she fort I'd hurt myself. But I creamed a cream
+of joy." <i>She</i> had a friend to play with her that day, and
+brought the friend with her, to my infinite confusion. A
+friend all stockings, and much too tall, who sat on the sofa
+very far back, with her stockings sticking stiffly out in front
+of her, and glared at me and never spake word. Dolby
+found us confronted in a sort of fascination, like serpent and
+bird.</p>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Miss
+Hogarth.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">New York</span>, <i>Monday, Feb. 17th, 1868.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<p>I got your letter of the 3rd of February here this
+morning. As I am off at seven to-morrow morning, I
+answer it at once, though indeed I have nothing to say.</p>
+
+<p>"True American" still sticking to me. But I am always
+ready for my work, and therefore don't much mind. Dolby
+and the Mayor of Newhaven alternately embrace and exchange
+mortal defiances. In writing out some advertisements
+towards midnight last night, he made a very good
+mistake. "The reading will be comprised within two
+<i>minutes</i>, and the audience are earnestly entreated to be
+seated ten <i>hours</i> before its commencement."</p>
+
+<p>The weather has been finer lately, but the streets are in
+a horrible condition, through half-melted snow, and it is
+now snowing again. The walking-match (next Saturday
+week) is already in the Boston papers! I suppose half
+Boston will turn out on the occasion. As a sure way of not
+being conspicuous, "the men" are going to walk in flannel!
+They are in a mingled state of comicality and gravity about
+it that is highly ridiculous. Yesterday being a bright cool
+day, I took Dolby for a "buster" of eight miles. As<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_361" id="Page_361">[361]</a></span>
+everybody here knows me, the spectacle of our splitting up
+the fashionable avenue (the only way out of town) excited
+the greatest amazement. No doubt <i>that</i> will be in the
+papers to-morrow. I give a gorgeous banquet to eighteen
+(ladies and gentlemen) after the match. Mr. and Mrs.
+Fields, Do. Ticknor, Longfellow and his daughter, Lowell,
+Holmes and his wife, etc. etc. Sporting speeches to be
+made, and the stakes (four hats) to be handed over to the
+winner.</p>
+
+<p>My ship will not be the <i>Cuba</i> after all. She is to go
+into dock, and the <i>Russia</i> (a larger ship, and the latest built
+for the Cunard line) is to take her place.</p>
+
+<p>Very glad to hear of Plorn's success. Best love to
+Mamie.</p>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">M. Charles
+Fechter.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Washington</span>, <i>February 24th, 1868.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='unindent'><span class='smcap'>My dear Fechter</span>,</div>
+
+<p>Your letter reached me here yesterday. I have sent
+you a telegram (addressed to the theatre) this morning, and
+I write this by the earliest return mail.</p>
+
+<p>My dear fellow, consider yourself my representative.
+Whatever you do, or desire to do, about the play, I fully
+authorise beforehand. Tell Webster, with my regard, that
+I think his proposal honest and fair; that I think it, in a
+word, like himself; and that I have perfect confidence in
+his good faith and liberality.</p>
+
+<p>As to making money of the play in the United States
+here, Boucicault has filled Wilkie's head with golden dreams
+that have <i>nothing</i> in them. He makes no account of the
+fact that, wherever I go, the theatres (with my name in big
+letters) instantly begin playing versions of my books, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_362" id="Page_362">[362]</a></span>
+that the moment the Christmas number came over here they
+pirated it and played "No Thoroughfare." Now, I have
+enquired into the law, and am extremely doubtful whether
+I <i>could</i> have prevented this. Why should they pay for the
+piece as you act it, when they have no actors, and when
+all they want is my name, and they can get that for
+nothing?</p>
+
+<p>Wilkie has uniformly written of you enthusiastically.
+In a letter I had from him, dated the 10th of January, he
+described your conception and execution of the part in
+the most glowing terms. "Here Fechter is magnificent."
+"Here his superb playing brings the house down." "I
+should call even his exit in the last act one of the subtlest
+and finest things he does in the piece." "You can hardly
+imagine what he gets out of the part, or what he makes of
+his passionate love for Marguerite." These expressions,
+and many others like them, crowded his letter.</p>
+
+<p>I never did so want to see a character played on the
+stage as I want to see you play Obenreizer. As the play
+was going when I last heard of it, I have some hopes that I
+<span class="smcap">may</span> see it yet. Please God, your Adelphi dressing-room
+will be irradiated with the noble presence of "Never
+Wrong" (if you are acting), about the evening of Monday,
+the 4th of May!</p>
+
+<p>I am doing enormous business. It is a wearying life,
+away from all I love, but I hope that the time will soon
+begin to spin away. Among the many changes that I find
+here is the comfortable change that the people are in
+general extremely considerate, and very observant of my
+privacy. Even in this place, I am really almost as much
+my own master as if I were in an English country town.
+Generally, they are very good audiences indeed. They do
+not (I think) perceive touches of art to <i>be</i> art; but they are<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_363" id="Page_363">[363]</a></span>
+responsive to the broad results of such touches. "Doctor
+Marigold" is a great favourite, and they laugh so unrestrainedly
+at "The Trial" from "Pickwick" (which you never
+heard), that it has grown about half as long again as it used
+to be.</p>
+
+<p>If I could send you a "brandy cocktail" by post I
+would. It is a highly meritorious dram, which I hope to
+present to you at Gad's. My New York landlord made me
+a "Rocky Mountain sneezer," which appeared to me to
+be compounded of all the spirits ever heard of in the
+world, with bitters, lemon, sugar, and snow. You can
+only make a true "sneezer" when the snow is lying on the
+ground.</p>
+
+<p>There, my dear boy, my paper is out, and I am going to
+read "Copperfield." Count always on my fidelity and true
+attachment, and look out, as I have already said, for a
+distinguished visitor about Monday, the 4th of May.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+<span style="margin-right: 8em;">Ever, my dear Fechter,</span><br />
+Your cordial and affectionate Friend.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Miss
+Dickens.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Boston</span>, <i>Tuesday, Feb. 25th, 1868.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<p>It is so very difficult to know, by any exercise of
+common sense, what turn or height the political excitement
+may take next, and it may so easily, and so soon, swallow
+up all other things, that I think I shall suppress my next
+week's readings here (by good fortune not yet announced)
+and watch the course of events. Dolby's sudden desponding
+under these circumstances is so acute, that it is
+actually swelling his head as I glance at him in the glass
+while writing.</p>
+
+<p>The catarrh is no better and no worse. The weather is<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_364" id="Page_364">[364]</a></span>
+intensely cold. The walking-match (of which I will send
+particulars) is to come off on Sunday. Mrs. Fields is more
+delightful than ever, and Fields more hospitable. My
+room is always radiant with brilliant flowers of their sending.
+I don't know whether I told you that the walking-match
+is to celebrate the extinction of February, and the
+coming of the day when I can say "next month."</p>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Miss
+Hogarth.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Boston</span>, <i>Thursday, Feb. 27th, 1868.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<p>This morning at breakfast I received yours of the 11th
+from Palace Gate House. I have very little news to give
+you in return for your budget. The walking-match is to
+come off on Saturday, and Fields and I went over the
+ground yesterday to measure the miles. We went at a
+tremendous pace. The condition of the ground is something
+indescribable, from half-melted snow, running water,
+and sheets and blocks of ice. The two performers have
+not the faintest notion of the weight of the task they
+have undertaken. I give a dinner afterwards, and have
+just now been settling the bill of fare and selecting the
+wines.</p>
+
+<p>In the first excitement of the presidential impeachment,
+our houses instantly went down. After carefully considering
+the subject, I decided to take advantage of the fact that
+next week's four readings here have not yet been announced,
+and to abolish them altogether. Nothing in this country
+lasts long, and I think the public may be heartily tired of
+the President's name by the 9th of March, when I read at
+a considerable distance from here. So behold me with a
+whole week's holiday in view! The Boston audiences have
+come to regard the readings and the reader as their peculiar<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_365" id="Page_365">[365]</a></span>
+property; and you would be at once amused and pleased if
+you could see the curious way in which they seem to plume
+themselves on both. They have taken to applauding too
+whenever they laugh or cry, and the result is very inspiriting.
+I shall remain here until Saturday, the 7th, but shall
+not read here, after to-morrow night, until the 1st of April,
+when I begin my Boston farewells, six in number.</p>
+
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<i>Friday, 28th.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<p>It has been snowing all night, and the city is in a
+miserable condition. We had a fine house last night for
+"Carol" and "Trial," and such an enthusiastic one that
+they persisted in a call after the "Carol," and, while I was out,
+covered the little table with flowers. The "True American"
+has taken a fresh start, as if it were quite a novelty, and is
+on the whole rather worse than ever to-day. The Cunard
+packet, the <i>Australasian</i> (a poor ship), is some days overdue,
+and Dolby is anxiously looking out for her. There is a lull
+in the excitement about the President, but the articles of
+impeachment are to be produced this afternoon, and then it
+may set in again. Osgood came into camp last night from
+selling in remote places, and reports that at Rochester and
+Buffalo (both places near the frontier), Canada people
+bought tickets, who had struggled across the frozen river
+and clambered over all sorts of obstructions to get them.
+Some of those halls turn out to be smaller than represented,
+but I have no doubt, to use an American expression, that we
+shall "get along."</p>
+
+<p>To-morrow fortnight we purpose being at the Falls of
+Niagara, and then we shall turn back and really begin to
+wind up. I have got to know the "Carol" so well that I<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_366" id="Page_366">[366]</a></span>
+can't remember it, and occasionally go dodging about in
+the wildest manner to pick up lost pieces. They took it
+so tremendously last night that I was stopped every five
+minutes. One poor young girl in mourning burst into a
+passion of grief about Tiny Tim, and was taken out. This
+is all my news.</p>
+
+<p>Each of the pedestrians is endeavouring to persuade
+the other to take something unwholesome before starting.</p>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Miss
+Dickens.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Boston</span>, <i>Monday, March 2nd, 1868.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<p>A heavy gale of wind and a snowstorm oblige me to
+write suddenly for the Cunard steamer a day earlier than
+usual. The railroad between this and New York will
+probably be stopped somewhere. After all the hard weather
+we have had, this is the worst day we have seen.</p>
+
+<p>The walking-match came off on Saturday, over tremendously
+difficult ground, against a biting wind, and
+through deep snow-wreaths. It was so cold, too, that our
+hair, beards, eyelashes, eyebrows, were frozen hard, and
+hung with icicles. The course was thirteen miles. They
+were close together at the turning-point, when Osgood went
+ahead at a splitting pace and with extraordinary endurance,
+and won by half a mile. Dolby did very well indeed, and
+begs that he may not be despised. In the evening I gave a
+very splendid dinner. Eighteen covers, most magnificent
+flowers, such table decoration as was never seen in these
+parts. The whole thing was a great success, and everybody
+was delighted.</p>
+
+<p>I am holiday-making until Friday, when we start on the
+round of travel that is to bring us back here for the 1st of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_367" id="Page_367">[367]</a></span>
+April. My holiday-making is simply thorough resting,
+except on Wednesday, when I dine with Longfellow. There
+is still great political excitement, but I hope it may not hurt
+us very much. My fear is that it may damage the farewell.
+Dolby is not of my mind as to this, and I hope he may be
+right. We are not quite determined whether Mrs. Fields
+did not desert our colours, by coming on the ground in a
+carriage, and having <i>bread soaked in brandy</i> put into the
+winning man's mouth as he steamed along. She pleaded
+that she would have done as much for Dolby, if <i>he</i> had been
+ahead, so we are inclined to forgive her. As she had done
+so much for me in the way of flowers, I thought I would
+show her a sight in that line at the dinner. You never saw
+anything like it. Two immense crowns; the base, of the
+choicest exotics; and the loops, oval masses of violets. In
+the centre of the table an immense basket, overflowing
+with enormous bell-mouthed lilies; all round the table a
+bright green border of wreathed creeper, with clustering
+roses at intervals; a rose for every button-hole, and a
+bouquet for every lady. They made an exhibition of the
+table before dinner to numbers of people.</p>
+
+<p>P. H. has just come in with a newspaper, containing a
+reference (in good taste!) to the walking-match. He posts
+it to you by this post.</p>
+
+<p>It is telegraphed that the storm prevails over an immense
+extent of country, and is just the same at Chicago as here.
+I hope it may prove a wind-up. We are getting sick of the
+sound of sleigh-bells even.</p>
+
+<p>Your account of Anne has greatly interested me.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_368" id="Page_368">[368]</a></span></p>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">M. Charles
+Fechter.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span style="margin-right: 2em;"><span class="smcap">Syracuse, U.S. of America</span>,</span><br />
+<i>Sunday Night, March 8th, 1868.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='unindent'><span class='smcap'>My dear Fechter</span>,</div>
+
+<p>I am here in a most wonderful out-of-the-world place,
+which looks as if it had begun to be built yesterday, and
+were going to be imperfectly knocked together with a nail
+or two the day after to-morrow. I am in the worst inn
+that ever was seen, and outside is a thaw that places the
+whole country under water. I have looked out of window
+for the people, and I can't find any people. I have tried
+all the wines in the house, and there are only two wines, for
+which you pay six shillings a bottle, or fifteen, according as
+you feel disposed to change the name of the thing you ask
+for. (The article never changes.) The bill of fare is "in
+French," and the principal article (the carte is printed) is
+"Paettie de shay." I asked the Irish waiter what this dish
+was, and he said: "It was the name the steward giv' to
+oyster patties&mdash;the Frinch name." These are the drinks
+you are to wash it down with: "Mooseux," "Abasinthe,"
+"Curacco," "Marschine," "Annise," and "Margeaux"!</p>
+
+<p>I am growing very home-sick, and very anxious for the
+22nd of April; on which day, please God, I embark for
+home. I am beginning to be tired, and have been depressed
+all the time (except when reading), and have lost my appetite.
+I cannot tell you&mdash;but you know, and therefore why should
+I?&mdash;how overjoyed I shall be to see you again, my dear boy,
+and how sorely I miss a dear friend, and how sorely I miss
+all art, in these parts. No disparagement to the country,
+which has a great future in reserve, or to its people, who
+are very kind to me.</p>
+
+<p>I mean to take my leave of readings in the autumn and
+winter, in a final series in England with Chappell. This
+will come into the way of literary work for a time, for, after<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_369" id="Page_369">[369]</a></span>
+I have rested&mdash;don't laugh&mdash;it is a grim reality&mdash;I shall
+have to turn my mind to&mdash;ha! ha! ha!&mdash;to&mdash;ha! ha!
+ha! (more sepulchrally than before)&mdash;the&mdash;the <span class="smcap">Christmas
+Number</span>!!! I feel as if I had murdered a Christmas
+number years ago (perhaps I did!) and its ghost perpetually
+haunted me. Nevertheless in some blessed rest at Gad's,
+we will talk over stage matters, and all matters, in an even
+way, and see what we can make of them, please God. Be
+sure that I shall not be in London one evening, after disembarking,
+without coming round to the theatre to embrace
+you, my dear fellow.</p>
+
+<p>I have had an American cold (the worst in the world)
+since Christmas Day. I read four times a week, with the
+most tremendous energy I can bring to bear upon it. I
+travel about pretty heavily. I am very resolute about
+calling on people, or receiving people, or dining out, and so
+save myself a great deal. I read in all sorts of places&mdash;churches,
+theatres, concert rooms, lecture halls. Every
+night I read I am described (mostly by people who have
+not the faintest notion of observing) from the sole of my
+boot to where the topmost hair of my head ought to be,
+but is not. Sometimes I am described as being "evidently
+nervous;" sometimes it is rather taken ill that "Mr.
+Dickens is so extraordinarily composed." My eyes are
+blue, red, grey, white, green, brown, black, hazel, violet,
+and rainbow-coloured. I am like "a well-to-do American
+gentleman," and the Emperor of the French, with an occasional
+touch of the Emperor of China, and a deterioration
+from the attributes of our famous townsman, Rufus W. B. D.
+Dodge Grumsher Pickville. I say all sorts of things that I
+never said, go to all sorts of places that I never saw or
+heard of, and have done all manner of things (in some previous
+state of existence I suppose) that have quite escaped<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_370" id="Page_370">[370]</a></span>
+my memory. You ask your friend to describe what he is
+about. This is what he is about, every day and hour of his
+American life.</p>
+
+<p>I hope to be back with you before you write to me!</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+<span style="margin-right: 10em;">Ever, my dear Fechter,</span><br />
+Your most affectionate and hearty Friend.<br />
+</div>
+
+<p>P.S.&mdash;Don't let Madame Fechter, or Marie, or Paul
+forget me!</p>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Miss
+Hogarth.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Syracuse</span>, <i>Sunday, March 8th, 1868.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<p>As we shall probably be busy all day to-morrow, I
+write this to-day, though it will not leave New York until
+Wednesday. This is a very grim place in a heavy thaw,
+and a most depressing one. The hotel also is surprisingly
+bad, quite a triumph in that way. We stood out for an
+hour in the melting snow, and came in again, having to
+change completely. Then we sat down by the stove (no
+fireplace), and there we are now. We were so afraid to go
+to bed last night, the rooms were so close and sour, that
+we played whist, double dummy, till we couldn't bear each
+other any longer. We had an old buffalo for supper, and
+an old pig for breakfast, and we are going to have I
+don't know what for dinner at six. In the public rooms
+downstairs, a number of men (speechless) are sitting in
+rocking-chairs, with their feet against the window-frames,
+staring out at window and spitting dolefully at intervals.
+Scott is in tears, and George the gasman is suborning
+people to go and clean the hall, which is a marvel of dirt.
+And yet we have taken considerably over three hundred
+pounds for to-morrow night!</p>
+
+<p>We were at Albany the night before last and yesterday<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_371" id="Page_371">[371]</a></span>
+morning; a very pretty town, where I am to read on the
+18th and 19th. This day week we hope to wash out this
+establishment with the Falls of Niagara. And there is my
+news, except that your <i>last letters</i> to me in America must
+be posted by the Cunard steamer, which will sail from
+Liverpool on <i>Saturday, the 4th of April</i>. These I shall be
+safe to get before embarking.</p>
+
+<p>I send a note to Katie (addressed to Mamie) by this
+mail. I wrote to Harry some weeks ago, stating to him on
+what principles he must act in remodelling the cricket
+club, if he would secure success.</p>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Miss
+Hogarth.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<i>Monday Morning, 9th.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<p>Nothing new. Weather cloudy, and town more dismal
+than yesterday. It froze again last night, and thaws again
+this morning. Somebody sent me an Australian newspaper
+this morning&mdash;some citizen of Syracuse I mean&mdash;because of
+a paragraph in it describing the taking of two freebooters,
+at which taking Alfred was present. Though I do not
+make out that he had anything in the world to do with it,
+except having his name pressed into the service of the
+newspaper.</p>
+
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Buffalo</span>, <i>Thursday, March 12th, 1868.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<p>I hope this may be in time for next Saturday's mail;
+but this is a long way from New York, and rivers are
+swollen with melted snow, and travelling is unusually
+slow.</p>
+
+<p>Just now (two o'clock in the afternoon) I received your
+sad news of the death of poor dear Chauncey.<a name="FNanchor_23_23" id="FNanchor_23_23"></a><a href="#Footnote_23_23" class="fnanchor">[23]</a> It naturally<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_372" id="Page_372">[372]</a></span>
+goes to my heart. It is not a light thing to lose such a
+friend, and I truly loved him. In the first unreasonable
+train of feeling, I dwelt more than I should have thought
+possible on my being unable to attend his funeral. I
+know how little this really matters; but I know he would
+have wished me to be there with real honest tears for his
+memory, and I feel it very much. I never, never, never
+was better loved by man than I was by him, I am sure.
+Poor dear fellow, good affectionate gentle creature.</p>
+
+<p>I have not as yet received any letter from Henri, nor do
+I think he can have written to New York by your mail.
+I believe that I am&mdash;I know that I <i>was</i>&mdash;one of the executors.
+In that case Mr. Jackson, his agent, will either
+write to me very shortly on Henri's information of my
+address, or enquiry will be made at Gad's or at the office
+about it.</p>
+
+<p>It is difficult for me to write more just now. The news
+is a real shock at such a distance, and I must read to-night,
+and I must compose my mind. Let Mekitty know that I
+received her violets with great pleasure, and that I sent her
+my best love and my best thanks.</p>
+
+<p>On the 25th of February I read "Copperfield" and
+"Bob" at Boston. Either on that very day, or very close
+upon it, I was describing his (Townshend's) house to Fields,
+and telling him about the great Danby picture that he
+should see when he came to London.</p>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Miss
+Dickens.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Rochester</span>, <i>Sunday, March 16th, 1868.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<p>I found yours of the 28th February, when I came back
+here last night. We have had two brilliant sunny days at
+Niagara, and have seen that wonderful place under the finest
+circumstances.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_373" id="Page_373">[373]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Enclosed I return you Homan's estimate; let all that
+work be done, including the curtains.</p>
+
+<p>As to the hall, I have my doubts whether one of the
+parqueted floors made by Aaron Smith's, of Bond Street,
+ought not to be better than tiles, for the reason that perhaps
+the nature of the house's construction might render the
+"bed" necessary for wooden flooring more easy to be made
+than the "bed" necessary for tiles. I don't think you can
+do better than call in the trusty Lillie to advise. Decide with
+your aunt on which appears to be better, under the circumstances.
+Have estimate made for <i>cash</i>, select patterns and
+colours, and let the work be done out of hand. (Here's a
+prompt order; now I draw breath.) Let it be thoroughly
+well done&mdash;no half measures.</p>
+
+<p>There is a great thaw all over the country here, and I
+think it has done the catarrh good. I am to read at the
+famous Newhaven on Tuesday, the 24th. I hope without
+a row, but cannot say. The readings are running out fast
+now, and we are growing very restless.</p>
+
+<p>This is a short letter, but we are pressed for time. It is
+two o'clock, and we dine at three, before reading. To-morrow
+we rise at six, and have eleven hours' railway
+or so. We have now come back from our farthest point,
+and are steadily working towards home.</p>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mr. W. C.
+Macready.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Springfield, Mass.</span>, <i>Saturday, March 21st, 1868.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='unindent'><span class='smcap'>My dearest Macready</span>,</div>
+
+<p>What with perpetual reading and travelling, what
+with a "true American catarrh" (on which I am complimented
+almost boastfully), and what with one of the severest
+winters ever known, your coals of fire received by the last
+mail did not burn my head so much as they might have<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_374" id="Page_374">[374]</a></span>
+done under less excusatory circumstances. But they
+scorched it too!</p>
+
+<p>You would find the general aspect of America and
+Americans decidedly much improved. You would find
+immeasurably greater consideration and respect for your
+privacy than of old. You would find a steady change for
+the better everywhere, except (oddly enough) in the railroads
+generally, which seem to have stood still, while
+everything else has moved. But there is an exception
+westward. There the express trains have now a very
+delightful carriage called a "drawing-room car," literally
+a series of little private drawing-rooms, with sofas and
+a table in each, opening out of a little corridor. In each,
+too, is a large plate-glass window, with which you can do as
+you like. As you pay extra for this luxury, it may be regarded
+as the first move towards two classes of passengers.
+When the railroad straight away to San Francisco (in six
+days) shall be opened through, it will not only have these
+drawing-rooms, but sleeping-rooms too; a bell in every
+little apartment communicating with a steward's pantry, a
+restaurant, a staff of servants, marble washing-stands, and
+a barber's shop! I looked into one of these cars a day or
+two ago, and it was very ingeniously arranged and quite
+complete.</p>
+
+<p>I left Niagara last Sunday, and travelled on to Albany,
+through three hundred miles of flood, villages deserted,
+bridges broken, fences drifting away, nothing but tearing
+water, floating ice, and absolute wreck and ruin. The train
+gave in altogether at Utica, and the passengers were let
+loose there for the night. As I was due at Albany, a very
+active superintendent of works did all he could to "get
+Mr. Dickens along," and in the morning we resumed our
+journey through the water, with a hundred men in seven-league<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_375" id="Page_375">[375]</a></span>
+boots pushing the ice from before us with long poles.
+How we got to Albany I can't say, but we got there somehow,
+just in time for a triumphal "Carol" and "Trial."
+All the tickets had been sold, and we found the Albanians
+in a state of great excitement. You may imagine what the
+flood was when I tell you that we took the passengers out
+of two trains that had their fires put out by the water four-and-twenty
+hours before, and cattle from trucks that had
+been in the water I don't know how long, but so long that
+the sheep had begun to eat each other! It was a horrible
+spectacle, and the haggard human misery of their faces
+was quite a new study. There was a fine breath of spring
+in the air concurrently with the great thaw; but lo and
+behold! last night it began to snow again with a strong
+wind, and to-day a snowdrift covers this place with all the
+desolation of winter once more. I never was so tired of
+the sight of snow. As to sleighing, I have been sleighing
+about to that extent, that I am sick of the sound of a
+sleigh-bell.</p>
+
+<p>I have seen all our Boston friends, except Curtis.
+Ticknor is dead. The rest are very little changed, except
+that Longfellow has a perfectly white flowing beard and
+long white hair. But he does not otherwise look old, and
+is infinitely handsomer than he was. I have been constantly
+with them all, and they have always talked much of you.
+It is the established joke that Boston is my "native place,"
+and we hold all sorts of hearty foregatherings. They all
+come to every reading, and are always in a most delightful
+state of enthusiasm. They give me a parting dinner at the
+club, on the Thursday before Good Friday. To pass from
+Boston personal to New York theatrical, I will mention
+here that one of the proprietors of my New York hotel is
+one of the proprietors of Niblo's, and the most active.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_376" id="Page_376">[376]</a></span>
+Consequently I have seen the "Black Crook" and the
+"White Fawn," in majesty, from an arm-chair in the first
+entrance, P.S., more than once. Of these astonishing
+dramas, I beg to report (seriously) that I have found no
+human creature "behind" who has the slightest idea what
+they are about (upon my honour, my dearest Macready!),
+and that having some amiable small talk with a neat little
+Spanish woman, who is the <i>premi&egrave;re danseuse</i>, I asked her,
+in joke, to let me measure her skirt with my dress glove.
+Holding the glove by the tip of the forefinger, I found the
+skirt to be just three gloves long, and yet its length was
+much in excess of the skirts of two hundred other ladies,
+whom the carpenters were at that moment getting into their
+places for a transformation scene, on revolving columns, on
+wires and "travellers" in iron cradles, up in the flies, down
+in the cellars, on every description of float that Wilmot,
+gone distracted, could imagine!</p>
+
+<p>I have taken my passage for Liverpool from New York
+in the Cunarder <i>Russia</i>, on the 22nd of April. I had the
+second officer's cabin on deck coming out, and I have the
+chief steward's cabin on deck going home, because it will
+be on the sunny side of the ship. I have experienced nothing
+here but good humour and cordiality. In the autumn and
+winter I have arranged with Chappells to take my farewell
+of reading in the United Kingdom for ever and ever.</p>
+
+<p>I am delighted to hear of Benvenuta's marriage, and I
+think her husband a very lucky man. Johnnie has my profound
+sympathy under his examinatorial woes. The noble
+boy will give me Gavazzi revised and enlarged, I expect,
+when I next come to Cheltenham. I will give you and Mrs.
+Macready all my American experiences when you come to
+London, or, better still, to Gad's. Meanwhile I send my
+hearty love to all, not forgetting dear Katie.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_377" id="Page_377">[377]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Niagara is not at all spoiled by a very dizzy-looking
+suspension bridge. Is to have another still nearer to the
+Horse-shoe opened in July. My last sight of that scene
+(last Sunday) was thus: We went up to the rapids above
+the Horse-shoe&mdash;say two miles from it&mdash;and through the
+great cloud of spray. Everything in the magnificent valley&mdash;buildings,
+forest, high banks, air, water, everything&mdash;was
+<i>made of rainbow</i>. Turner's most imaginative drawing in
+his finest day has nothing in it so ethereal, so gorgeous in
+fancy, so celestial. We said to one another (Dolby and I),
+"Let it for evermore remain so," and shut our eyes and
+came away.</p>
+
+<p>God bless you and all dear to you, my dear old Friend!</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+I am ever your affectionate and loving.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Miss
+Dickens.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Portland</span>, <i>Sunday, March 29th, 1868.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<p>I should have written to you by the last mail, but I
+really was too unwell to do it. The writing day was last
+Friday, when I ought to have left Boston for New Bedford
+(fifty-five miles) before eleven in the morning. But I was
+so exhausted that I could not be got up, and had to take
+my chance of an evening's train producing me in time to
+read, which it just did. With the return of snow, nine
+days ago, the "true American" (which had lulled) came
+back as bad as ever. I have coughed from two or three in
+the morning until five or six, and have been absolutely
+sleepless. I have had no appetite besides, and no taste.
+Last night here I took some laudanum, and it is the only
+thing that has done me good. But the life in this climate
+is so very hard. When I did manage to get from Boston
+to New Bedford, I read with my utmost force and vigour.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_378" id="Page_378">[378]</a></span>
+Next morning, well or ill, I must turn out at seven to get
+back to Boston on my way here.</p>
+
+<p>I dine at Boston at three, and at five must come on here
+(a hundred and thirty miles or so), for to-morrow night;
+there being no Sunday train. To-morrow night I read here
+in a very large place, and Tuesday morning at six I must
+start again to get back to Boston once more. But after
+to-morrow night, I have only the Boston and New York
+farewells, thank God! I am most grateful to think that
+when we came to devise the details of the tour, I foresaw
+that it could never be done, as Dolby and Osgood proposed,
+by one unassisted man, as if he were a machine. If I had
+not cut out the work, and cut out Canada, I could never
+have gone there, I am quite sure. Even as it is, I have just
+now written to Dolby (who is in New York), to see my
+doctor there, and ask him to send me some composing
+medicine that I can take at night, inasmuch as without
+sleep I cannot get through. However sympathetic and
+devoted the people are about me, they <i>can not</i> be got to
+comprehend that one's being able to do the two hours with
+spirit when the time comes round, may be co-existent with
+the consciousness of great depression and fatigue. I don't
+mind saying all this, now that the labour is so nearly over.
+You shall have a brighter account of me, please God, when
+I close this at Boston.</p>
+
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<i>Monday, March 30th.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<p>Without any artificial aid, I got a splendid night's rest
+last night, and consequently am very much freshened up
+to-day. Yesterday I had a fine walk by the sea, and to-day
+I have had another on the heights overlooking it.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_379" id="Page_379">[379]</a></span></p>
+
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Boston</span>, <i>Tuesday, 31st.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<p>I have safely arrived here, just in time to add a line to
+that effect, and get this off by to-morrow's English mail
+from New York. Catarrh rather better. Everything
+triumphant last night, except no sleep again. I suppose
+Dolby to be now on his way back to join me here. I am
+much mistaken if the political crisis do not damage the
+farewells by almost one half.</p>
+
+<p>I hope that I am certainly better altogether.</p>
+
+<p>My room well decorated with flowers, of course, and
+Mr. and Mrs. Fields coming to dinner. They are the
+most devoted of friends, and never in the way and never
+out of it.</p>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Miss
+Hogarth.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Boston</span>, <i>Wednesday, April 1st, 1868.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<p>I received your letter of from the 14th to the 17th of
+March, here, last night. My New York doctor has prescribed
+for me promptly, and I hope I am better. I am
+certainly no worse. We shall do (to the best of my belief)
+<i>very well</i> with the farewells here and at New York, but not
+greatly. Everything is at a standstill, pending the impeachment
+and the next presidential election. I forgot whether
+I told you that the New York press are going to give me a
+public dinner, on Saturday, the 18th.</p>
+
+<p>I hear (but not from himself) that Wills has had a bad
+fall in hunting, and is, or has been, laid up. I am supposed,
+I take it, not to know this until I hear it from himself.</p>
+
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<i>Thursday.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<p>My notion of the farewells is pretty certain now to turn
+out right. It is not at all probable that we shall do anything
+enormous. Every pulpit in Massachusetts will resound<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_380" id="Page_380">[380]</a></span>
+to violent politics to-day and to-night. You remember the
+Hutchinson family?<a name="FNanchor_24_24" id="FNanchor_24_24"></a><a href="#Footnote_24_24" class="fnanchor">[24]</a> I have had a grateful letter from John
+Hutchinson. He speaks of "my sister Abby" as living in
+New York. The immediate object of his note is to invite
+me to the marriage of his daughter, twenty-one years of age.</p>
+
+<p>You will see by the evidence of this piece of paper that
+I am using up my stationery. Scott has just been making
+anxious calculations as to our powers of holding out in the
+articles of tooth-powder, etc. The calculations encourage
+him to believe that we shall just hold out, and no more. I
+think I am still better to-day than I was yesterday; but I
+am far from strong, and have no appetite. To see me at
+my little table at night, you would think me the freshest of
+the fresh. And this is the marvel of Fields' life.</p>
+
+<p>I don't forget that this is Forster's birthday.</p>
+
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<i>Friday Afternoon, 3rd.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<p>Catarrh worse than ever! And we don't know (at four)
+whether I can read to-night or must stop. Otherwise all
+well.</p>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Miss
+Dickens.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Boston</span>, <i>Tuesday, April 7th, 1868.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<p>I not only read last Friday, when I was doubtful of
+being able to do so, but read as I never did before, and
+astonished the audience quite as much as myself. You
+never saw or heard such a scene of excitement.</p>
+
+<p>Longfellow and all the Cambridge men urged me to
+give in. I have been very near doing so, but feel stronger
+to-day. I cannot tell whether the catarrh may have done
+me any lasting injury in the lungs or other breathing<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_381" id="Page_381">[381]</a></span>
+organs, until I shall have rested and got home. I hope
+and believe not. Consider the weather. There have been
+two snowstorms since I wrote last, and to-day the town is
+blotted out in a ceaseless whirl of snow and wind.</p>
+
+<p>I cannot eat (to anything like the ordinary extent), and
+have established this system: At seven in the morning, in
+bed, a tumbler of new cream and two tablespoonsful of
+rum. At twelve, a sherry cobbler and a biscuit. At three
+(dinner time), a pint of champagne. At five minutes to
+eight, an egg beaten up with a glass of sherry. Between
+the parts, the strongest beef tea that can be made, drunk
+hot. At a quarter-past ten, soup, and anything to drink
+that I can fancy. I don't eat more than half a pound of
+solid food in the whole four-and-twenty hours, if so much.</p>
+
+<p>If I hold out, as I hope to do, I shall be greatly pressed
+in leaving here and getting over to New York before next
+Saturday's mail from there. Do not, therefore, <i>if all be well</i>,
+expect to hear from me by Saturday's mail, but look for
+my last letter from America by the mail of the following
+Wednesday, the 15th. <i>Be sure</i> that you shall hear, however,
+by Saturday's mail, if I should knock up as to reading. I
+am tremendously "beat," but I feel really and unaffectedly
+so much stronger to-day, both in my body and hopes, that
+I am much encouraged. I have a fancy that I turned my
+worst time last night.</p>
+
+<p>Dolby is as tender as a woman and as watchful as a
+doctor. He never leaves me during the reading now, but
+sits at the side of the platform and keeps his eye upon me
+all the time. Ditto George, the gasman, steadiest and most
+reliable man I ever employed. I am the more hopeful of my
+not having to relinquish a reading, because last night was
+"Copperfield" and "Bob"&mdash;by a quarter of an hour the
+longest, and, in consideration of the storm, by very much<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_382" id="Page_382">[382]</a></span>
+the most trying. Yet I was far fresher afterwards than I
+have been these three weeks.</p>
+
+<p>I have "Dombey" to do to-night, and must go through
+it carefully; so here ends my report. The personal affection
+of the people in this place is charming to the last.</p>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">The Hon.
+Mrs.
+Watson.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Gad's Hill Place</span>, <i>Monday, May 11th, 1868.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='unindent'><span class='smcap'>My dear Mrs. Watson</span>,</div>
+
+<p>I am delighted to have your letter. It comes to me
+like a faithful voice from dear old Rockingham, and awakens
+many memories.</p>
+
+<p>The work in America has been so very hard, and the winter
+there has been so excessively severe, that I really have been
+very unwell for some months. But I had not been at sea
+three days on the passage home when I became myself
+again.</p>
+
+<p>If you will arrange with Mary Boyle any time for coming
+here, we shall be charmed to see you, and I will adapt my
+arrangements accordingly. I make this suggestion because
+she generally comes here early in the summer season. But
+if you will propose yourself <i>anyhow</i>, giving me a margin of
+a few days in case of my being pre-engaged for this day or
+that, we will (as my American friends say) "fix it."</p>
+
+<p>What with travelling, reading night after night, and
+speech-making day after day, I feel the peace of the country
+beyond all expression. On board ship coming home, a
+"deputation" (two in number, of whom only one could get
+into my cabin, while the other looked in at my window)
+came to ask me to read to the passengers that evening in
+the saloon. I respectfully replied that sooner than do it, I
+would assault the captain, and be put in irons.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Ever affectionately yours.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_383" id="Page_383">[383]</a></span></p>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mrs.
+George
+Cattermole.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span style="margin-right: 2em;"><span class="smcap">Gad's Hill Place, Higham by Rochester, Kent</span>,</span><br />
+<i>Saturday, May 16th, 1868.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='unindent'><span class='smcap'>My dear Mrs. Cattermole</span>,</div>
+
+<p>On my return from America just now, I accidentally
+heard that George had been ill. My sister-in-law had heard
+it from Forster, but vaguely. Until I received your letter
+of Wednesday's date, I had no idea that he had been very
+ill; and should have been greatly shocked by knowing it,
+were it not for the hopeful and bright assurance you give
+me that he is greatly better.</p>
+
+<p>My old affection for him has never cooled. The last
+time he dined with me, I asked him to come again that day
+ten years, for I was perfectly certain (this was my small
+joke) that I should not set eyes upon him sooner. The
+time being fully up, I hope you will remind him, with my
+love, that he is due. His hand is upon these walls here, so
+I should like him to see for himself, and <i>you</i> to see for
+<i>yourself</i>, and in this hope I shall pursue his complete
+recovery.</p>
+
+<p>I heartily sympathise with you in your terrible anxiety,
+and in your vast relief; and, with many thanks for your
+letter, am ever, my dear Mrs. Cattermole,</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Affectionately yours.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mr. W. C.
+Macready.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Gad's Hill</span>, <i>Wednesday, June 10th, 1868.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='unindent'><span class='smcap'>My dearest Macready</span>,</div>
+
+<p>Since my return from America, I have been so overwhelmed
+with business that I have not had time even to
+write to you. You may imagine what six months of arrear
+are to dispose of; added to this, Wills has received a concussion
+of the brain (from an accident in the hunting-field),
+and is sent away by the doctors, and strictly prohibited<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_384" id="Page_384">[384]</a></span>
+from even writing a note. Consequently all the business
+and money details of "All the Year Round" devolve
+upon me. And I have had to get them up, for I have never
+had experience of them. Then I am suddenly entreated
+to go to Paris, to look after the French version of "No
+Thoroughfare" on the stage. And I go, and come back,
+leaving it a great success.</p>
+
+<p>I hope Mrs. Macready and you have not abandoned the
+idea of coming here? The expression of this hope is the
+principal, if not the only, object of this present note. May
+the amiable secretary vouchsafe a satisfactory reply!</p>
+
+<p>Katie, Mary, and Georgina send their very best love to
+your Katie and Mrs. Macready. The undersigned is in his
+usual brilliant condition, and indeed has greatly disappointed
+them at home here, by coming back "so brown and looking
+so well." They expected a wreck, and were, at first, much
+mortified. But they are getting over it now.</p>
+
+<p>To my particular friends, the noble boy and Johnny,
+I beg to be warmly remembered.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+<span style="margin-right: 2em;">Ever, my dearest Macready,</span><br />
+Your most affectionate.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mrs.
+Henry
+Austin.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span style="margin-right: 2em;"><span class="smcap">Gad's Hill Place, Higham by Rochester, Kent</span>,</span><br />
+<i>Tuesday, July 21st, 1868.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='center'>
+<small>ON THE DEATH OF MR. HENRY AUSTIN.</small><a name="FNanchor_25_25" id="FNanchor_25_25"></a><a href="#Footnote_25_25" class="fnanchor">[25]</a><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='unindent'><span class='smcap'>My dear Letitia</span>,</div>
+
+<p>You will have had a telegram from me to-day. I
+received your sad news by this morning's post. They
+never, without express explanation, mind "Immediate" on
+a letter addressed to the office, because half the people who
+write there on business that does not press, or on no business
+at all, so mark their letters.</p>
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_385" id="Page_385">[385]</a></span></p>
+<p>On Thursday I have people to see and matters to attend
+to, both at the office and at Coutts', which, in Wills's
+absence, I cannot forego or depute to another. But,
+<i>between ourselves</i>, I must add something else: I have the
+greatest objection to attend a funeral in which my affections
+are not strongly and immediately concerned. I have no
+notion of a funeral as a matter of form or ceremony. And
+just as I should expressly prohibit the summoning to my
+own burial of anybody who was not very near or dear to me,
+so I revolt from myself appearing at that solemn rite unless
+the deceased were very near or dear to me. I cannot endure
+being dressed up by an undertaker as part of his trade show.
+I was not in this poor good fellow's house in his lifetime,
+and I feel that I have no business there when he lies dead
+in it. My mind is penetrated with sympathy and compassion
+for the young widow, but that feeling is a real
+thing, and my attendance as a mourner would not be&mdash;to
+myself. It would be to you, I know, but it would not be to
+myself. I know full well that you cannot delegate to me
+your memories of and your associations with the deceased,
+and the more true and tender they are the more invincible
+is my objection to become a form in the midst of the most
+awful realities.</p>
+
+<p>With love and condolence from Georgina, Mary, and
+Katie,</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Believe me, ever your affectionate Brother.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mrs.
+George
+Cattermole.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Gad's Hill</span>, <i>Wednesday, July 22nd, 1868.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='unindent'><span class='smcap'>My dear Mrs. Cattermole</span>,</div>
+
+<p>Of course I will sign your memorial to the Academy.
+If you take either of the Landseers, certainly take Edwin
+(1, St. John's Wood Road, N.W.) But, if you would be
+content with Frith, I have already spoken to him, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_386" id="Page_386">[386]</a></span>
+believe that I can answer for him. I shall be at "All the
+Year Round" Office, 26, Wellington Street, London,
+to-morrow, from eleven to three. Frith will be here on
+Saturday, and I shall be here too. I spoke to him a fortnight
+ago, and I found him most earnest in the cause. He
+said he felt absolutely sure that the whole profession in its
+best and highest representation would do anything for
+George. I sounded him, having the opportunity of meeting
+him at dinner at Cartwright's.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Ever yours affectionately.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mr. W. H.
+Wills.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<i>Friday, July 31st, 1868.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='unindent'><span class='smcap'>My dear Wills</span>,</div>
+
+<p>I had such a hard day at the office yesterday, that I
+had not time to write to you before I left. So I write
+to-day.</p>
+
+<p>I am very unwilling to abandon the Christmas number,
+though even in the case of my little Christmas books (which
+were immensely profitable) I let the idea go when I thought
+it was wearing out. Ever since I came home, I have hammered
+at it, more or less, and have been uneasy about it. I
+have begun something which is very droll, but it manifestly
+shapes itself towards a book, and could not in the least admit
+of even that shadowy approach to a congruous whole on the
+part of other contributors which they have ever achieved at
+the best. I have begun something else (aboard the American
+mail-steamer); but I don't like it, because the stories must
+come limping in after the old fashion, though, of course,
+what I <i>have</i> done will be good for A. Y. R. In short, I
+have cast about with the greatest pains and patience, and I
+have been wholly unable to find what I want.</p>
+
+<p>And yet I cannot quite make up my mind to give in without
+another fight for it. I offered one hundred pounds reward<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_387" id="Page_387">[387]</a></span>
+at Gad's to anybody who could suggest a notion to satisfy
+me. Charles Collins suggested one yesterday morning, in
+which there is <i>something</i>, though not much. I will turn it
+over and over, and try a few more starts on my own account.
+Finally, I swear I will not give it up until August is out.
+Vow registered.</p>
+
+<p>I am clear that a number by "various writers" would
+not do. If we have not the usual sort of number, we must
+call the current number for that date the Christmas number,
+and make it as good as possible.</p>
+
+<p>I sit in the Ch&acirc;let,<a name="FNanchor_26_26" id="FNanchor_26_26"></a><a href="#Footnote_26_26" class="fnanchor">[26]</a> like Mariana in the Moated Grange,
+and to as much purpose.</p>
+
+<p>I am buying the freehold of the meadow at Gad's, and of
+an adjoining arable field, so that I shall now have about eight-and-twenty
+freehold acres in a ring-fence. No more now.</p>
+
+<p>I made up a very good number yesterday. You will see
+in it a very short article that I have called "Now!" which
+is a highly remarkable piece of description. It is done by a
+new man, from whom I have accepted another article; but
+he will never do anything so good again.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Ever affectionately.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">M. de
+Cerjat.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span style="margin-right: 2em;"><span class="smcap">Gad's Hill Place, Higham by Rochester, Kent</span>,</span><br />
+<i>Wednesday, Aug. 26th, 1868.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='unindent'><span class='smcap'>My dear Cerjat</span>,</div>
+
+<p>I was happy to receive your esteemed letter a few
+days ago.</p>
+
+<p>The severity of the winter in America (which was quite
+exceptional even in that rigorous climate), combined with
+the hard work I had to do, tried me a good deal. Neuralgia
+and colds beset me, either by turns or both together, and I<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_388" id="Page_388">[388]</a></span>
+had often much to do to get through at night. But the sea
+voyage home again did wonders in restoring me, and I
+have been very well indeed, though a little fatigued, ever
+since. I am now preparing for a final reading campaign in
+England, Scotland, and Ireland. It will begin on the 6th
+of October, and will probably last, with short occasional
+intermissions, until June.</p>
+
+<p>The great subject in England for the moment is the
+horrible accident to the Irish mail-train. It is now supposed
+that the petroleum (known to be a powerful an&aelig;sthetic)
+rendered the unfortunate people who were burnt almost
+instantly insensible to any sensation. My escape in the
+Staplehurst accident of three years ago is not to be
+obliterated from my nervous system. To this hour I have
+sudden vague rushes of terror, even when riding in a
+hansom cab, which are perfectly unreasonable but quite
+insurmountable. I used to make nothing of driving a pair
+of horses habitually through the most crowded parts of
+London. I cannot now drive, with comfort to myself, on
+the country roads here; and I doubt if I could ride at all
+in the saddle. My reading secretary and companion knows
+so well when one of these odd momentary seizures comes
+upon me in a railway carriage, that he instantly produces
+a dram of brandy, which rallies the blood to the heart and
+generally prevails. I forget whether I ever told you that
+my watch (a chronometer) has never gone exactly since the
+accident? So the Irish catastrophe naturally revives the
+dreadful things I saw that day.</p>
+
+<p>The only other news here you know as well as I; to wit,
+that the country is going to be ruined, and that the Church
+is going to be ruined, and that both have become so used to
+being ruined, that they will go on perfectly well.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_389" id="Page_389">[389]</a></span></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">Miss
+Dickens.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span style="margin-right: 2em;"><span class="smcap">Office of "All the Year Round," No. 26, Wellington Street,</span></span><br />
+<span style="margin-right: 4em;"><span class="smcap">Strand, London, W.C.</span>,</span><br />
+<i>Saturday, Sept. 26th, 1868.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='unindent'><span class='smcap'>My dearest Mamie</span>,</div>
+
+<p>I will add a line to this at the Athen&aelig;um, after
+seeing Plorn off, to tell you how he went away.</p>
+
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Athen&aelig;um</span>, <i>Quarter to Six.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<p>I can honestly report that he went away, poor dear
+fellow, as well as could possibly be expected. He was pale,
+and had been crying, and (Harry said) had broken down in
+the railway carriage after leaving Higham station; but only
+for a short time.</p>
+
+<p>Just before the train started he cried a good deal, but
+not painfully. (Tell dear Georgy that I bought him his
+cigars.) These are hard, hard things, but they might have
+to be done without means or influence, and then they would
+be far harder. God bless him!<br /><br /><br /></p>
+
+
+<div class="hang1"><small>PARLIAMENT. REPLY TO A PROPOSAL MADE THROUGH ALEXANDER
+RUSSEL, OF "THE SCOTSMAN," THAT HE SHOULD ALLOW
+HIMSELF TO BE PUT FORWARD AS A CANDIDATE FOR THE
+REPRESENTATION OF EDINBURGH.</small></div>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mr. F. D.
+Finlay.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br />
+<span style="margin-right: 2em;"><span class="smcap">Gad's Hill Place, Higham by Rochester, Kent</span>,</span><br />
+<i>Sunday, Oct. 4th, 1868.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='unindent'><span class='smcap'>My dear Finlay</span>,</div>
+
+<p>I am much obliged to you in all friendship and
+sincerity for your letter. I have a great respect for your
+father-in-law and his paper, and I am much attached to the
+Edinburgh people. You may suppose, therefore, that if
+my mind were not fully made up on the parliamentary
+question, I should waver now.</p>
+
+<p>But my conviction that I am more useful and more<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_390" id="Page_390">[390]</a></span>
+happy as I am than I could ever be in Parliament is not to
+be shaken. I considered it some weeks ago, when I had a
+stirring proposal from the Birmingham people, and I then
+set it up on a rock for ever and a day.</p>
+
+<p>Do tell Mr. Russel that I truly feel this mark of confidence,
+and that I hope to acknowledge it in person in
+Edinburgh before Christmas. There is no man in Scotland
+from whom I should consider his suggestion a greater
+honour.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Ever yours.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">M. Charles
+Fechter.</div>
+
+<div class='center'><br /><br /><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>Poor Plorn is gone to Australia. It was a hard parting
+at the last. He seemed to me to become once more my
+youngest and favourite little child as the day drew near,
+and I did not think I could have been so shaken. You
+were his idol to the hour of his departure, and he asked me
+to tell you how much he wanted to bid you good-bye.</p>
+
+<p>Kindest love from all.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Ever heartily.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">The same.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span style="margin-right: 2em;"><span class="smcap">Office of "All the Year Round</span>,"</span><br />
+<i>Wednesday, Oct. 7th, 1868.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='unindent'><span class='smcap'>My dear Fechter</span>,</div>
+
+<p>I got your letter sent to Gad's Hill this morning.
+Until I received it, I supposed the piece to have been put
+into English from your French by young Ben. If I understand
+that the English is yours, then I say that it is
+extraordinarily good, written by one in another country.</p>
+
+<p>I do not read again in London until the 20th; and then
+"Copperfield." But by that time you will be at work
+yourself.</p>
+
+<p>Let us dine at six to-day, in order that we may not have
+to hurry for the comic dog.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Ever faithfully.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_391" id="Page_391">[391]</a></span></p>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Miss
+Hogarth.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Queen's Hotel, Manchester</span>, <i>Sunday, Oct. 11th, 1868.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='unindent'><span class='smcap'>My dearest Georgy</span>,</div>
+
+<p>We had a fine audience last night in the Free Trade
+Hall, though not what we consider a large money-house.
+The let in Liverpool is extremely good, and we are going
+over there at half-past one. We got down here pleasantly
+enough and in good time; so all has gone well you see.</p>
+
+<p>Titiens, Santley, and an opera company of that class are
+at the theatre here. They have been doing very poorly in
+Manchester.</p>
+
+<p>There is the whole of my scanty news. I was in wonderful
+voice last night, but croak a little this morning, after
+so much speaking in so very large a place. Otherwise I am
+all right. I find myself constantly thinking of Plorn.</p>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Miss
+Dickens.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Adelphi Hotel, Liverpool</span>, <i>Monday, Oct. 12th, 1868.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='unindent'><span class='smcap'>My dearest Mamie</span>,</div>
+
+<p>Our lets here are excellent, and we shall have a
+great house to-night. We had a very fine and enthusiastic
+audience in the Free Trade Hall, at Manchester, on
+Saturday; but our first nights there never count up in
+money, as the rest do. Yesterday, "Charlotte," Sainton,
+and Piatti stayed with us here; and they went on to Hull
+this morning. It was pleasant to be alone again, though
+they were all very agreeable.</p>
+
+<p>The exertion of going on for two hours in that immense
+place at Manchester being very great, I was hoarse all day
+yesterday, though I was not much distressed on Saturday
+night. I am becoming melodious again (at three in the
+afternoon) rapidly, and count on being quite restored by a
+basin of turtle at dinner.</p>
+
+<p>I am glad to hear about Armatage, and hope that a
+service begun in a personal attachment to Plorn may go on<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_392" id="Page_392">[392]</a></span>
+well. I shall never be over-confident in such matters, I
+think, any more.</p>
+
+<p>The day is delicious here. We have had a blow on
+the Mersey this morning, and exulted over the American
+steamers. With kind regard to Sir William and Lady
+Humphery.</p>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Miss
+Hogarth.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Adelphi Hotel, Liverpool</span>, <i>Tuesday, Oct. 13th, 1868.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<p>As I sent a line to Mary yesterday, I enclose you Alfred's
+letter. Please send it on to her when you next write to
+Penton.</p>
+
+<p>I have just now written to Mrs. Forster, asking her to
+explain to Miss Forster how she could have an easy-chair
+or a sofa behind my side screen on Tuesday, without
+occasioning the smallest inconvenience to anybody. Also,
+how she would have a door close at hand, leading at once
+to cool passages and a quiet room, etc. etc. etc. It is a
+sad story.</p>
+
+<p>We had a fine house here last night, and a large turn-away.
+"Marigold" and "Trial" went immensely. I
+doubt if "Marigold" were ever more enthusiastically received.
+"Copperfield" and "Bob" to-night, and a large
+let. This notwithstanding election meetings and all sorts
+of things.</p>
+
+<p>My favourite room brought my voice round last night,
+and I am in considerable force.</p>
+
+<p>Dolby sends kindest regard, and the message: "Everton
+toffee shall not be forgotten."</p>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mr. Henry
+Fielding
+Dickens.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Adelphi Hotel, Liverpool</span>, <i>Thursday, Oct. 15th, 1868.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='unindent'><span class='smcap'>My dear Harry</span>,</div>
+
+<p>I have your letter here this morning. I enclose you
+another cheque for twenty-five pounds, and I write to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_393" id="Page_393">[393]</a></span>
+London by this post, ordering three dozen sherry, two
+dozen port, and three dozen light claret, to be sent down
+to you.</p>
+
+<p>Now, observe attentively. We must have no shadow of
+debt. Square up everything whatsoever that it has been
+necessary to buy. Let not a farthing be outstanding on
+any account, when we begin together with your allowance.
+Be particular in the minutest detail.</p>
+
+<p>I wish to have no secret from you in the relations
+we are to establish together, and I therefore send you Joe
+Chitty's letter bodily. Reading it, you will know exactly
+what I know, and will understand that I treat you with
+perfect confidence. It appears to me that an allowance of
+two hundred and fifty pounds a year will be handsome
+for all your wants, if I send you your wines. I mean this
+to include your tailor's bills as well as every other expense;
+and I strongly recommend you to buy nothing in Cambridge,
+and to take credit for nothing but the clothes with
+which your tailor provides you. As soon as you have got
+your furniture accounts in, let us wipe all those preliminary
+expenses clean out, and I will then send you your first
+quarter. We will count in it October, November, and
+December; and your second quarter will begin with the
+New Year. If you dislike, at first, taking charge of so
+large a sum as sixty-two pounds ten shillings, you can have
+your money from me half-quarterly.</p>
+
+<p>You know how hard I work for what I get, and I think
+you know that I never had money help from any human
+creature after I was a child. You know that you are one
+of many heavy charges on me, and that I trust to your so
+exercising your abilities and improving the advantages of
+your past expensive education, as soon to diminish <i>this</i>
+charge. I say no more on that head.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_394" id="Page_394">[394]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Whatever you do, above all other things keep out of
+debt and confide in me. If you ever find yourself on the
+verge of any perplexity or difficulty, come to me. You will
+never find me hard with you while you are manly and
+truthful.</p>
+
+<p>As your brothers have gone away one by one, I have
+written to each of them what I am now going to write to
+you. You know that you have never been hampered with
+religious forms of restraint, and that with mere unmeaning
+forms I have no sympathy. But I most strongly and
+affectionately impress upon you the priceless value of the
+New Testament, and the study of that book as the one
+unfailing guide in life. Deeply respecting it, and bowing
+down before the character of our Saviour, as separated
+from the vain constructions and inventions of men, you
+cannot go very wrong, and will always preserve at heart a
+true spirit of veneration and humility. Similarly I impress
+upon you the habit of saying a Christian prayer every night
+and morning. These things have stood by me all through
+my life, and remember that I tried to render the New
+Testament intelligible to you and lovable by you when you
+were a mere baby.</p>
+
+<p>And so God bless you.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Ever your affectionate Father.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mr.
+William
+Charles
+Kent.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span style="margin-right: 2em;"><span class="smcap">Office of "All the Year Round</span>,"</span><br />
+<i>Monday, Nov. 16th, 1868.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='unindent'><span class='smcap'>My dear Kent</span>,</div>
+
+<p>I was on the eve of writing to you.</p>
+
+<p>We thought of keeping the trial private; but Oxenford
+has suggested to Chappell that he would like to take the
+opportunity of to-morrow night's reading, of saying something
+about "Oliver" in <i>Wednesday's paper</i>. Chappell has<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_395" id="Page_395">[395]</a></span>
+told Levy of this, and also Mr. Tompkin, of <i>The Post</i>, who
+was there. Consequently, on Wednesday evening your
+charming article can come out to the best advantage.</p>
+
+<p>You have no idea of the difficulty of getting in the end
+of Sikes. As to the man with the invaluable composition!
+my dear fellow, believe me, no audience on earth could be
+held for ten minutes after the girl's death. Give them time,
+and they would be revengeful for having had such a strain
+put upon them. Trust me to be right. I stand there, and
+I know.</p>
+
+<p>Concerning Harry, I like to guide the boys to a distinct
+choice, rather than to press it on them. That will be my
+course as to the Middle Temple, of which I think as you do.</p>
+
+<p>With cordial thanks for every word in your letter,</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Affectionately yours always.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mrs. F.
+Lehmann.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Kennedy's Hotel, Edinburgh</span>, <i>Sunday, Dec. 6th, 1868.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='unindent'><span class='smcap'>My dear Mrs. Lehmann</span>,</div>
+
+<p>I hope you will see Nancy with the light of a great
+audience upon her some time between this and May; always
+supposing that she should not prove too weird and woeful
+for the general public.</p>
+
+<p>You know the aspect of this city on a Sunday, and how
+gay and bright it is. The merry music of the blithe bells,
+the waving flags, the prettily-decorated houses with their
+draperies of various colours, and the radiant countenances at
+the windows and in the streets, how charming they are!
+The usual preparations are making for the band in the open
+air, in the afternoon; and the usual pretty children (selected
+for that purpose) are at this moment hanging garlands
+round the Scott monument, preparatory to the innocent
+Sunday dance round that edifice, with which the diversions
+invariably close. It is pleasant to think that these customs<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_396" id="Page_396">[396]</a></span>
+were themselves of the early Christians, those early birds
+who <i>didn't</i> catch the worm&mdash;and nothing else&mdash;and choke
+their young with it.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Faithfully yours always.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Miss
+Hogarth.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Kennedy's Hotel, Edinburgh</span>, <i>Sunday, Dec. 6th, 1868.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<p>We got down here to our time to the moment; and,
+considering the length of the journey, very easily. I made
+a calculation on the road, that the railway travelling over such
+a distance involves something more than thirty thousand
+shocks to the nerves. Dolby didn't like it at all.</p>
+
+<p>The signals for a gale were up at Berwick, and along the
+road between there and here. It came on just as we arrived,
+and blew tremendously hard all night. The wind is still
+very high, though the sky is bright and the sun shining.
+We couldn't sleep for the noise.</p>
+
+<p>We are very comfortably quartered. I fancy that the
+"business" will be on the whole better here than in
+Glasgow, where trade is said to be very bad. But I think
+I shall be pretty correct in both places as to the run being
+on the final readings.</p>
+
+<p>We are going up Arthur's Seat presently, which will be
+a pull for our fat friend.</p>
+
+<p>Scott, in a new Mephistopheles hat, baffles imagination
+and description.</p>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mr. W.
+Wilkie
+Collins.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Kennedy's Hotel, Edinburgh</span>, <i>Tuesday, Dec. 8th, 1868.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='unindent'><span class='smcap'>My dear Wilkie</span>,</div>
+
+<p>I am hard at it here as usual, though with an
+audience so finely perceptive that the labour is much diminished.
+I have got together in a very short space the
+conclusion of "Oliver Twist" that you suggested, and am<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_397" id="Page_397">[397]</a></span>
+trying it daily with the object of rising from that blank
+state of horror into a fierce and passionate rush for the end.
+As yet I cannot make a certain effect of it; but when I
+shall have gone over it as many score of times as over the
+rest of that reading, perhaps I may strike one out.</p>
+
+<p>I shall be very glad to hear when you have done your
+play, and I <i>am</i> glad to hear that you like the steamer. I
+agree with you about the reading perfectly. In No. 3
+you will see an exact account of some places I visited
+at Ratcliffe. There are two little instances in it of something
+comic rising up in the midst of the direst misery, that
+struck me very humorously at the time.</p>
+
+<p>As I have determined not to do the "Oliver Murder"
+until after the 5th of January, when I shall ascertain its
+effect on a great audience, it is curious to notice how the
+shadow of its coming affects the Scotch mind. There was
+such a disposition to hold back for it here (until I return
+to finish in February) that we had next to no "let" when
+we arrived. It all came with a rush yesterday. They gave
+me a most magnificent welcome back from America last
+night.</p>
+
+<p>I am perpetually counting the weeks before me to be
+"read" through, and am perpetually longing for the end of
+them; and yet I sometimes wonder whether I shall miss
+something when they are over.</p>
+
+<p>It is a very, very bad day here, very dark and very wet.
+Dolby is over at Glasgow, and I am sitting at a side window
+looking up the length of Prince's Street, watching the mist
+change over the Castle and murdering Nancy by turns.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Ever affectionately.<br />
+</div>
+
+<p>P.S.&mdash;I have read the whole of Fitzgerald's "Zero,"
+and the idea is exceedingly well wrought out.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_398" id="Page_398">[398]</a></span></p>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Miss
+Hogarth.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Kennedy's Hotel, Edinburgh</span>, <i>Saturday, Dec. 12th, 1868.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<p>I send another <i>Scotsman</i> by this post, because it is
+really a good newspaper, well written, and well managed.
+We had an immense house here last night, and a very large
+turn-away.</p>
+
+<p>We have four guests to dinner to-day: Peter Fraser,
+Ballantyne, John Blackwood, and Mr. Russel. Immense
+preparations are making in the establishment, "on account,"
+Mr. Kennedy says, "of a' four yon chiels being chiels wha'
+ken a guid dinner." I enquired after poor Doctor Burt, not
+having the least idea that he was dead.</p>
+
+<p>My voice holds out splendidly so far, and I have had no
+return of the American. But I sleep very indifferently indeed.</p>
+
+<p>It blew appallingly here the night before last, but the
+wind has since shifted northward, and it is now bright and
+cold. The <i>Star of Hope</i>, that picked up those shipwrecked
+people in the boat, came into Leith yesterday, and was
+received with tremendous cheers. Her captain must be a
+good man and a noble fellow.</p>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">The same.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Kennedy's Hotel, Edinburgh</span>, <i>Monday, Dec. 14th, 1868.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<p>The dinner-party of Saturday last was an immense
+success. Russel swore on the occasion that he would go
+over to Belfast expressly to dine with me at the Finlays'.
+Ballantyne informed me that he was going to send you some
+Scotch remembrance (I don't know what) at Christmas!</p>
+
+<p>The Edinburgh houses are very fine. The Glasgow room
+is a big wandering place, with five prices in it, which makes
+it the more aggravating, as the people get into knots which
+they can't break, as if they were afraid of one another.</p>
+
+<p>Forgery of my name is becoming popular. You sent
+me, this morning, a letter from Russell Sturgis, answering<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_399" id="Page_399">[399]</a></span>
+a supposed letter of mine (presented by "Miss Jefferies"),
+and assuring me of his readiness to give not only the ten
+pounds I asked for, but any contribution I wanted, towards
+sending that lady and her family back to Boston.</p>
+
+<p>I wish you would take an opportunity of forewarning
+Lady Tennent that the first night's reading she will attend
+is an experiment quite out of the way, and that she may
+find it rather horrible.</p>
+
+<p>The keeper of the Edinburgh Hall, a fine old soldier,
+presented me, on Friday night, with the finest red camellia
+for my button-hole that ever was seen. Nobody can
+imagine how he came by it, as the florists had had a considerable
+demand for that colour from ladies in the stalls,
+and could get no such thing.</p>
+
+<p>The day is dark, wet, and windy. The weather is likely
+to be vile indeed at Glasgow, where it always rains, and
+where the sun is never seen through the smoke. We go
+over there to-morrow at ten.</p>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Miss
+Dickens.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span style="margin-right: 2em;"><span class="smcap">Carrick's Royal Hotel, Glasgow</span>,</span><br />
+<i>Tuesday, Dec. 15th, 1868.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<p>It occurs to me that my table at St. James's Hall
+might be appropriately ornamented with a little holly next
+Tuesday. If the two front legs were entwined with it, for
+instance, and a border of it ran round the top of the fringe
+in front, with a little sprig by way of bouquet at each
+corner, it would present a seasonable appearance.</p>
+
+<p>If you will think of this, and will have the materials
+ready in a little basket, I will call for you at the office at
+half-past twelve on Tuesday, and take you up to the hall,
+where the table will be ready for you.</p>
+
+<p>No news, except that we had a great crush and a
+wonderful audience in Edinburgh last night.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_400" id="Page_400">[400]</a></span></p>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Miss
+Hogarth.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span style="margin-right: 2em;"><span class="smcap">Carrick's Royal Hotel, Glasgow</span>,</span><br />
+<i>Wednesday, Dec. 16th, 1868.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<p>This is to report all well, except that I have wretched
+nights. The weather is diabolical here, and times are very
+bad. I cut "Copperfield" with a bold dexterity that amazed
+myself and utterly confounded George at the wing; knocking
+off that and "Bob" by ten minutes to ten.</p>
+
+<p>I don't know anything about the Liverpool banquet,
+except from <i>The Times</i>. As I don't finish there in February
+(as they seem to have supposed), but in April, it may,
+perhaps, stand over or blow over altogether. Such a thing
+would be a serious addition to the work, and yet refusal on
+my part would be too ungracious.</p>
+
+<p>The density and darkness of this atmosphere are fearful.
+I shall be heartily glad to start for Edinburgh again on Friday
+morning.</p>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">The same.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Kennedy's Hotel, Edinburgh</span>, <i>Friday, Dec. 18th, 1868.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<p>I am heartily glad to get back here this afternoon. The
+day is bright and cheerful, and the relief from Glasgow
+inexpressible. The affectionate regard of the people exceeds
+all bounds, and is shown in every way. The manager of
+the railway being at the reading the other night, wrote to
+me next morning, saying that a large saloon should be prepared
+for my journey up, if I would let him know when I
+purposed making the journey. On my accepting the offer
+he wrote again, saying that he had inspected "our Northern
+saloons," and not finding them so convenient for sleeping in
+as the best English, had sent up to King's Cross for the best
+of the latter; which I would please consider my own carriage
+as long as I wanted it. The audiences do everything<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_401" id="Page_401">[401]</a></span>
+but embrace me, and take as much pains with the readings
+as I do.</p>
+
+<p>I find your Christmas present (just arrived) to be a
+haggis and shortbread!</p>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mr. J. C.
+Parkinson.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span style="margin-right: 2em;"><span class="smcap">Gad's Hill Place, Higham by Rochester, Kent</span>,</span><br />
+<i>Christmas Day, 1868.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='unindent'><span class='smcap'>My dear Parkinson</span>,</div>
+
+<p>When your letter was delivered at "All the Year
+Round" Office yesterday, I was attending a funeral. It
+comes to hand here consequently to-day.</p>
+
+<p>I am diffident of addressing Mr. Gladstone on the subject
+of your desire to be appointed to the vacant Commissionership
+of Inland Revenue, because, although my
+respect for him and confidence in him are second to those
+of no man in England (a bold word at this time, but a
+truthful one), my personal acquaintance with him is very
+slight. But you may make, through any of your friends,
+any use you please of this letter, towards the end of
+bringing its contents under Mr. Gladstone's notice.</p>
+
+<p>In expressing my conviction that you deserve the place,
+and are in every way qualified for it, I found my testimony
+upon as accurate a knowledge of your character and abilities
+as anyone can possibly have acquired. In my editorship
+both of "Household Words" and "All the Year Round,"
+you know very well that I have invariably offered you those
+subjects of political and social interest to write upon, in
+which integrity, exactness, a remarkable power of generalising
+evidence and balancing facts, and a special clearness in
+stating the case, were indispensable on the part of the
+writer. My confidence in your powers has never been
+misplaced, and through all our literary intercourse you<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_402" id="Page_402">[402]</a></span>
+have never been hasty or wrong. Whatever trust you have
+undertaken has been so completely discharged, that it has
+become my habit to read your proofs rather for my own
+edification than (as in other cases) for the detection of some
+slip here or there, or the more pithy presentation of the
+subject.</p>
+
+<p>That your literary work has never interfered with the
+discharge of your official duties, I may assume to be at least
+as well known to your colleagues as it is to me. It is idle
+to say that if the post were in my gift you should have it,
+because you have had, for some years, most of the posts of
+high trust that have been at my disposal. An excellent
+public servant in your literary sphere of action, I should
+be heartily glad if you could have this new opportunity of
+distinguishing yourself in the same character. And this is
+at least unselfish in me, for I suppose I should then lose
+you?</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Always faithfully yours.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mr.
+Edward
+Bulwer
+Lytton
+Dickens.</div>
+
+<div class='center'><br /><br />
+<small>LETTER TO HIS YOUNGEST SON ON HIS DEPARTURE FOR AUSTRALIA IN 1868.</small><a name="FNanchor_27_27" id="FNanchor_27_27"></a><a href="#Footnote_27_27" class="fnanchor">[27]</a><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='unindent'><span class='smcap'>My dearest Plorn</span>,</div>
+
+<p>I write this note to-day because your going away is
+much upon my mind, and because I want you to have a few
+parting words from me to think of now and then at quiet
+times. I need not tell you that I love you dearly, and am
+very, very sorry in my heart to part with you. But this
+life is half made up of partings, and these pains must be
+borne. It is my comfort and my sincere conviction that
+you are going to try the life for which you are best fitted.
+I think its freedom and wildness more suited to you than<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_403" id="Page_403">[403]</a></span>
+any experiment in a study or office would ever have been;
+and without that training, you could have followed no
+other suitable occupation.</p>
+
+<p>What you have already wanted until now has been a
+set, steady, constant purpose. I therefore exhort you to
+persevere in a thorough determination to do whatever you
+have to do as well as you can do it. I was not so old as
+you are now when I first had to win my food, and do this
+out of this determination, and I have never slackened in it
+since.</p>
+
+<p>Never take a mean advantage of anyone in any transaction,
+and never be hard upon people who are in your
+power. Try to do to others, as you would have them do to
+you, and do not be discouraged if they fail sometimes. It
+is much better for you that they should fail in obeying the
+greatest rule laid down by our Saviour, than that you
+should.</p>
+
+<p>I put a New Testament among your books, for the very
+same reasons, and with the very same hopes that made me
+write an easy account of it for you, when you were a little
+child; because it is the best book that ever was or will be
+known in the world, and because it teaches you the best
+lessons by which any human creature who tries to be
+truthful and faithful to duty can possibly be guided. As
+your brothers have gone away, one by one, I have written
+to each such words as I am now writing to you, and have
+entreated them all to guide themselves by this book, putting
+aside the interpretations and inventions of men.</p>
+
+<p>You will remember that you have never at home been
+wearied about religious observances or mere formalities. I
+have always been anxious not to weary my children with
+such things before they are old enough to form opinions
+respecting them. You will therefore understand the better<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_404" id="Page_404">[404]</a></span>
+that I now most solemnly impress upon you the truth and
+beauty of the Christian religion, as it came from Christ Himself,
+and the impossibility of your going far wrong if you
+humbly but heartily respect it.</p>
+
+<p>Only one thing more on this head. The more we are in
+earnest as to feeling it, the less we are disposed to hold forth
+about it. Never abandon the wholesome practice of saying
+your own private prayers, night and morning. I have never
+abandoned it myself, and I know the comfort of it.</p>
+
+<p>I hope you will always be able to say in after life, that
+you had a kind father. You cannot show your affection for
+him so well, or make him so happy, as by doing your duty.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Your affectionate Father.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>1869.</h2>
+
+<h3>NARRATIVE.</h3>
+
+
+<div class='unindent'><span class='smcap'>The</span> "Farewell Readings" in town and country were resumed
+immediately after the beginning of this year, and
+were to have been continued until the end of May. The
+work was even harder than it had ever been. Charles
+Dickens began his country tour in Ireland early in January,
+and read continuously in all parts of England and Scotland
+until the end of April. A public dinner (in commemoration
+of his last readings in the town) was given to him at Liverpool
+on the 10th April. Besides all this severe country
+work, he was giving a series of readings at St. James's
+Hall, and reading the "Murder" from "Oliver Twist," in
+London and in the country, frequently four times a week.
+In the second week of February, a sudden and unusually
+violent attack of the old trouble in his foot made it imperatively
+necessary to postpone a reading at St. James's Hall,
+and to delay for a day or two his departure for Scotland.
+The foot continued to cause him pain and inconvenience,
+but, as will be seen from his letters, he generally spoke of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_405" id="Page_405">[405]</a></span>
+himself as otherwise well, until he arrived at Preston, where
+he was to read on the 22nd of April. The day before this
+appointed reading, he writes home of some grave symptoms
+which he had observed in himself, and had reported to his
+doctor, Mr. F. Carr Beard. That gentleman, taking alarm
+at what he considered "indisputable evidences of overwork,"
+wisely resolved not to content himself with written consultations,
+but went down to Preston on the day appointed for
+the reading there, and, after seeing his patient, peremptorily
+stopped it, carried him off to Liverpool, and the next
+day to London. There he consulted Sir Thomas Watson,
+who entirely corroborated Mr. Beard's opinion. And the
+two doctors agreed that the course of readings must be
+stopped for this year, and that reading, <i>combined with
+travelling</i>, must be stopped <i>for ever</i>. Charles Dickens had
+no alternative but to acquiesce in this verdict; but he felt
+it keenly, not only for himself, but for the sake of the
+Messrs. Chappell, who showed the most disinterested kindness
+and solicitude on the occasion. He at once returned home
+to Gad's Hill, and the rest and quiet of the country restored
+him, for the time, to almost his usual condition of health
+and spirits. But it was observed, by all who loved him,
+that from this time forth he never regained his old vigour
+and elasticity. The attack at Preston was the "beginning
+of the end!"</div>
+
+<p>During the spring and summer of this year, he received
+visits from many dearly valued American friends. In May,
+he stayed with his daughter and sister-in-law for two or
+three weeks at the St. James's Hotel, Piccadilly, having
+promised to be in London at the time of the arrival of Mr.
+and Mrs. Fields, of Boston, who visited Europe, accompanied
+by Miss Mabel Lowell (the daughter of the famous American
+poet) this year. Besides these friends, Mr. and Mrs. Childs,
+of Philadelphia&mdash;from whom he had received the greatest
+kindness and hospitality, and for whom he had a hearty
+regard&mdash;Dr. Fordyce Barker and his son, Mr. Eytinge (an
+illustrator of an American edition of Charles Dickens's
+works), and Mr. Bayard Taylor paid visits to Gad's Hill,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_406" id="Page_406">[406]</a></span>
+which were thoroughly enjoyed by Charles Dickens and his
+family. This last summer was a very happy one. He had
+the annual summer visitors and parties of his friends in the
+neighbourhood. He was, as usual, projecting improvements
+in his beloved country home; one, which he called the
+"crowning improvement of all," was a large conservatory,
+which was to be added during the absence of the family in
+London in the following spring.</p>
+
+<p>The state of Mr. Wills's health made it necessary for
+him now to retire altogether from the editorship of "All
+the Year Round." Charles Dickens's own letters express the
+regret which he felt at the dissolution of this long and
+always pleasant association. Mr. Wills's place at the
+office was filled by Charles Dickens's eldest son, now sole
+editor and proprietor of the journal.</p>
+
+<p>In September Charles Dickens went to Birmingham,
+accompanied by his son Harry, and presided at the opening
+of the session of (what he calls in his letter to Mr. Arthur
+Ryland, "<i>our</i> Institution") the Midland Institute. He
+made a speech on education to the young students, and
+promised to go back early in the following year and distribute
+the prizes. In one of the letters which we give
+to Mr. Ryland, he speaks of himself as "being in full force
+again," and "going to finish his farewell readings soon after
+Christmas." He had obtained the sanction of Sir Thomas
+Watson to giving twelve readings, <i>in London only</i>, which he
+had fixed for the beginning of the following year.</p>
+
+<p>The letter to his friend Mr. Finlay, which opens the
+year, was in reply to a proposal for a public banquet at
+Belfast, projected by the Mayor of that town, and conveyed
+through Mr. Finlay. This gentleman was at that time
+proprietor of <i>The Northern Whig</i> newspaper at Belfast, and
+he was son-in-law to Mr. Alexander Russel, editor of <i>The
+Scotsman</i>.</p>
+
+<p>Charles Dickens's letter this New Year to M. de Cerjat
+was his last. That faithful and affectionate friend died very
+shortly afterwards.</p>
+
+<p>To Miss Mary Boyle he writes to acknowledge a New<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_407" id="Page_407">[407]</a></span>
+Year's gift, which he had been much touched by receiving
+from her, at a time when he knew she was deeply afflicted
+by the sudden death of her brother, Captain Cavendish
+Boyle, for whom Charles Dickens had a true regard and
+friendship.</p>
+
+<p>While he was giving his series of London readings in
+the spring, he received a numerously signed circular letter
+from actors and actresses of the various London theatres.
+They were very curious about his new reading of the "Oliver
+Twist" murder, and representing to him the impossibility of
+their attending an evening, requested him to give a morning
+reading, for their especial benefit. We give his answer,
+complying with the request. And the occasion was, to him,
+a most gratifying and deeply interesting one.</p>
+
+<p>The letter to Mr. Edmund Ollier was in answer to an
+invitation to be present at the inauguration of a bust of
+Mr. Leigh Hunt, which was to be placed over his grave at
+Kensal Green.</p>
+
+<p>The letter to Mr. Shirley Brooks, the well-known writer,
+who succeeded Mr. Mark Lemon as editor of "Punch," and
+for whom Charles Dickens had a cordial regard, was on the
+subject of a memorial on behalf of Mrs. Peter Cunningham,
+whose husband had recently died.</p>
+
+<p>The "remarkable story," of which he writes to his
+daughter in August, was called "An Experience." It was
+written by a lady (who prefers to be anonymous) who had
+been a contributor to "Household Words" from its first
+starting, and was always highly valued in this capacity by
+Charles Dickens.</p>
+
+<p>Our latest letters for this year are in October. One to
+Mr. Charles Kent, sympathising with him on a disappointment
+which he had experienced in a business undertaking,
+and one to Mr. Macready, in which he tells him of his being
+in the "preliminary agonies" of a new book. The first
+number of "Edwin Drood" was to appear before the end
+of his course of readings in March; and he was at work so
+long beforehand with a view to sparing himself, and having
+some numbers ready before the publication of the first one.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_408" id="Page_408">[408]</a></span></p>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mr. F. D.
+Finlay.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">The Athen&aelig;um (Club)</span>, <i>New Year's Day, 1869.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='unindent'><span class='smcap'>My dear Finlay</span>,</div>
+
+<p>First my heartfelt wishes for many prosperous and
+happy years. Next, as to the mayor's kind intentions. I
+feel really grateful to him and gratified by the whole idea,
+but acceptance of the distinction on my part would be impracticable.
+My time in Ireland is all anticipated, and
+I could not possibly prolong my stay, because I <i>must</i> be
+back in London to read on Tuesday fortnight, and then
+must immediately set forth for the West of England. It is
+not likely, besides, that I shall get through these farewells
+before the end of May. And the work is so hard, and my
+voice is so precious, that I fear to add an ounce to the
+fatigue, or I might be overweighted. The avoidance of
+gas and crowds when I am not in the act of being cooked
+before those lights of mine, is an essential part of the training
+to which (as I think you know) I strictly adhere, and
+although I have accepted the Liverpool invitation, I have
+done so as an exception; the Liverpool people having always
+treated me in our public relations with a kind of personal
+affection.</p>
+
+<p>I am sincerely anxious that the Mayor of Belfast should
+know how the case stands with me. If you will kindly set
+me straight and right, I shall be truly obliged to you.</p>
+
+<p>My sister-in-law has been very unwell (though she is
+now much better), and is recommended a brisk change. As
+she is a good sailor, I mean to bring her to Ireland with me;
+at which she is highly delighted.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Faithfully yours ever.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_409" id="Page_409">[409]</a></span></p>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">M. de
+Cerjat.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span style="margin-right: 2em;"><span class="smcap">Gad's Hill Place, Higham by Rochester, Kent</span>,</span><br />
+<i>Monday, Jan. 4th, 1869.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='unindent'><span class='smcap'>My dear Cerjat</span>,</div>
+
+<p>I will answer your question first. Have I done with
+my farewell readings? Lord bless you, no; and I shall
+think myself well out of it if I get done by the end of May.
+I have undertaken one hundred and six, and have as yet
+only vanquished twenty-eight. To-morrow night I read in
+London for the first time the "Murder" from "Oliver Twist,"
+which I have re-arranged for the purpose. Next day I start
+for Dublin and Belfast. I am just back from Scotland for
+a few Christmas holidays. I go back there next month;
+and in the meantime and afterwards go everywhere else.</p>
+
+<p>Take my guarantee for it, you may be quite comfortable
+on the subject of papal aspirations and encroachments.
+The English people are in unconquerable opposition to that
+church. They have the animosity in the blood, derived
+from the history of the past, though perhaps unconsciously.
+But they do sincerely want to win Ireland over if they can.
+They know that since the Union she has been hardly used.
+They know that Scotland has <i>her</i> religion, and a very
+uncomfortable one. They know that Scotland, though
+intensely anti-papal, perceives it to be unjust that Ireland
+has not <i>her</i> religion too, and has very emphatically declared
+her opinion in the late elections. They know that a richly-endowed
+church, forced upon a people who don't belong to
+it, is a grievance with these people. They know that many
+things, but especially an artfully and schemingly managed
+institution like the Romish Church, thrive upon a grievance,
+and that Rome has thriven exceedingly upon this, and made
+the most of it. Lastly, the best among them know that
+there is a gathering cloud in the West, considerably bigger
+than a man's hand, under which a powerful Irish-American<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_410" id="Page_410">[410]</a></span>
+body, rich and active, is always drawing Ireland in that
+direction; and that these are not times in which other
+powers would back our holding Ireland by force, unless we
+could make our claim good in proving fair and equal
+government.</p>
+
+<p>Poor Townshend charged me in his will "to publish
+without alteration his religious opinions, which he sincerely
+believed would tend to the happiness of mankind." To
+publish them without alteration is absolutely impossible;
+for they are distributed in the strangest fragments through
+the strangest note-books, pocket-books, slips of paper and
+what not, and produce a most incoherent and tautological
+result. I infer that he must have held some always-postponed
+idea of fitting them together. For these reasons I
+would certainly publish nothing about them, if I had any
+discretion in the matter. Having none, I suppose a book
+must be made. His pictures and rings are gone to the
+South Kensington Museum, and are now exhibiting there.</p>
+
+<p>Charley Collins is no better and no worse. Katie looks
+very young and very pretty. Her sister and Miss Hogarth
+(my joint housekeepers) have been on duty this Christmas,
+and have had enough to do. My boys are now all dispersed
+in South America, India, and Australia, except Charley,
+whom I have taken on at "All the Year Round" Office,
+and Henry, who is an undergraduate at Trinity Hall, and
+I hope will make his mark there. All well.</p>
+
+<p>The Thames Embankment is (faults of ugliness in detail
+apart) the finest public work yet done. From Westminster
+Bridge to near Waterloo it is now lighted up at night, and
+has a fine effect. They have begun to plant it with trees,
+and the footway (not the road) is already open to the
+Temple. Besides its beauty, and its usefulness in relieving
+the crowded streets, it will greatly quicken and deepen<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_411" id="Page_411">[411]</a></span>
+what is learnedly called the "scour" of the river. But the
+Corporation of London and some other nuisances have
+brought the weirs above Twickenham into a very bare and
+unsound condition, and they already begin to give and
+vanish, as the stream runs faster and stronger.</p>
+
+<p>Your undersigned friend has had a few occasional
+reminders of his "true American catarrh." Although I
+have exerted my voice very much, it has not yet been
+once touched. In America I was obliged to patch it up
+constantly.</p>
+
+<p>I like to read your patriarchal account of yourself among
+your Swiss vines and fig-trees. You wouldn't recognise
+Gad's Hill now; I have so changed it, and bought land
+about it. And yet I often think that if Mary were to marry
+(which she won't) I should sell it and go genteelly vagabondising
+over the face of the earth. Then indeed I might
+see Lausanne again. But I don't seem in the way of it at
+present, for the older I get, the more I do and the harder I
+work.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Yours ever affectionately.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Miss Mary
+Boyle.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span style="margin-right: 2em;"><span class="smcap">Office of "All the Year Round,"</span></span><br />
+<i>Wednesday, Jan. 6th, 1869.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='unindent'><span class='smcap'>My dear Mary</span>,</div>
+
+<p>I was more affected than you can easily believe, by
+the sight of your gift lying on my dressing-table on the
+morning of the new year. To be remembered in a friend's
+heart when it is sore is a touching thing; and that and the
+remembrance of the dead quite overpowered me, the one
+being inseparable from the other.</p>
+
+<p>You may be sure that I shall attach a special interest
+and value to the beautiful present, and shall wear it as a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_412" id="Page_412">[412]</a></span>
+kind of charm. God bless you, and may we carry the
+friendship through many coming years!</p>
+
+<p>My preparations for a certain murder that I had to do
+last night have rendered me unfit for letter-writing these
+last few days, or you would have heard from me sooner.
+The crime being completely off my mind and the blood
+spilled, I am (like many of my fellow-criminals) in a highly
+edifying state to-day.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Ever believe me, your affectionate Friend.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Miss
+Dickens.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Torquay</span>, <i>Wednesday, Jan. 27th, 1869.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='unindent'><span class='smcap'>My dearest Mamie</span>,</div>
+
+<p>We have been doing immensely.</p>
+
+<p>This place is most beautiful, though colder now than
+one would expect. This hotel, an immense place, built
+among picturesque broken rocks out in the blue sea, is
+quite delicious. There are bright green trees in the garden,
+and new peas a foot high. Our rooms are <i>en suite</i>, all
+commanding the sea, and each with two very large plate-glass
+windows. Everything good and well served.</p>
+
+<p>A <i>pantomime</i> was being done last night, in the place
+where I am to read to-night. It is something between a
+theatre, a circus, a riding-school, a Methodist chapel, and a
+cow-house. I was so disgusted with its acoustic properties
+on going in to look at it, that the whole unfortunate staff
+have been all day, and now are, sticking up baize and
+carpets in it to prevent echoes.</p>
+
+<p>I have rarely seen a more uncomfortable edifice than I
+thought it last night.</p>
+
+<p>At Clifton, on Monday night, we had a contagion of
+fainting. And yet the place was not hot. I should think
+we had from a dozen to twenty ladies borne out, stiff and
+rigid, at various times. It became quite ridiculous.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_413" id="Page_413">[413]</a></span></p>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Miss
+Hogarth.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Bath</span>, <i>Friday, Jan. 29th, 1869.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='unindent'><span class='smcap'>My dearest Georgy</span>,</div>
+
+<p>You must not trust blank places in my list, because
+many have been, and will be, gradually filled up. After
+the Tuesday's reading in London, I have <span class="smcap">two</span> for that same
+week in the country&mdash;Nottingham and Leicester. In the
+following week I have none; but my arrangements are all
+at sea as yet, for I must somehow and somewhere do an
+"Uncommercial" in that week, and I also want to get poor
+Chauncey's "opinions" to the printer.</p>
+
+<p>This mouldy old roosting-place comes out mouldily as to
+let of course. I hate the sight of the bygone assembly-rooms,
+and the Bath chairs trundling the dowagers about
+the streets. As to to-morrow morning in the daylight!&mdash;&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>I have no cold to speak of. Dolby sends kindest regard.</p>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mrs.
+Lehmann.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Office</span>, <i>Wednesday, Feb. 3rd, 1869.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='unindent'><span class='smcap'>Dear Mrs. Lehmann</span>,</div>
+
+<p>Before getting your kind note, I had written to
+Lehmann, explaining why I cannot allow myself any social
+pleasure while my farewell task is yet unfinished. The
+work is so very hard, that every little scrap of rest <i>and
+silence</i> I can pick up is precious. And even those morsels
+are so flavoured with "All the Year Round," that they are
+not quite the genuine article.</p>
+
+<p>Joachim<a name="FNanchor_28_28" id="FNanchor_28_28"></a><a href="#Footnote_28_28" class="fnanchor">[28]</a> came round to see me at the hall last night,
+and I told him how sorry I was to forego the pleasure of
+meeting him (he is a noble fellow!) at your pleasant table.</p>
+
+<p>I am glad you are coming to the "Murder" on the 2nd
+of March. (The house will be prodigious.) Such little
+changes as I have made shall be carefully presented to your<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_414" id="Page_414">[414]</a></span>
+critical notice, and I hope will be crowned with your
+approval. But you are always such a fine audience that I
+have no fear on that head. I saw Chorley yesterday in his
+own room. A sad and solitary sight. The widowed Drake,
+with a certain <i>gin</i>coherence of manner, presented a blooming
+countenance and buxom form in the passage; so buxom
+indeed that she was obliged to retire before me like a
+modest stopper, before I could get into the dining decanter
+where poor Chorley reposed.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Faithfully yours always.<br />
+</div>
+
+<p>P.S.&mdash;My love to Rudie.</p>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Miss
+Hogarth.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Glasgow</span>, <i>Thursday, Feb. 25th, 1869.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<p>I received your letter at Edinburgh this morning. I
+did not write to you yesterday, as there had been no reading
+on the previous night.</p>
+
+<p>The foot bears the fatigue wonderfully well, and really
+occasions me no inconvenience beyond the necessity of
+wearing the big work of art. Syme saw me again this
+morning, and utterly scouted the gout notion altogether.
+I think the Edinburgh audience understood the "Murder"
+better last night than any audience that has heard it yet.
+"Business" is enormous, and Dolby jubilant.</p>
+
+<p>It is a most deplorable afternoon here, deplorable even
+for Glasgow. A great wind blowing, and sleet driving
+before it in a storm of heavy blobs. We had to drive our
+train dead in the teeth of the wind, and got in here late,
+and are pressed for time.</p>
+
+<p>Strange that in the North we have had absolutely no
+snow. There was a very thin scattering on the Pentlands
+for an hour or two, but no more.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_415" id="Page_415">[415]</a></span></p>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Miss
+Hogarth.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Edinburgh</span>, <i>Friday, Feb. 26th, 1869.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<p>Writing to-morrow morning would be all but impracticable
+for me; would be quite so for Dolby, who has to go
+to the agents and "settle up" in the midst of his breakfast.
+So I write to-day, in reply to your note received at
+Glasgow this morning.</p>
+
+<p>The foot conducts itself splendidly. We had a most
+enormous cram at Glasgow. Syme saw me again yesterday
+(before I left here for Glasgow), and repeated "Gout!"
+with the greatest indignation and contempt, several times.
+The aching is going off as the day goes on, if it be worth
+mentioning again. The ride from Glasgow was charming
+this morning; the sun shining brilliantly, and the country
+looking beautiful.</p>
+
+<p>I told you what the Nortons were. Mabel Lowell is a
+charming little thing, and very retiring in manner and
+expression.</p>
+
+<p>We shall have a scene here to-night, no doubt. The
+night before last, Ballantyne, unable to get in, had a seat
+behind the screen, and was nearly frightened off it by the
+"Murder." Every vestige of colour had left his face when I
+came off, and he sat staring over a glass of champagne in
+the wildest way. I have utterly left off <i>my</i> champagne, and,
+I think, with good results. Nothing during the readings
+but a very little weak iced brandy-and-water.</p>
+
+<p>I hope you will find me greatly improved on Tuesday.</p>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Miss
+Dickens.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Birmingham</span>, <i>Friday, March 5th, 1869.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<p>This is to send you my best love, and to wish you many
+and many happy returns of to-morrow, which I miraculously
+remember to be your birthday.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_416" id="Page_416">[416]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>I saw this morning a very pretty fan here. I was going
+to buy it as a remembrance of the occasion, when I was
+checked by a dim misgiving that you had a fan not long
+ago from Chorley. Tell me what you would like better,
+and consider me your debtor in that article, whatever it
+may be.</p>
+
+<p>I have had my usual left boot on this morning, and have
+had an hour's walk. It was in a gale of wind and a simoom
+of dust, but I greatly enjoyed it. Immense enthusiasm at
+Wolverhampton last night over "Marigold." Scott made a
+most amazing ass of himself yesterday. He reported that he
+had left behind somewhere three books&mdash;"Boots," "Murder,"
+and "Gamp." We immediately telegraphed to the office.
+Answer, no books there. As my impression was that he
+must have left them at St. James's Hall, we then arranged
+to send him up to London at seven this morning. Meanwhile
+(though not reproached), he wept copiously and
+audibly. I had asked him over and over again, was he sure
+he had not put them in my large black trunk? Too sure,
+too sure. Hadn't opened that trunk after Tuesday night's
+reading. He opened it to get some clothes out when I
+went to bed, and there the books were! He produced
+them with an air of injured surprise, as if we had put
+them there.</p>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Miss
+Hogarth.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Queen's Hotel, Manchester</span>, <i>Sunday, March 7th, 1869.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<p>We have had our sitting-room chimney afire this
+morning, and have had to turn out elsewhere to breakfast;
+but the chamber has since been cleaned up, and we are
+reinstated. Manchester is (<i>for</i> Manchester) bright and
+fresh.</p>
+
+<p>Tell Russell that a crop of hay is to be got off the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_417" id="Page_417">[417]</a></span>
+meadow this year, before the club use it. They did not
+make such use of it last year as reconciles me to losing
+another hay-crop. So they must wait until the hay is in,
+before they commence active operations.</p>
+
+<p>Poor Olliffe! I am truly sorry to read those sad words
+about his suffering, and fear that the end is not far off.</p>
+
+<p>We are very comfortably housed here, and certainly that
+immense hall is a wonderful place for its size. Without
+much greater expenditure of voice than usual, I a little
+enlarged the action last night, and Dolby (who went to all
+the distant points of view) reported that he could detect
+no difference between it and any other place. As always
+happens now&mdash;and did not at first&mdash;they were unanimously
+taken by Noah Claypole's laugh. But the go, throughout,
+was enormous. Sims Reeves was doing Henry Bertram at
+the theatre, and of course took some of our shillings. It
+was a night of excitement for Cottonopolis.</p>
+
+<p>I received from Mrs. Keeley this morning a very good
+photograph of poor old Bob. Yesterday I had a letter from
+Harry, reminding me that our intended Cambridge day is
+the day next after that of the boat-race. Clearly it must
+be changed.</p>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Miss
+Hogarth.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Queen's Hotel, Manchester</span>, <i>Saturday, March 20th, 1869.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<p>Getting yours and its enclosure, Mary's note, at two
+this afternoon, I write a line at once in order that you may
+have it on Monday morning.</p>
+
+<p>The Theatre Royal, Liverpool, will be a charming place
+to read in. Ladies are to dine at the dinner, and we hear it
+is to be a very grand affair. Dolby is doubtful whether it
+may not "hurt the business," by drawing a great deal of
+money in another direction, which I think possible enough.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_418" id="Page_418">[418]</a></span>
+Trade is very bad <i>here</i>, and the gloom of the Preston strike
+seems to brood over the place. The Titiens Company have
+been doing wretchedly. I should have a greater sympathy
+with them if they were not practising in the next room now.</p>
+
+<p>My love to Letitia and Harriette,<a name="FNanchor_29_29" id="FNanchor_29_29"></a><a href="#Footnote_29_29" class="fnanchor">[29]</a> wherein Dolby (highly
+gratified by being held in remembrance) joins with the
+same to you.</p>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Miss
+Hogarth.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Manchester</span>, <i>Sunday, March 21st, 1869.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<p>Will you tell Mary that I have had a letter from Frith,
+in which he says that he will be happy to show her his
+pictures "any day in the first week of April"? I have
+replied that she will be proud to receive his invitation.
+His object in writing was to relieve his mind about the
+"Murder," of which he cannot say enough.</p>
+
+<p>Tremendous enthusiasm here last night, calling in the
+most thunderous manner after "Marigold," and again after
+the "Trial," shaking the great hall, and cheering furiously.</p>
+
+<p>Love to all.</p>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mr. John
+Clarke.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span style="margin-right: 2em;"><span class="smcap">Gad's Hill Place, Higham by Rochester, Kent</span>,</span><br />
+<i>Wednesday, March 24th, 1869.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='unindent'><span class='smcap'>Ladies and Gentlemen</span>,</div>
+
+<p>I beg to assure you that I am much gratified by the
+desire you do me the honour to express in your letter
+handed to me by Mr. John Clarke.</p>
+
+<p>Before that letter reached me, I had heard of your wish,
+and had mentioned to Messrs. Chappell that it would be
+highly agreeable to me to anticipate it, if possible. They
+readily responded, and we agreed upon having three morning<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_419" id="Page_419">[419]</a></span>
+readings in London. As they are not yet publicly announced,
+I add a note of the days and subjects:</p>
+
+<p>Saturday, May 1st. "Boots at the Holly-Tree Inn,"
+and "Sikes and Nancy" from "Oliver Twist."</p>
+
+<p>Saturday, May 8th. "The Christmas Carol."</p>
+
+<p>Saturday, May 22nd. "Sikes and Nancy" from "Oliver
+Twist," and "The Trial" from "Pickwick."</p>
+
+<p>With the warmest interest in your art, and in its claims
+upon the general gratitude and respect,</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Believe me, always faithfully your Friend.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Miss
+Hogarth.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Adelphi Hotel, Liverpool</span>, <i>Sunday, April 4th, 1869.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<p>By this post I send to Mary the truly affecting account
+of poor dear Katie Macready's death. It is as sorrowful as
+anything so peaceful and trustful can be!</p>
+
+<p>Both my feet are very tender, and often feel as though
+they were in hot water. But I was wonderfully well and
+strong, thank God! and had no end of voice for the two
+nights running in that great Birmingham hall. We had
+enormous houses.</p>
+
+<p>So far as I understand the dinner arrangements here,
+they are much too long. As to the acoustics of that hall,
+and the position of the tables (both as bad as bad can be),
+my only consolation is that, if anybody can be heard, <i>I</i> probably
+can be. The honorary secretary tells me that six
+hundred people are to dine. The mayor, being no speaker
+and out of health besides, hands over the toast of the evening
+to Lord Dufferin. The town is full of the festival. The
+Theatre Royal, touched up for the occasion, will look remarkably
+bright and well for the readings, and our lets are large.
+It is remarkable that our largest let as yet is for Thursday,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_420" id="Page_420">[420]</a></span>
+not Friday. I infer that the dinner damages Friday, but
+Dolby does not think so. There appears to be great curiosity
+to hear the "Murder." (On Friday night last I read to two
+thousand people, and odd hundreds.)</p>
+
+<p>I hear that Anthony Trollope, Dixon, Lord Houghton,
+Lemon, Esquiros (of the <i>Revue des Deux Mondes</i>), and Sala
+are to be called upon to speak; the last, for the newspaper
+press. All the Liverpool notabilities are to muster. And
+Manchester is to be represented by its mayor with due
+formality.</p>
+
+<p>I had been this morning to look at St. George's Hall,
+and suggest what can be done to improve its acoustics. As
+usually happens in such cases, their most important arrangements
+are already made and unchangeable. I should not
+have placed the tables in the committee's way at all, and
+could certainly have placed the da&iuml;s to much greater advantage.
+So all the good I could do was to show where banners
+could be hung with some hope of stopping echoes. Such
+is my small news, soon exhausted. We arrived here at three
+yesterday afternoon; it is now mid-day; Chorley has not
+yet appeared, but he had called at the local agent's while I
+was at Birmingham.</p>
+
+<p>It is a curious little instance of the way in which things
+fit together that there is a ship-of-war in the Mersey, whose
+flags and so forth are to be brought up to St. George's
+Hall for the dinner. She is the <i>Donegal</i>, of which Paynter
+told me he had just been captain, when he told me all
+about Sydney at Bath.</p>
+
+<p>One of the pleasantest things I have experienced here
+this time, is the manner in which I am stopped in the streets
+by working men, who want to shake hands with me, and tell
+me they know my books. I never go out but this happens.
+Down at the docks just now, a cooper with a fearful stutter<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_421" id="Page_421">[421]</a></span>
+presented himself in this way. His modesty, combined
+with a conviction that if he were in earnest I would see it
+and wouldn't repel him, made up as true a piece of natural
+politeness as I ever saw.</p>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Miss
+Hogarth.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Imperial Hotel, Blackpool</span>, <i>Wednesday, April 21st, 1869.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<p>I send you this hasty line to let you know that I have
+come to this sea-beach hotel (charming) for a day's rest. I
+am much better than I was on Sunday, but shall want
+careful looking to, to get through the readings. My weakness
+and deadness are all <i>on the left side</i>, and if I don't
+look at anything I try to touch with my left hand, I don't
+know where it is. I am in (secret) consultation with Frank
+Beard; he recognises, in the exact description I have given
+him, indisputable evidences of overwork, which he would
+wish to treat immediately. So I have said: "Go in and
+win."</p>
+
+<p>I have had a delicious walk by the sea to-day, and I
+sleep soundly, and have picked up amazingly in appetite.
+My foot is greatly better too, and I wear my own boot.</p>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Miss
+Dickens.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Preston</span>, <i>Thursday Evening, April 22nd, 1869.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<p><i>Don't be in the least alarmed.</i> Beard has come down,
+and instantly echoes my impression (perfectly unknown to
+him), that the readings must be <i>stopped</i>. I have had
+symptoms that must not be disregarded. I go to Liverpool
+to-night with him (to get away from here), and proceed to
+the office to-morrow.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_422" id="Page_422">[422]</a></span></p>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">The Lord
+John
+Russell.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span style="margin-right: 2em;"><span class="smcap">Gad's Hill Place, Higham by Rochester, Kent</span>,</span><br />
+<i>Wednesday, May 26th, 1869.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='unindent'><span class='smcap'>My dear Lord Russell</span>,</div>
+
+<p>I have delayed answering your kind letter, in order
+that you might get home before I wrote. I am happy to
+report myself quite well again, and I shall be charmed to
+come to Pembroke Lodge on any day that may be most
+convenient to Lady Russell and yourself after the middle of
+June.</p>
+
+<p>You gratify me beyond expression by your reference to
+the Liverpool dinner. I made the allusion to you with all
+my heart at least, and it was most magnificently received.</p>
+
+<p>I beg to send my kind regard to Lady Russell, with
+many thanks for her remembrance, and am ever,</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+My dear Lord Russell, faithfully yours.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mr. W. H.
+Wills.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span style="margin-right: 2em;"><span class="smcap">Office of "All the Year Round</span>,"</span><br />
+<i>Thursday, June 24th, 1869.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='unindent'><span class='smcap'>My dear Wills</span>,</div>
+
+<p>At a great meeting<a name="FNanchor_30_30" id="FNanchor_30_30"></a><a href="#Footnote_30_30" class="fnanchor">[30]</a> compounded of your late
+"Chief," Charley, Morley, Grieve, and Telbin, your letter
+was read to-day, and a very sincere record of regret and
+thanks was placed on the books of the great institution.</p>
+
+<p>Many thanks for the suggestion about the condition of
+churches. I am so aweary of church questions of all sorts
+that I am not quite clear as to tackling this. But I am
+turning it in my mind. I am afraid of two things: firstly,
+that the thing would not be picturesquely done; secondly,
+that a general cucumber-coolness would pervade the mind
+of our circulation.</p>
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_423" id="Page_423">[423]</a></span></p>
+<p>Nothing new here but a speaking-pipe, a post-box, and
+a mouldy smell from some forgotten crypt&mdash;an extra mouldy
+smell, mouldier than of yore. Lillie sniffs, projects one
+eye into nineteen hundred and ninety-nine, and does no
+more.</p>
+
+<p>I have been to Chadwick's, to look at a new kind of
+cottage he has built (very ingenious and cheap).</p>
+
+<p>We were all much disappointed last Saturday afternoon
+by a neighbouring fire being only at a carpenter's, and not
+at Drury Lane Theatre. Ellen's<a name="FNanchor_31_31" id="FNanchor_31_31"></a><a href="#Footnote_31_31" class="fnanchor">[31]</a> child having an eye nearly
+poked out by a young friend, and being asked whether the
+young friend was not very sorry afterwards, replied: "No.
+<i>She</i> wasn't. <i>I</i> was."</p>
+
+<p>London execrable.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Ever affectionately yours.<br />
+</div>
+
+<p>P.S.&mdash;Love to Mrs. Wills.</p>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mr.
+Shirley
+Brooks.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span style="margin-right: 2em;"><span class="smcap">Gad's Hill Place, Higham by Rochester, Kent</span>,</span><br />
+<i>Tuesday, July 12th, 1869.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='unindent'><span class='smcap'>My dear Brooks</span>,</div>
+
+<p>I have appended my sign manual to the memorial,
+which I think is very discreetly drawn up. I have a strong
+feeling of sympathy with poor Mrs. Cunningham, for I
+remember the pretty house she managed charmingly. She
+has always done her duty well, and has had hard trials.
+But I greatly doubt the success of the memorial, I am
+sorry to add.</p>
+
+<p>It was hotter here yesterday on this Kentish chalk than
+I have felt it anywhere for many a day. Now it is overcast
+and raining hard, much to the satisfaction of great
+farmers like myself.</p>
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_424" id="Page_424">[424]</a></span></p>
+<p>I am glad to infer from your companionship with the
+Cocked Hats, that there is no such thing as gout within
+several miles of you. May it keep its distance.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Ever, my dear Brooks, faithfully yours.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mr. W. C.
+Macready.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Gad's Hill</span>, <i>Tuesday, July 20th, 1869.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='unindent'><span class='smcap'>My dearest Macready</span>,</div>
+
+<p>I have received your letter here to-day, and deeply
+feel with you and for you the affliction of poor dear Katie's
+loss. I was not unprepared for the sad news, but it comes
+in such a rush of old remembrances and withered joys that
+strikes to the heart.</p>
+
+<p>God bless you! Love and youth are still beside you,
+and in that thought I take comfort for my dear old friend.</p>
+
+<p>I am happy to report myself perfectly well and flourishing.
+We are just now announcing the resumption and conclusion
+of the broken series of farewell readings in a London
+course of twelve, beginning early in the new year.</p>
+
+<p>Scarcely a day has gone by this summer in which we
+have not talked of you and yours. Georgina, Mary, and I
+continually speak of you. In the spirit we certainly are
+even more together than we used to be in the body in the
+old times. I don't know whether you have heard that
+Harry has taken the second scholarship (fifty pounds a
+year) at Trinity Hall, Cambridge. The bigwigs expect him
+to do a good deal there.</p>
+
+<p>Wills having given up in consequence of broken health
+(he has been my sub-editor for twenty years), I have taken
+Charley into "All the Year Round." He is a very good
+man of business, and evinces considerable aptitude in sub-editing
+work.</p>
+
+<p>This place is immensely improved since you were here,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_425" id="Page_425">[425]</a></span>
+and really is now very pretty indeed. We are sorry that
+there is no present prospect of your coming to see it; but I
+like to know of your being at the sea, and having to do&mdash;<i>from
+the beach</i>, as Mrs. Keeley used to say in "The Prisoner
+of War"&mdash;with the winds and the waves and all their
+freshening influences.</p>
+
+<p>I dined at Greenwich a few days ago with Delane. He
+asked me about you with much interest. He looks as if he
+had never seen a printing-office, and had never been out of
+bed after midnight.</p>
+
+<p>Great excitement caused here by your capital news of
+Butty. I suppose Willy has at least a dozen children by
+this time.</p>
+
+<p>Our loves to the noble boy and to dear Mrs. Macready.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+<span style="margin-right: 4em;">Ever, my dearest Macready,</span><br />
+Your attached and affectionate.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mr.
+Edmund
+Ollier.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span style="margin-right: 2em;"><span class="smcap">Gad's Hill Place, Higham by Rochester, Kent</span>,</span><br />
+<i>Tuesday, Aug. 3rd, 1869.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='unindent'><span class='smcap'>My dear Mr. Ollier</span>,</div>
+
+<p>I am very sensible of the feeling of the Committee
+towards me; and I receive their invitation (conveyed
+through you) as a most acceptable mark of their consideration.</p>
+
+<p>But I have a very strong objection to speech-making
+beside graves. I do not expect or wish my feeling in this
+wise to guide other men; still, it is so serious with me, and
+the idea of ever being the subject of such a ceremony
+myself is so repugnant to my soul, that I must decline to
+officiate.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Faithfully yours always.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_426" id="Page_426">[426]</a></span></p>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Miss
+Dickens.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span style="margin-right: 2em;"><span class="smcap">Office of "All the Year Round," No. 26, Wellington Street,</span></span><br />
+<span style="margin-right: 4em;"><span class="smcap">Strand, London, W.C.</span>,</span><br />
+<i>Tuesday, Aug. 3rd, 1869.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='unindent'><span class='smcap'>My dearest Mamie</span>,</div>
+
+<p>I send you the second chapter of the remarkable
+story. The printer is late with it, and I have not had time
+to read it, and as I altered it considerably here and there, I
+have no doubt there are some verbal mistakes in it. However,
+they will probably express themselves.</p>
+
+<p>But I offer a prize of six pairs of gloves&mdash;between you,
+and your aunt, and Ellen Stone, as competitors&mdash;to whomsoever
+will tell me what idea in this second part is mine. I
+don't mean an idea in language, in the turning of a sentence,
+in any little description of an action, or a gesture, or
+what not in a small way, but an idea, distinctly affecting the
+whole story <i>as I found it</i>. You are all to assume that I
+found it in the main as you read it, with one exception. If
+I had written it, I should have made the woman love the
+man at last. And I should have shadowed that possibility
+out, by the child's bringing them a little more together on
+that holiday Sunday.</p>
+
+<p>But I didn't write it. So, finding that it wanted something,
+I put that something in. What was it?</p>
+
+<p>Love to Ellen Stone.</p>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mr.
+Arthur
+Ryland.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span style="margin-right: 2em;"><span class="smcap">Gad's Hill Place, Higham by Rochester, Kent</span>,</span><br />
+<i>Friday, Aug. 13th, 1869.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='unindent'><span class='smcap'>My dear Mr. Ryland</span>,</div>
+
+<p>Many thanks for your letter.</p>
+
+<p>I have very strong opinions on the subject of speechification,
+and hold that there is, everywhere, a vast amount
+too much of it. A sense of absurdity would be so strong
+upon me, if I got up at Birmingham to make a flourish on<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_427" id="Page_427">[427]</a></span>
+the advantages of education in the abstract for all sorts
+and conditions of men, that I should inevitably check
+myself and present a surprising incarnation of the soul of
+wit. But if I could interest myself in the practical usefulness
+of the particular institution; in the ways of life of
+the students; in their examples of perseverance and determination
+to get on; in their numbers, their favourite studies,
+the number of hours they must daily give to the work that
+must be done for a livelihood, before they can devote
+themselves to the acquisition of new knowledge, and so
+forth, then I could interest others. This is the kind of
+information I want. Mere holding forth "I utterly detest,
+abominate, and abjure."</p>
+
+<p>I fear I shall not be in London next week. But if you
+will kindly send me here, at your leisure, the roughest
+notes of such points as I have indicated, I shall be heartily
+obliged to you, and will take care of their falling into shape
+and order in my mind. Meantime I "make a note of"
+Monday, 27th September, and of writing to you touching
+your kind offer of hospitality, three weeks before that date.</p>
+
+<p>I beg to send my kind regard to Mrs. and Miss Ryland,
+and am always,</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Very faithfully yours.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mr.
+Frederic
+Ouvry.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span style="margin-right: 2em;"><span class="smcap">Gad's Hill Place, Higham by Rochester, Kent</span>,</span><br />
+<i>Sunday, Aug. 22nd, 1869.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='unindent'><span class='smcap'>My dear Ouvry</span>,</div>
+
+<p>I will expect a call from you at the office, on
+Thursday, at your own most convenient hour. I admit the
+soft impeachment concerning Mrs. Gamp: I likes my payments
+to be made reg'lar, and I likewise likes my publisher
+to draw it mild.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Ever yours.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_428" id="Page_428">[428]</a></span></p>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mr.
+Arthur
+Ryland.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span style="margin-right: 2em;"><span class="smcap">Gad's Hill Place, Higham by Rochester, Kent</span>,</span><br />
+<i>Monday, Sept. 6th, 1869.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='unindent'><span class='smcap'>My dear Mr. Ryland</span>,</div>
+
+<p>I am sorry to find&mdash;I had a foreshadowing of it
+some weeks ago&mdash;that I shall not be able to profit by your
+kind offer of hospitality when I come to Birmingham for
+<i>our</i> Institution. I must come down in time for a quiet
+dinner at the hotel with my "Readings" secretary, Mr.
+Dolby, and must away next morning. Besides having a
+great deal in hand just now (the title of a new book among
+other things), I shall have visitors from abroad here at the
+time, and am severely claimed by my daughter, who indeed
+is disloyal to Birmingham in the matter of my going away
+at all. Pray represent me to Mrs. Ryland as the innocent
+victim of circumstances, and as sacrificing pleasure to the
+work I have to do, and to the training under which alone I
+can do it without feeling it.</p>
+
+<p>You will see from the enclosed that I am in full force,
+and going to finish my readings, please God, after Christmas.
+I am in the hope of receiving your promised notes
+in due course, and continue in the irreverent condition in
+which I last reported myself on the subject of speech-making.
+Now that men not only make the nights of the
+session hideous by what the Americans call "orating" in
+Parliament, but trouble the peace of the vacation by saying
+over again what they said there (with the addition of what
+they <i>didn't</i> say there, and never will have the courage to
+say there), I feel indeed that silence, like gold across the
+Atlantic, is a rarity at a premium.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Faithfully yours always.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_429" id="Page_429">[429]</a></span></p>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mr.
+William
+Charles
+Kent.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span style="margin-right: 2em;"><span class="smcap">Office of "All the Year Round</span>,"</span><br />
+<i>Thursday, Oct. 7th, 1869.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='unindent'><span class='smcap'>My dear Kent</span>,</div>
+
+<p>I felt that you would be deeply disappointed. I
+thought it better not to make the first sign while you were
+depressed, but my mind has been constantly with you. And
+not mine alone. You cannot think with what affection and
+sympathy you have been made the subject of our family
+dinner talk at Gad's Hill these last three days. Nothing
+could exceed the interest of my daughters and my sister-in-law,
+or the earnestness of their feeling about it. I have
+been really touched by its warm and genuine expression.</p>
+
+<p>Cheer up, my dear fellow; cheer up, for God's sake.
+That is, for the sake of all that is good in you and around
+you.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Ever your affectionate Friend.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mr. W. C.
+Macready.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Gad's Hill</span>, <i>Monday, Oct. 18th, 1869.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='unindent'><span class='smcap'>My dearest Macready</span>,</div>
+
+<p>I duly received your letter nearly a fortnight ago,
+with the greatest interest and pleasure. Above all things I
+am delighted with the prospect of seeing you here next
+summer; a prospect which has been received with nine
+times nine and one more by the whole house. You will
+hardly know the place again, it is so changed. You are
+not expected to admire, but there <i>is</i> a conservatory building
+at this moment&mdash;be still, my soul!</p>
+
+<p>This leaves me in the preliminary agonies of a new
+book, which I hope to begin publishing (in twelve numbers,
+not twenty) next March. The coming readings being all
+in London, and being, after the first fortnight, only once a
+week, will divert my attention very little, I hope.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_430" id="Page_430">[430]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Harry has just gone up to Cambridge again, and I hope
+will get a fellowship in good time.</p>
+
+<p>Wills is much gratified by your remembrance, and
+sends you his warm regard. He wishes me to represent
+that he is very little to be pitied. That he suffers no pain,
+scarcely inconvenience, even, so long as he is idle. That
+he likes idleness exceedingly. He has bought a country
+place by Welwyn in Hertfordshire, near Lytton's, and
+takes possession presently.</p>
+
+<p>My boy Sydney is now a second lieutenant, the youngest
+in the Service, I believe. He has the highest testimonials
+as an officer.</p>
+
+<p>You may be quite sure there will be no international
+racing in American waters. Oxford knows better, or I am
+mistaken. The Harvard crew were a very good set of
+fellows, and very modest.</p>
+
+<p>Ryland of Birmingham doesn't look a day older, and
+was full of interest in you, and asked me to remind you of
+him. By-the-bye, at Elkington's I saw a pair of immense
+tea-urns from a railway station (Stafford), sent there to be
+repaired. They were honeycombed within in all directions,
+and had been supplying the passengers, under the active
+agency of hot water, with decomposed lead, copper, and a
+few other deadly poisons, for heaven knows how many
+years!</p>
+
+<p>I must leave off in a hurry to catch the post, after a
+hard day's work.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+<span style="margin-right: 6em;">Ever, my dearest Macready,</span><br />
+Your most affectionate and attached.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_431" id="Page_431">[431]</a></span></p>
+<h2>1870.</h2>
+
+<h3>NARRATIVE.</h3>
+
+
+<div class='unindent'><span class='smcap'>Charles Dickens</span> passed his last Christmas and New Year's
+Day at Gad's Hill, with a party of family and friends, in the
+usual way, except that he was suffering again from an
+attack of the foot trouble, particularly on Christmas Day,
+when he was quite disabled by it and unable to walk at
+all&mdash;able only to join the party in the evening by keeping
+his room all day. However, he was better in a day or two,
+and early in January he went to London, where he had
+taken the house of his friends, Mr. and Mrs. Milner Gibson,
+for the season.</div>
+
+<p>His series of "Farewell Readings" at St. James's Hall
+began in January, and ended on the 16th March. He was
+writing "Edwin Drood" also, and was, of course, constantly
+occupied with "All the Year Round" work. In the beginning
+of January, he fulfilled his promise of paying a second
+visit to Birmingham and making a speech, of which he
+writes in his last letter to Mr. Macready.</p>
+
+<p>For his last reading he gave the "Christmas Carol" and
+"The Trial" from "Pickwick," and at the end of the evening
+he addressed a few farewell words to his audience. It was a
+memorable and splendid occasion. He was very deeply
+affected by the loving enthusiasm of his greeting, and it
+was a real sorrow to him to give up for ever the personal
+associations with thousands of the readers of his books.
+But when the pain, mingled with pleasure, of this last reading
+was over, he felt greatly the relief of having undisturbed
+time for his own quieter pursuits, and looked forward to
+writing the last numbers of "Edwin Drood" at Gad's Hill,
+where he was to return in June.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_432" id="Page_432">[432]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The last public appearance of any kind that he made
+was at the Royal Academy dinner in May. He was at the
+time far from well, but he made a great effort to be present
+and to speak, from his strong desire to pay a tribute to
+the memory of his dear old friend Mr. Maclise, who died
+in April.</p>
+
+<p>Her Majesty having expressed a wish, conveyed through
+Mr. Helps (afterwards Sir Arthur Helps), to have a personal
+interview with Charles Dickens, he accompanied Mr. Helps
+to Buckingham Palace one afternoon in March. He was
+most graciously and kindly received by her Majesty, and
+came away with a hope that the visit had been mutually
+agreeable. The Queen presented him with a copy of her
+"Journal in the Highlands," with an autograph inscription.
+And he had afterwards the pleasure of requesting her
+acceptance of a set of his books. He attended a <ins title="Transcriber's Note: original reads 'levee'">lev&eacute;e</ins> held
+by the Prince of Wales in April, and the last time he dined
+out in London was at a party given by Lord Houghton for
+the King of the Belgians and the Prince of Wales, who had
+both expressed a desire to meet Charles Dickens. All
+through the season he had been suffering, at intervals, from
+the swollen foot, and on this occasion it was so bad, that up
+to the last moment it was very doubtful whether he could
+fulfil his engagement.</p>
+
+<p>We have very few letters for this year, and none of any
+very particular interest, but we give them all, as they are
+<i>the last</i>.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. S. L. Fildes was his "new illustrator," to whom he
+alludes in a note to Mr. Frith; we also give a short note to
+Mr. Fildes himself.</p>
+
+<p>The correspondence of Charles Dickens with Mrs.
+Dallas Glyn, the celebrated actress, for whom he had a
+great friendship, is so much on the subject of her own
+business, that we have only been able to select two notes
+of any public interest.</p>
+
+<p>In explanation of <i>the last letter</i>, we give an extract from
+a letter addressed to <i>The Daily News</i> by Mr. J. M. Makeham,
+soon after the death of Charles Dickens, as follows:<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_433" id="Page_433">[433]</a></span>
+"That the public may exactly understand the circumstances
+under which Charles Dickens's letter to me was written, I
+am bound to explain that it is in reply to a letter which I
+addressed to him in reference to a passage in the tenth
+chapter of "Edwin Drood," respecting which I ventured to
+suggest that he had, perhaps, forgotten that the figure of
+speech alluded to by him, in a way which, to my certain
+knowledge, was distasteful to some of his admirers, was
+drawn from a passage of Holy Writ which is greatly
+reverenced by a large number of his countrymen as a
+prophetic description of the sufferings of our Saviour."</p>
+
+<p>The MS. of the little "History of the New Testament"
+is now in the possession of his eldest daughter. She has
+(together with her aunt) received many earnest entreaties,
+both from friends and strangers, that this history might
+be allowed to be published, for the benefit of other
+children.</p>
+
+<p>These many petitions have his daughter's fullest sympathy.
+But she knows that her father wrote this history
+<span class="smcap">only</span> for his own children, that it was his particular wish
+that it never should be published, and she therefore holds
+this wish as sacred and irrevocable.</p>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mr. W. H.
+Wills.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+5, <span class="smcap">Hyde Park Place, London</span>, W., <i>Sunday, Jan. 23rd, 1870.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='unindent'><span class='smcap'>My dear Wills</span>,</div>
+
+<p>In the note I had from you about Nancy and Sikes,
+you seem to refer to some other note you had written me.
+Therefore I think it well merely to mention that I have
+received no other note.</p>
+
+<p>I do not wonder at your not being up to the undertaking
+(even if you had had no cough) under the wearing
+circumstances. It was a very curious scene. The actors
+and actresses (most of the latter looking very pretty)
+mustered in extraordinary force, and were a fine audience.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_434" id="Page_434">[434]</a></span>
+I set myself to carrying out of themselves and their observation,
+those who were bent on watching how the effects
+were got; and I believe I succeeded. Coming back to it
+again, however, I feel it was madness ever to do it so continuously.
+My ordinary pulse is seventy-two, and it runs
+up under this effort to one hundred and twelve. Besides
+which, it takes me ten or twelve minutes to get my wind
+back at all; I being, in the meantime, like the man who
+lost the fight&mdash;in fact, his express image. Frank Beard was
+in attendance to make divers experiments to report to
+Watson; and although, as you know, he stopped it instantly
+when he found me at Preston, he was very much astonished
+by the effects of the reading on the reader.</p>
+
+<p>So I hope you may be able to come and hear it before it
+is silent for ever. It is done again on the evenings of the
+1st February, 15th February, and 8th March. I hope, now
+I have got over the mornings, that I may be able to work
+on my book. But up to this time the great preparation
+required in getting the subjects up again, and the twice
+a week besides, have almost exclusively occupied me.</p>
+
+<p>I have something the matter with my right thumb, and
+can't (as you see) write plainly. I sent a word to poor
+Robert Chambers,<a name="FNanchor_32_32" id="FNanchor_32_32"></a><a href="#Footnote_32_32" class="fnanchor">[32]</a> and I send my love to Mrs. Wills.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Ever, my dear Wills, affectionately yours.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mrs.
+Dallas.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span style="margin-right: 2em;"><span class="smcap">Office of "All the Year Round</span>,"</span><br />
+<i>Wednesday, Jan. 16th, 1870.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='unindent'><span class='smcap'>My dear Mrs. Dallas</span>,</div>
+
+<p>It is perfectly delightful to me to get your fervent
+and sympathetic note this morning. A thousand thanks<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_435" id="Page_435">[435]</a></span>
+for it. I will take care that two places on the front row, by
+my daughter, are reserved for your occasion next time. I
+cannot see you in too good a seat, or too often.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Believe me, ever very faithfully yours.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mr. S. L.
+Fildes.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span style="margin-right: 2em;"><span class="smcap">Office of "All the Year Round</span>,"</span><br />
+<i>Wednesday, Jan. 16th, 1870.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='unindent'><span class='smcap'>Dear Sir</span>,</div>
+
+<p>I beg to thank you for the highly meritorious and
+interesting specimens of your art that you have had the
+kindness to send me. I return them herewith, after having
+examined them with the greatest pleasure.</p>
+
+<p>I am naturally curious to see your drawing from "David
+Copperfield," in order that I may compare it with my own
+idea. In the meanwhile, I can honestly assure you that
+I entertain the greatest admiration for your remarkable
+powers.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Faithfully yours.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mr. Henry
+Fielding
+Dickens.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+5, <span class="smcap">Hyde Park Place</span>, W., <i>Thursday, Feb. 17th, 1870.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='unindent'><span class='smcap'>My dear Harry</span>,</div>
+
+<p>I am extremely glad to hear that you have made a
+good start at the Union. Take any amount of pains about
+it; open your mouth well and roundly, speak to the last
+person visible, and give yourself time.</p>
+
+<p>Loves from all.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Ever affectionately.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_436" id="Page_436">[436]</a></span></p>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mr. W. C.
+Macready.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<i>Wednesday, March 2nd, 1870.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='unindent'><span class='smcap'>My dearest Macready</span>,</div>
+
+<p>This is to wish you and yours all happiness and
+prosperity at the well-remembered anniversary to-morrow.
+You may be sure that loves and happy returns will not be
+forgotten at <i>our</i> table.</p>
+
+<p>I have been getting on very well with my book, and we
+are having immense audiences at St. James's Hall. Mary
+has been celebrating the first glimpses of spring by having
+the measles. She got over the disorder very easily, but a
+weakness remains behind. Katie is blooming. Georgina
+is in perfect order, and all send you their very best loves.
+It gave me true pleasure to have your sympathy with me in
+the second little speech at Birmingham. I was determined
+that my Radicalism should not be called in question. The
+electric wires are not very exact in their reporting, but at
+all events the sense was there. Ryland, as usual, made all
+sorts of enquiries about you.</p>
+
+<p>With love to dear Mrs. Macready and the noble boy my
+particular friend, and a hearty embrace to you,</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+<span style="margin-right: 2em;">I am ever, my dearest Macready,</span><br />
+Your most affectionate.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mr. &mdash;&mdash;.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span style="margin-right: 2em;"><span class="smcap">Office of "All the Year Round</span>,"</span><br />
+<i>Wednesday, March 9th, 1870.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='unindent'><span class='smcap'>My dear &mdash;&mdash;</span>,</div>
+
+<p>You make me very uneasy on the subject of your
+new long story here, by sowing your name broadcast in so
+many fields at once, and undertaking such an impossible
+amount of fiction at one time. Just as you are coming on
+with us, you have another story in progress in "The
+Gentleman's Magazine," and another announced in "Once<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_437" id="Page_437">[437]</a></span>
+a Week." And so far as I know the art we both profess,
+it cannot be reasonably pursued in this way. I think the
+short story you are now finishing in these pages obviously
+marked by traces of great haste and small consideration;
+and a long story similarly blemished would really do the
+publication irreparable harm.</p>
+
+<p>These considerations are so much upon my mind that I
+cannot forbear representing them to you, in the hope that
+they may induce you to take a little more into account the
+necessity of care and preparation, and some self-denial in
+the quantity done. I am quite sure that I write fully as
+much in your interest as in that of "All the Year Round."</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Believe me, always faithfully yours.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">The same.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+5, <span class="smcap">Hyde Park Place</span>, W., <i>Friday, March 11th, 1870.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='unindent'><span class='smcap'>My dear &mdash;&mdash;</span>,</div>
+
+<p>Of course the engagement between us is to continue,
+and I am sure you know me too well to suppose that I have
+ever had a thought to the contrary. Your explanation is
+(as it naturally would be, being yours) manly and honest,
+and I am both satisfied and hopeful.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Ever yours.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mr.
+William
+Charles
+Kent.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+5, <span class="smcap">Hyde Park Place</span>, W., <i>Saturday, March 26th, 1870.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='unindent'><span class='smcap'>My dear Kent</span>,</div>
+
+<p>I received both copies of <i>The Sun</i>, with the tenderest
+pleasure and gratification.</p>
+
+<p>Everything that I can let you have in aid of the proposed
+record<a name="FNanchor_33_33" id="FNanchor_33_33"></a><a href="#Footnote_33_33" class="fnanchor">[33]</a> (which, <i>of course</i>, would be far more agreeable to me<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_438" id="Page_438">[438]</a></span>
+if done by you than by any other hand), shall be at your
+service. Dolby has all the figures relating to America, and
+you shall have for reference the books from which I read.
+They are afterwards going into Forster's collection.<a name="FNanchor_34_34" id="FNanchor_34_34"></a><a href="#Footnote_34_34" class="fnanchor">[34]</a></p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Ever affectionately.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mr. Henry
+Fielding
+Dickens.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+5, <span class="smcap">Hyde Park Place</span>, W., <i>Tuesday, March 29th, 1870.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='unindent'><span class='smcap'>My dear Harry</span>,</div>
+
+<p>Your next Tuesday's subject is a very good one. I
+would not lose the point that narrow-minded fanatics, who
+decry the theatre and defame its artists, are absolutely the
+advocates of depraved and barbarous amusements. For
+wherever a good drama and a well-regulated theatre decline,
+some distorted form of theatrical entertainment will infallibly
+arise in their place. In one of the last chapters of "Hard
+Times," Mr. Sleary says something to the effect: "People
+will be entertained thomehow, thquire. Make the betht of
+uth, and not the wortht."</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Ever affectionately.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mr. Shirley
+Brooks.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+5, <span class="smcap">Hyde Park Place</span>, W., <i>Friday, April 1st, 1870.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='unindent'><span class='smcap'>My dear Shirley Brooks</span>,</div>
+
+<p>I have written to Mr. Low, expressing my regret
+that I cannot comply with his request, backed as it is by
+my friend S. B. But I have told him what is perfectly
+true&mdash;that I leave town for the peaceful following of my<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_439" id="Page_439">[439]</a></span>
+own pursuits, at the end of next month; that I have
+excused myself from filling all manner of claims, on the
+ground that the public engagements I could make for the
+season were very few and were all made; and that I cannot
+bear hot rooms when I am at work. I have smoothed this
+as you would have me smooth it.</p>
+
+<p>With your longing for fresh air I can thoroughly sympathise.
+May you get it soon, and may you enjoy it, and
+profit by it half as much as I wish!</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Ever faithfully yours.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mr. W. P.
+Frith, R.A.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+5, <span class="smcap">Hyde Park Place</span>, W., <i>Saturday, April 16th, 1870.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='unindent'><span class='smcap'>My dear Frith</span>,</div>
+
+<p>I shall be happy to go on Wednesday evening, if
+convenient.</p>
+
+<p>You please me with what you say of my new illustrator,
+of whom I have great hopes.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Faithfully yours ever.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mr.
+William
+Charles
+Kent.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<i>Monday Morning, April 25th, 1870.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='unindent'><span class='smcap'>My dear Kent</span>,</div>
+
+<p>I received your book<a name="FNanchor_35_35" id="FNanchor_35_35"></a><a href="#Footnote_35_35" class="fnanchor">[35]</a> with the greatest pleasure, and
+heartily thank you for it. It is a volume of a highly prepossessing
+appearance, and a most friendly look. I felt as
+if I should have taken to it at sight; even (a very large
+even) though I had known nothing of its contents, or of its
+author!</p>
+
+<p>For the last week I have been most perseveringly and
+ding-dong-doggedly at work, making headway but slowly.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_440" id="Page_440">[440]</a></span>
+The spring always has a restless influence over me; and I
+weary, at any season, of this London dining-out beyond
+expression; and I yearn for the country again. This is my
+excuse for not having written to you sooner. Besides which,
+I had a baseless conviction that I should see you at the
+office last Thursday. Not having done so, I fear you must
+be worse, or no better? If you <i>can</i> let me have a report of
+yourself, pray do.</p>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mrs.
+Frederick
+Pollock.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+5, <span class="smcap">Hyde Park Place</span>, W., <i>Monday, May 2nd, 1870.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='unindent'><span class='smcap'>My dear Mrs. Pollock</span>,</div>
+
+<p>Pray tell the illustrious Philip van Artevelde, that I
+will deal with the nefarious case in question if I can. I am
+a little doubtful of the practicability of doing so, and frisking
+outside the bounds of the law of libel. I have that high
+opinion of the law of England generally, which one is likely
+to derive from the impression that it puts all the honest
+men under the diabolical hoofs of all the scoundrels. It
+makes me cautious of doing right; an admirable instance of
+its wisdom!</p>
+
+<p>I was very sorry to have gone astray from you that
+Sunday; but as the earlier disciples entertained angels
+unawares, so the later often miss them haphazard.</p>
+
+<p>Your description of La Font's acting is the complete
+truth in one short sentence: Nature's triumph over art;
+reversing the copy-book axiom! But the Lord deliver us
+from Plessy's mechanical ingenuousness!!</p>
+
+<p>And your petitioner will ever pray.</p>
+
+<p>And ever be,</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Faithfully yours.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_441" id="Page_441">[441]</a></span></p>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mrs. E. M.
+Ward.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+5, <span class="smcap">Hyde Park Place</span>, W., <i>Wednesday, May 11th, 1870.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='unindent'><span class='smcap'>My dear Mrs. Ward</span>,</div>
+
+<p>I grieve to say that I am literally laid by the heels,
+and incapable of dining with you to-morrow. A neuralgic
+affection of the foot, which usually seizes me about twice a
+year, and which will yield to nothing but days of fomentation
+and horizontal rest, set in last night, and has caused
+me very great pain ever since, and will too clearly be no
+better until it has had its usual time in which to wear itself
+out. I send my kindest regard to Ward, and beg to be
+pitied.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Believe me, faithfully yours always.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mr.
+William
+Charles
+Kent.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+5, <span class="smcap">Hyde Park Place</span>, W., <i>Tuesday, May 17th, 1870.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='unindent'><span class='smcap'>My dear Kent</span>,</div>
+
+<p>Many, many thanks! It is only my neuralgic foot.
+It has given me such a sharp twist this time that I have
+not been able, in its extreme sensitiveness, to put any
+covering upon it except scalding fomentations. Having
+viciously bubbled and blistered it in all directions, I hope it
+now begins to see the folly of its ways.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Affectionately ever.<br />
+</div>
+
+<p>P.S.&mdash;I hope the Sun shines.</p>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mrs.
+Bancroft.</div>
+
+<div class='date'><br /><br />
+<span style="margin-right: 2em;"><span class="smcap">Gad's Hill Place, Higham by Rochester, Kent</span>,</span><br />
+<i>Thursday, May 31st, 1870.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='unindent'><span class="smcap">My dear Mrs. Bancroft</span>,<a name="FNanchor_36_36" id="FNanchor_36_36"></a><a href="#Footnote_36_36" class="fnanchor">[36]</a></div>
+
+<p>I am most heartily obliged to you for your kind note,
+which I received here only last night, having come here
+from town circuitously to get a little change of air on the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_442" id="Page_442">[442]</a></span>
+road. My sense of your interest cannot be better proved
+than by my trying the remedy you recommend, and that I
+will do immediately. As I shall be in town on Thursday,
+my troubling you to order it would be quite unjustifiable.
+I will use your name in applying for it, and will report the
+result after a fair trial. Whether this remedy succeeds or
+fails as to the neuralgia, I shall always consider myself
+under an obligation to it for having indirectly procured me
+the great pleasure of receiving a communication from you;
+for I hope I may lay claim to being one of the most earnest
+and delighted of your many artistic admirers.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Believe me, faithfully yours.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_443" id="Page_443">[443]</a></span></p>
+<h2>TWO LAST LETTERS.</h2>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mr.
+William
+Charles
+Kent.</div>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 445px;"><span class="caption">Gad&#39;s Hill Place,<br />Higham by Rochester, Kent.<a name="FNanchor_37_37" id="FNanchor_37_37"></a><a href="#Footnote_37_37" class="fnanchor">[37]</a></span>
+<img src="images/8letter.png" width="445" height="600" alt="Handwritten Letter: Gad&#39;s Hill Place, Higham by Rochester, Kent." title="Handwritten Letter: Gad&#39;s Hill Place, Higham by Rochester, Kent." />
+</div>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_444" id="Page_444">[444]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mr.
+John M.
+Makeham.</div>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 445px;">
+<img src="images/9letter.png" width="445" height="431" alt="Handwritten Letter" title="Handwritten Letter" />
+</div><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_445" id="Page_445">[445]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 445px;">
+<img src="images/10letter.png" width="445" height="542" alt="Handwritten Letter" title="Handwritten Letter" />
+</div>
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_446" id="Page_446">[446]</a></span></p>
+<p>All through this spring in London, Charles Dickens had
+been ailing in health, and it was remarked by many friends
+that he had a weary look, and was "aged" and altered.
+But he was generally in good spirits, and his family had no
+uneasiness about him, relying upon the country quiet and
+comparative rest at Gad's Hill to have their usual influence
+in restoring his health and strength. On the 2nd June he
+attended a private play at the house of Mr. and Mrs. Freake,
+where his two daughters were among the actresses. The
+next day he went back to Gad's Hill. His daughter Kate
+(whose home was there at all times when she chose, and
+almost always through the summer months) went down on
+Sunday, the 5th June, for a day's visit, to see the "great
+improvement of the conservatory." Her father laughingly
+assured her she had now seen "the last" improvement at
+Gad's Hill. At this time he was tolerably well, but she
+remarked to her sister and aunt how strangely he was tired,
+and what a curious grey colour he had in his face after a
+very short walk on that Sunday afternoon. However, he
+seemed quite himself again in the evening. The next day
+his daughter Kate went back, accompanied by her sister,
+who was to pay her a short visit, to London.</p>
+
+<p>Charles Dickens was very hard at work on the sixth
+number of "Edwin Drood." On the Monday and Tuesday
+he was well, but he was unequal to much exercise. His last
+walk was one of his greatest favourites&mdash;through Cobham
+Park and Wood&mdash;on the afternoon of Tuesday.</p>
+
+<p>On the morning of Wednesday, the 8th (one of the
+loveliest days of a lovely summer), he was very well; in
+excellent spirits about his book, of which he said he <i>must</i>
+finish his number that day&mdash;the next (Thursday) being the
+day of his weekly visit to "All the Year Round" office.
+Therefore, he would write all day in the Ch&acirc;let, and take
+no walk or drive until the evening. In the middle of the
+day he came to the house for an hour's rest, and smoked a
+cigar in the conservatory&mdash;out of which new addition to the
+house he was taking the greatest personal enjoyment&mdash;and
+seemed perfectly well, and exceedingly cheerful and hopeful.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_447" id="Page_447">[447]</a></span>
+When he came again to the house, about an hour before the
+time fixed for the early dinner, he seemed very tired, silent,
+and absorbed. But this was so usual with him after a day
+of engrossing work, that it caused no alarm or surprise to
+his sister-in-law&mdash;the only member of his household who
+happened to be at home. He wrote some letters&mdash;among
+them, these last letters which we give&mdash;in the library of the
+house, and also arranged many trifling business matters,
+with a view to his departure for London the next morning.
+He was to be accompanied, on his return at the end of the
+week, by Mr. Fildes, to introduce the "new illustrator" to
+the neighbourhood in which many of the scenes of this last
+book of Charles Dickens, as of his first, were laid.</p>
+
+<p>It was not until they were seated at the dinner-table
+that a striking change in the colour and expression of his
+face startled his sister-in-law, and on her asking him if he
+was ill, he said, "Yes, very ill; I have been very ill for the
+last hour." But on her expressing an intention of sending
+instantly for a doctor, he stopped her, and said: "No, he
+would go on with dinner, and go afterwards to London."
+And then he made an effort to struggle against the fit that
+was fast coming on him, and talked, but incoherently, and
+soon very indistinctly. It being now evident that he <i>was</i>
+ill, and very seriously ill, his sister-in-law begged him to
+come to his own room before she sent off for medical
+help. "Come and lie down," she entreated. "Yes, on the
+ground," he said, very distinctly&mdash;these were the last words
+he spoke&mdash;and he slid from her arm, and fell upon the floor.</p>
+
+<p>The servants brought a couch into the dining-room,
+where he was laid. A messenger was despatched for Mr.
+Steele, the Rochester doctor, and with a telegram to his
+doctor in London, and to his daughters. This was a few
+minutes after six o'clock.</p>
+
+<p>His daughters arrived, with Mr. Frank Beard, this same
+evening. His eldest son the next morning, and his son
+Henry and his sister Letitia in the evening of the 9th&mdash;too
+late, alas!</p>
+
+<p>All through the night, Charles Dickens never opened his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_448" id="Page_448">[448]</a></span>
+eyes, or showed a sign of consciousness. In the afternoon
+of the 9th, Dr. Russell Reynolds arrived at Gad's Hill,
+having been summoned by Mr. Frank Beard to meet
+himself and Mr. Steele. But he could only confirm their
+hopeless verdict, and made his opinion known with much
+kind sympathy, to the family, before returning to London.</p>
+
+<p>Charles Dickens remained in the same unconscious state
+until the evening of this day, when, at ten minutes past six,
+the watchers saw a shudder pass over him, heard him give
+a deep sigh, saw one tear roll down his cheek, and he was
+gone from them. And as they saw the dark shadow steal
+across his calm, beautiful face, not one among them&mdash;could
+they have been given such a power&mdash;would have recalled
+his sweet spirit back to earth.</p>
+
+<p>As his family were aware that Charles Dickens had
+a wish to be buried near Gad's Hill, arrangements were
+made for his burial in the pretty churchyard of Shorne, a
+neighbouring village, of which he was very fond. But
+this intention was abandoned in consequence of a pressing
+request from the Dean and Chapter of Rochester Cathedral
+that his remains might be placed there. A grave was prepared
+and everything arranged, when it was made known
+to the family, through Dean Stanley, that there was a
+general and very earnest desire that Charles Dickens should
+find his resting-place in Westminster Abbey. To such a
+fitting tribute to his memory they could make no possible
+objection, although it was with great regret that they relinquished
+the idea of laying him in a place so closely
+identified with his life and his works. His name, notwithstanding,
+is associated with Rochester, a tablet to his
+memory having been placed by his executors on the wall
+of Rochester Cathedral.</p>
+
+<p>With regard to Westminster Abbey, his family only
+stipulated that the funeral might be made as private as
+possible, and that the words of his will, "I emphatically
+direct that I be buried in an inexpensive, unostentatious,
+and strictly private manner," should be religiously adhered
+to. And so they were. The solemn service in the vast<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_449" id="Page_449">[449]</a></span>
+cathedral being as private as the most thoughtful consideration
+could make it.</p>
+
+<p>The family of Charles Dickens were deeply grateful to
+all in authority who so carried out his wishes. And more
+especially to Dean Stanley and to the (late) Lady Augusta
+Stanley, for the tender sympathy shown by them to the
+mourners on this day, and also on Sunday, the 19th, when
+the Dean preached his beautiful funeral sermon.</p>
+
+<p>As during his life Charles Dickens's fondness for air,
+light, and gay colours amounted almost to a passion, so when
+he lay dead in the home he had so dearly loved, these things
+were not forgotten.</p>
+
+<p>The pretty room opening into the conservatory (from
+which he had never been removed since his seizure) was
+kept bright with the most beautiful of all kinds of flowers,
+and flooded with the summer sun:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"And nothing stirred in the room. The old, old fashion. The
+fashion that came in with our first garments, and will last unchanged
+until our race has run its course, and the wide firmament is rolled up
+like a scroll. The old, old fashion&mdash;death!</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, thank God, all who see it, for that older fashion yet, of
+immortality!"</p></div><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_451" id="Page_451">[451]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_450" id="Page_450">[450]</a></span></p>
+<h2>INDEX.</h2>
+
+
+<div class='unindent'>
+Actors, Dickens a friend to poor, ii. <a href="#Page_134">134</a><br />
+<br />
+Agassiz, Professor, ii. <a href="#Page_226">226</a>, <a href="#Page_309">309</a><br />
+<br />
+Agate, John, ii. <a href="#Page_136">136</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">letter to, ii. <a href="#Page_154">154</a></span><br />
+<br />
+"All the Year Round," commencement of, ii. <a href="#Page_83">83</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"The Uncommercial Traveller" in, ii. <a href="#Page_107">107</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Christmas Numbers of: "The Haunted House," ii. <a href="#Page_84">84</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"A Message from the Sea," ii. <a href="#Page_108">108</a>, <a href="#Page_137">137</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"Tom Tiddler's Ground," ii. <a href="#Page_136">136</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"Somebody's Luggage," ii. <a href="#Page_171">171</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"Mrs. Lirriper's Lodgings," ii. <a href="#Page_187">187</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"Mrs. Lirriper's Legacy," ii. <a href="#Page_209">209</a>, <a href="#Page_210">210</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"Dr. Marigold's Prescriptions," ii. <a href="#Page_224">224</a>, <a href="#Page_239">239</a>, <a href="#Page_246">246</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"Mugby Junction," ii. <a href="#Page_244">244</a>, <a href="#Page_265">265</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"No Thoroughfare," ii. <a href="#Page_268">268</a>, <a href="#Page_300">300</a>, <a href="#Page_327">327</a>, <a href="#Page_332">332</a>, <a href="#Page_334">334</a>, <a href="#Page_338">338</a>, <a href="#Page_350">350</a>, <a href="#Page_356">356</a>, <a href="#Page_361">361</a>, <a href="#Page_362">362</a>, <a href="#Page_384">384</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">and see ii. <a href="#Page_386">386</a>,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">and see <a href="#Editor">Charles Dickens as an Editor</a></span><br />
+<br />
+<a name="America" id="America"></a>America, descriptions of Niagara, ii. <a href="#Page_372">372</a>, <a href="#Page_377">377</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">the great war in, ii. <a href="#Page_142">142</a>, <a href="#Page_143">143</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">feeling between England and, ii. <a href="#Page_240">240</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Dickens's second visit to&mdash;the journey, ii. <a href="#Page_302">302</a>-<a href="#Page_306">306</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Dickens's letters on, ii. <a href="#Page_306">306</a>-<a href="#Page_382">382</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">fires in, ii. <a href="#Page_317">317</a>, <a href="#Page_320">320</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">treatment of luggage in, ii. <a href="#Page_321">321</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">drinks in, ii. <a href="#Page_329">329</a>, <a href="#Page_363">363</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">literary piracy in, ii. <a href="#Page_332">332</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">walking-match between Dolby and Osgood in, ii. <a href="#Page_346">346</a>, <a href="#Page_352">352</a>, <a href="#Page_353">353</a>, <a href="#Page_360">360</a>, <a href="#Page_361">361</a>, <a href="#Page_364">364</a>, <a href="#Page_366">366</a>, <a href="#Page_377">377</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">changes and improvements in since Dickens's first visit, ii. <a href="#Page_348">348</a>, <a href="#Page_374">374</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">the negroes in, ii. <a href="#Page_349">349</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">personal descriptions of Dickens in, ii. <a href="#Page_369">369</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">travelling in, ii. <a href="#Page_375">375</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">and <a href="#Readings">Readings</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Andersen, Hans Christian, ii. <a href="#Page_3">3</a><br />
+<br />
+Anne, Mrs. Dickens's maid, ii. <a href="#Page_18">18</a>, <a href="#Page_25">25</a>, <a href="#Page_28">28</a>, <a href="#Page_343">343</a><br />
+<br />
+"Apprentices, The Tour of the Two Idle," ii. <a href="#Page_5">5</a>, <a href="#Page_32">32</a>, <a href="#Page_33">33</a><br />
+<br />
+Armatage, Isaac, ii. <a href="#Page_391">391</a><br />
+<br />
+Armstrong, the Misses, letter to, ii. <a href="#Page_175">175</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">and see ii. <a href="#Page_176">176</a></span><br />
+<br />
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_452" id="Page_452">[452]</a></span>Austin, Henry, ii. <a href="#Page_135">135</a>, <a href="#Page_157">157</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">and <a href="#Letters">Letters</a></span><br />
+<br />
+<a name="Henry" id="Henry"></a>Austin, Mrs. Henry, ii. <a href="#Page_447">447</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">letters to, ii. <a href="#Page_154">154</a>, <a href="#Page_180">180</a>, <a href="#Page_384">384</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Autograph of Dickens<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">facsimile letters of Dickens written the day before his death, ii. <a href="#Page_443">443</a>-<a href="#Page_445">445</a></span><br />
+<br />
+<br />
+Ballantyne, ii. <a href="#Page_415">415</a><br />
+<br />
+Bancroft, Mrs., letter to, ii. <a href="#Page_441">441</a><br />
+<br />
+Barber, Dickens's gardener, ii. <a href="#Page_102">102</a><br />
+<br />
+Barker, Dr. Fordyce, ii. <a href="#Page_378">378</a>, <a href="#Page_405">405</a><br />
+<br />
+Baylis, Mr., ii. <a href="#Page_170">170</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">letter to, ii. <a href="#Page_179">179</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Beadle, a, in office, ii. <a href="#Page_134">134</a><br />
+<br />
+Beard, Frank, ii. <a href="#Page_182">182</a>, <a href="#Page_405">405</a>, <a href="#Page_421">421</a>, <a href="#Page_434">434</a>, <a href="#Page_447">447</a><br />
+<br />
+Beecher, Ward, ii. <a href="#Page_341">341</a><br />
+<br />
+Belgians, the King of the, ii. <a href="#Page_432">432</a><br />
+<br />
+Benzon, Miss Lily, letter to, ii. <a href="#Page_258">258</a><br />
+<br />
+Berry, one of Dickens's readings men, ii. <a href="#Page_54">54</a>, <a href="#Page_159">159</a>, <a href="#Page_160">160</a><br />
+<br />
+Blackwood, Mr., ii. <a href="#Page_165">165</a><br />
+<br />
+Blair, General, ii. <a href="#Page_355">355</a><br />
+<br />
+Boucicault, Dion, ii. <a href="#Page_260">260</a>, <a href="#Page_261">261</a><br />
+<br />
+Bouncer, Mrs., Miss Dickens's dog, ii. <a href="#Page_109">109</a>, <a href="#Page_126">126</a>, <a href="#Page_189">189</a>, <a href="#Page_356">356</a><br />
+<br />
+Bow Street Runners, ii. <a href="#Page_178">178</a><br />
+<br />
+Boyle, Captain Cavendish, ii. <a href="#Page_407">407</a><br />
+<br />
+Boyle, Miss Mary, ii. <a href="#Page_123">123</a>, <a href="#Page_145">145</a>, <a href="#Page_315">315</a>, <a href="#Page_406">406</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">and <a href="#Letters">Letters</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Broadstairs, Dickens at,ii. <a href="#Page_84">84</a>, <a href="#Page_99">99</a>;<br />
+<br />
+Bromley, Sir Richard, ii. <a href="#Page_126">126</a><br />
+<br />
+Brookfield, Mrs., letter to, ii. <a href="#Page_249">249</a><br />
+<br />
+Brookfield, The Rev. W., letters to, ii. <a href="#Page_199">199</a>, <a href="#Page_200">200</a><br />
+<br />
+Brooks, Shirley, ii. <a href="#Page_407">407</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">letters to, ii. <a href="#Page_423">423</a>, <a href="#Page_438">438</a></span><br />
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_453" id="Page_453">[453]</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Campbell, Lord, ii.144<br />
+<br />
+<a name="Carlisle" id="Carlisle"></a>Carlisle, the Earl of, letters to, ii. <a href="#Page_12">12</a>, <a href="#Page_118">118</a>, <a href="#Page_157">157</a><br />
+<br />
+Carlyle, Thomas, ii. <a href="#Page_112">112</a><br />
+<br />
+Cartwright, Samuel, ii. <a href="#Page_326">326</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">letter to, ii. <a href="#Page_348">348</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Cattermole, George, ii. <a href="#Page_327">327</a>, <a href="#Page_383">383</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">and <a href="#Letters">Letters</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Cattermole, Mrs., letters to, ii. <a href="#Page_383">383</a>, <a href="#Page_385">385</a><br />
+<br />
+<ins title="Transcriber's Note: original reads 'Celeste'">C&eacute;leste</ins>, Madame, ii. <a href="#Page_106">106</a><br />
+<br />
+Cerjat, M. de, ii. <a href="#Page_406">406</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">and <a href="#Letters">Letters</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Chambers, Robert, ii. <a href="#Page_167">167</a>, <a href="#Page_434">434</a><br />
+<br />
+Chappell, Messrs., ii. <a href="#Page_244">244</a>, <a href="#Page_245">245</a>, <a href="#Page_267">267</a>, <a href="#Page_309">309</a>, <a href="#Page_326">326</a>, <a href="#Page_405">405</a><br />
+<br />
+Charities, Dickens's sufferings from public, ii. <a href="#Page_47">47</a><br />
+<br />
+Children, stories of, ii. <a href="#Page_196">196</a>, <a href="#Page_359">359</a>, <a href="#Page_423">423</a><br />
+<br />
+Childs, Mr., ii. <a href="#Page_337">337</a>, <a href="#Page_405">405</a><br />
+<br />
+Chorley, H. F., ii. <a href="#Page_338">338</a>, <a href="#Page_350">350</a><br />
+<br />
+Church, Dickens on the, ii. <a href="#Page_221">221</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">service on board ship, ii. <a href="#Page_348">348</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Dickens on the Romish, ii. <a href="#Page_409">409</a>, <a href="#Page_410">410</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Circumlocution, Dickens on, ii. <a href="#Page_241">241</a>, <a href="#Page_270">270</a><br />
+<br />
+Clarke, John, letter to, ii. <a href="#Page_418">418</a><br />
+<br />
+Collins, C. A., ii. <a href="#Page_84">84</a>, <a href="#Page_100">100</a>, <a href="#Page_113">113</a>, <a href="#Page_221">221</a>, <a href="#Page_242">242</a>, <a href="#Page_387">387</a>, <a href="#Page_410">410</a><br />
+<br />
+Collins, Wilkie, ii. <a href="#Page_33">33</a>, <a href="#Page_84">84</a>, <a href="#Page_108">108</a>, <a href="#Page_170">170</a>, <a href="#Page_268">268</a>, <a href="#Page_292">292</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">and <a href="#Letters">Letters</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Compton, Mrs., letter to, ii. <a href="#Page_22">22</a><br />
+<br />
+Conjuring feats, see ii. <a href="#Page_243">243</a><br />
+<br />
+Cooke, T. P., ii. <a href="#Page_4">4</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">letter to, ii. <a href="#Page_21">21</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Covent Garden Theatre, a scene at, ii. <a href="#Page_133">133</a><br />
+<br />
+Cunningham, Mrs., ii. <a href="#Page_423">423</a><br />
+<br />
+<br />
+Dacres, Sir Sydney, ii. <a href="#Page_329">329</a><br />
+<br />
+Dallas, Mrs., letters to, ii. <a href="#Page_195">195</a>, <a href="#Page_434">434</a><br />
+<br />
+Dallas, Mr., ii. <a href="#Page_235">235</a><br />
+<br />
+Delane, John, ii. <a href="#Page_425">425</a>;<br />
+<br />
+De la Rue, Mr., ii. <a href="#Page_210">210</a><br />
+<br />
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_454" id="Page_454">[454]</a></span>Dickens, Charles, visits to Scotland, ii. <a href="#Page_39">39</a>, and see ii. <a href="#Page_395">395</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">declines to enter Parliament, ii. <a href="#Page_389">389</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">public dinners to, ii. <a href="#Page_268">268</a>, <a href="#Page_301">301</a>, <a href="#Page_404">404</a>, <a href="#Page_406">406</a>, <a href="#Page_417">417</a>, <a href="#Page_419">419</a>, <a href="#Page_420">420</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;">fancy signatures to letters of, ii. <a href="#Page_195">195</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, ii. <a href="#Page_248">248</a>, <a href="#Page_266">266</a>, <a href="#Page_325">325</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, ii. <a href="#Page_26">26</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Tavistock House, see <a href="#Tavistock">Tavistock House</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><a name="Editor" id="Editor"></a>as an editor, ii. <a href="#Page_127">127</a>, <a href="#Page_217">217</a>, <a href="#Page_262">262</a>, <a href="#Page_286">286</a>, <a href="#Page_292">292</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">his readings, <a href="#Readings">Readings</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">illnesses of, ii. <a href="#Page_404">404</a>, <a href="#Page_405">405</a>, <a href="#Page_421">421</a>, <a href="#Page_446">446</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">in America, ii. <a href="#Page_338">338</a>, <a href="#Page_341">341</a>, <a href="#Page_347">347</a>, <a href="#Page_353">353</a>, <a href="#Page_355">355</a>, <a href="#Page_360">360</a>, <a href="#Page_365">365</a>, <a href="#Page_373">373</a>, <a href="#Page_377">377</a>, <a href="#Page_380">380</a>, <a href="#Page_381">381</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Gad's Hill, see <a href="#Gad">Gad's Hill</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">tour of, in the North, ii. <a href="#Page_5">5</a>, <a href="#Page_29">29</a>-<a href="#Page_32">32</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">his kindly criticisms of young writers, ii. <a href="#Page_16">16</a>, <a href="#Page_34">34</a>, <a href="#Page_267">267</a>, <a href="#Page_277">277</a>, for other criticisms see ii. <a href="#Page_14">14</a>, <a href="#Page_43">43</a>, <a href="#Page_215">215</a>, <a href="#Page_249">249</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">elected a member of the Birmingham Institute, ii. <a href="#Page_34">34</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">religious views of, ii. <a href="#Page_82">82</a>, <a href="#Page_202">202</a>, <a href="#Page_221">221</a>, <a href="#Page_394">394</a>, <a href="#Page_403">403</a>, <a href="#Page_444">444</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">visit of, to Cornwall, ii. <a href="#Page_108">108</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">at Hanover Terrace, Regent's Park, ii. <a href="#Page_135">135</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">visits Lord Lytton at Knebworth, ii. <a href="#Page_136">136</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">at Hyde Park Gate South, ii. <a href="#Page_170">170</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">at <a href="#Page_57">57</a>, Gloucester Place, Hyde Park, ii. <a href="#Page_208">208</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">at Somer's Place, Hyde Park, ii. <a href="#Page_224">224</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">in the Staplehurst accident, ii. <a href="#Page_224">224</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">at Southwick Place, Hyde Park, ii. <a href="#Page_224">224</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">his energy, ii. <a href="#Page_291">291</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">one of the secrets of the success of, ii. <a href="#Page_357">357</a>, <a href="#Page_392">392</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">the Midland Institute at Birmingham opened by, ii. <a href="#Page_406">406</a>, and see ii. <a href="#Page_427">427</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">his last speech, at the Royal Academy dinner, ii. <a href="#Page_432">432</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">his interview with the Queen, ii. <a href="#Page_432">432</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">attends a lev&eacute;e of the Prince of Wales, ii. <a href="#Page_432">432</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">his last illness, ii. <a href="#Page_446">446</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">his death, ii. <a href="#Page_448">448</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">funeral of, ii. <a href="#Page_448">448</a>, <a href="#Page_449">449</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">and <a href="#Letters">Letters</a> of</span><br />
+<br />
+Dickens, Charles, marriage of, ii. <a href="#Page_208">208</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">on "All the Year Round," ii. <a href="#Page_406">406</a>, <a href="#Page_410">410</a>, <a href="#Page_424">424</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">and see ii. <a href="#Page_88">88</a>, <a href="#Page_114">114</a>, <a href="#Page_123">123</a>, <a href="#Page_140">140</a>, <a href="#Page_145">145</a>, <a href="#Page_176">176</a>, <a href="#Page_447">447</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">letters to, ii. <a href="#Page_310">310</a>, <a href="#Page_338">338</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Dickens, Kate,  marriage of, ii. <a href="#Page_107">107</a>, <a href="#Page_113">113</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">illness of, ii. <a href="#Page_266">266</a>, <a href="#Page_271">271</a>; </span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">and see ii. <a href="#Page_39">39</a>, <a href="#Page_75">75</a>, <a href="#Page_77">77</a>, <a href="#Page_84">84</a>, <a href="#Page_221">221</a>, <a href="#Page_410">410</a>, <a href="#Page_436">436</a>, <a href="#Page_446">446</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">letter to, ii. <a href="#Page_99">99</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Dickens, Mamie, accident to, ii. <a href="#Page_129">129</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">and see ii. <a href="#Page_39">39</a>, <a href="#Page_49">49</a>, <a href="#Page_55">55</a>, <a href="#Page_75">75</a>, <a href="#Page_77">77</a>, <a href="#Page_84">84</a>, <a href="#Page_87">87</a>, <a href="#Page_114">114</a>, <a href="#Page_116">116</a>, <a href="#Page_120">120</a>, <a href="#Page_145">145</a>, <a href="#Page_179">179</a>, <a href="#Page_234">234</a>, <a href="#Page_411">411</a>, <a href="#Page_447">447</a>, and <a href="#Letters">Letters</a></span><br />
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_455" id="Page_455">[455]</a></span><br />
+Dickens, Walter, goes to India, ii. <a href="#Page_19">19</a>, <a href="#Page_21">21</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">attached to the 42nd Highlanders, ii. <a href="#Page_114">114</a>, <a href="#Page_176">176</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">death of, ii. <a href="#Page_208">208</a>, <a href="#Page_212">212</a>; </span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">and see ii. <a href="#Page_4">4</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Dickens, Frank, letter of, to Dickens, ii. <a href="#Page_93">93</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">in India, ii. <a href="#Page_208">208</a>, <a href="#Page_212">212</a>; </span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">and see ii. <a href="#Page_114">114</a>, <a href="#Page_131">131</a>, <a href="#Page_140">140</a>, <a href="#Page_177">177</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Dickens, Alfred, at Wimbledon School, ii. <a href="#Page_122">122</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">settles in Australia, ii. <a href="#Page_327">327</a>; </span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">and see ii. <a href="#Page_177">177</a>, <a href="#Page_371">371</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Dickens, Sydney, a naval cadet, ii. <a href="#Page_125">125</a>, <a href="#Page_126">126</a>, <a href="#Page_145">145</a>, <a href="#Page_167">167</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">on board H.M.S. <i>Orlando</i>, ii. <a href="#Page_169">169</a>; </span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">and see ii. <a href="#Page_114">114</a>, <a href="#Page_118">118</a>, <a href="#Page_122">122</a>, <a href="#Page_177">177</a>, <a href="#Page_202">202</a>, <a href="#Page_236">236</a>, <a href="#Page_260">260</a>, <a href="#Page_296">296</a>, <a href="#Page_430">430</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Dickens, Henry, entered at Trinity Hall, Cambridge, ii. <a href="#Page_327">327</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">wins a scholarship, ii. <a href="#Page_424">424</a>, <a href="#Page_430">430</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">and see ii. <a href="#Page_177">177</a>, <a href="#Page_190">190</a>, <a href="#Page_254">254</a>, <a href="#Page_255">255</a>, <a href="#Page_329">329</a>, <a href="#Page_371">371</a>, <a href="#Page_389">389</a>, <a href="#Page_395">395</a>, <a href="#Page_406">406</a>, <a href="#Page_410">410</a>, <a href="#Page_447">447</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">letters to, ii. <a href="#Page_356">356</a>, <a href="#Page_392">392</a>, <a href="#Page_435">435</a>, <a href="#Page_438">438</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Dickens, Edward, goes to Australia, ii. <a href="#Page_327">327</a>, <a href="#Page_329">329</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Dickens's love for, ii. <a href="#Page_389">389</a>-<a href="#Page_391">391</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">and see ii. <a href="#Page_53">53</a>, <a href="#Page_76">76</a>, <a href="#Page_79">79</a>, <a href="#Page_92">92</a>, <a href="#Page_95">95</a>, <a href="#Page_153">153</a>, <a href="#Page_190">190</a>, <a href="#Page_199">199</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">letter to, ii. <a href="#Page_402">402</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Dickens, Alfred, ii. <a href="#Page_199">199</a><br />
+<br />
+Dickens, Mrs. Augustus, ii. <a href="#Page_418">418</a><br />
+<br />
+Dickens, John, ii. <a href="#Page_240">240</a><br />
+<br />
+Dickens, Mrs. John, ii. <a href="#Page_333">333</a><br />
+<br />
+Dickens, Letitia, see <a href="#Henry">Mrs. Henry Austin</a><br />
+<br />
+Dickenson, Captain, ii. <a href="#Page_224">224</a>, <a href="#Page_232">232</a><br />
+<br />
+Dilke, C. W., ii. <a href="#Page_5">5</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">letter to, ii. <a href="#Page_12">12</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Dillon, C., ii. <a href="#Page_42">42</a><br />
+<br />
+Dogs, Dickens's, ii. <a href="#Page_50">50</a>, <a href="#Page_96">96</a>, <a href="#Page_101">101</a>; ii. <a href="#Page_203">203</a>, <a href="#Page_237">237</a>, <a href="#Page_242">242</a>, <a href="#Page_245">245</a>, <a href="#Page_264">264</a>, <a href="#Page_269">269</a>;<br />
+<br />
+Dolby, George, ii. <a href="#Page_245">245</a>, <a href="#Page_252">252</a>-<a href="#Page_255">255</a>, <a href="#Page_267">267</a>, <a href="#Page_273">273</a>, <a href="#Page_280">280</a>, <a href="#Page_295">295</a>, <a href="#Page_296">296</a>, <a href="#Page_308">308</a>, <a href="#Page_310">310</a>, <a href="#Page_311">311</a>, <a href="#Page_317">317</a>-<a href="#Page_323">323</a>, <a href="#Page_328">328</a>, <a href="#Page_330">330</a>, <a href="#Page_335">335</a>, <a href="#Page_336">336</a>, <a href="#Page_340">340</a>, <a href="#Page_345">345</a>-<a href="#Page_347">347</a>, <a href="#Page_352">352</a>-<a href="#Page_360">360</a>, <a href="#Page_363">363</a>, <a href="#Page_367">367</a>, <a href="#Page_381">381</a><br />
+<br />
+Dufferin, Lord, ii. <a href="#Page_419">419</a><br />
+<br />
+Dwarf, the Tartar, ii. <a href="#Page_255">255</a><br />
+<br />
+<br />
+Earthquake, an, in England, ii. <a href="#Page_206">206</a><br />
+<br />
+Edinburgh on a Sunday, ii. <a href="#Page_395">395</a><br />
+<br />
+"Edwin Drood," ii. <a href="#Page_407">407</a>, <a href="#Page_431">431</a>, <a href="#Page_432">432</a>, <a href="#Page_446">446</a><br />
+<br />
+Egg, Augustus, ii. <a href="#Page_198">198</a><br />
+<br />
+Eliot, Sir John, Dickens on Forster's life of, ii. <a href="#Page_215">215</a><br />
+<br />
+Elliotson, Dr., ii. <a href="#Page_99">99</a><br />
+<br />
+Elwin, Rev. W., ii. <a href="#Page_136">136</a>, <a href="#Page_151">151</a><br />
+<br />
+Emerson, Mr., ii. <a href="#Page_306">306</a><br />
+<br />
+Eytinge, Mr., ii. <a href="#Page_405">405</a><br />
+<br />
+<br />
+"Faust," Gounod's, ii. <a href="#Page_191">191</a>, <a href="#Page_193">193</a><br />
+<br />
+<a name="Fechter" id="Fechter"></a>Fechter, Charles, ii. <a href="#Page_171">171</a>, <a href="#Page_177">177</a>, <a href="#Page_187">187</a>, <a href="#Page_193">193</a>, <a href="#Page_201">201</a>, <a href="#Page_219">219</a>, <a href="#Page_270">270</a>, <a href="#Page_386">386</a>; <br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">and <a href="#Letters">Letters</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Felton, Mr., ii. <a href="#Page_85">85</a><br />
+<br />
+Ferguson, Sir William, ii. <a href="#Page_246">246</a>, <a href="#Page_247">247</a><br />
+<br />
+F&eacute;val, Paul, ii. <a href="#Page_183">183</a>, <a href="#Page_192">192</a><br />
+<br />
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_456" id="Page_456">[456]</a></span>Fields, Cyrus W., ii. <a href="#Page_85">85</a>, <a href="#Page_308">308</a>, <a href="#Page_344">344</a>, <a href="#Page_361">361</a>, <a href="#Page_364">364</a>, <a href="#Page_379">379</a>, <a href="#Page_405">405</a><br />
+<br />
+Fields, Mrs., ii. <a href="#Page_306">306</a>, <a href="#Page_308">308</a>, <a href="#Page_319">319</a>, <a href="#Page_344">344</a>, <a href="#Page_361">361</a>, <a href="#Page_364">364</a>, <a href="#Page_367">367</a>, <a href="#Page_379">379</a>, <a href="#Page_405">405</a><br />
+<br />
+Fildes, S. L., ii. <a href="#Page_432">432</a>, <a href="#Page_447">447</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">letter to, ii. <a href="#Page_435">435</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Finlay, F. D., ii. <a href="#Page_406">406</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">letters to, ii. <a href="#Page_297">297</a>, <a href="#Page_389">389</a>, <a href="#Page_408">408</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Fitzgerald, Mrs., ii. <a href="#Page_285">285</a><br />
+<br />
+Fitzgerald, Percy, ii. <a href="#Page_187">187</a>, <a href="#Page_397">397</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">and <a href="#Letters">Letters</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Flunkeydom, scholastic, ii. <a href="#Page_68">68</a><br />
+<br />
+Forster, Miss, ii. <a href="#Page_327">327</a><br />
+<br />
+Forster, John, ii. <a href="#Page_108">108</a>, <a href="#Page_130">130</a>, <a href="#Page_265">265</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">and <a href="#Letters">Letters</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Freake, Mr. and Mrs., ii. <a href="#Page_446">446</a><br />
+<br />
+Frith, W. P., ii. <a href="#Page_84">84</a>, <a href="#Page_93">93</a>, <a href="#Page_385">385</a>, <a href="#Page_418">418</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">letter to, ii. <a href="#Page_439">439</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Frost, the great, of 1861, ii. <a href="#Page_139">139</a><br />
+<br />
+Funerals, Dickens on state, ii. <a href="#Page_385">385</a><br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<a name="Gad" id="Gad"></a>Gad's Hill, Dickens takes possession of, ii. <a href="#Page_3">3</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">his childish impressions of, ii. <a href="#Page_8">8</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">improvements in, ii. <a href="#Page_107">107</a>, <a href="#Page_373">373</a>, <a href="#Page_406">406</a>, <a href="#Page_446">446</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">sports at, ii. <a href="#Page_205">205</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">cricket club at, ii. <a href="#Page_356">356</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">letters concerning, ii. <a href="#Page_15">15</a>, <a href="#Page_18">18</a>, <a href="#Page_25">25</a>, <a href="#Page_28">28</a>, <a href="#Page_49">49</a>, <a href="#Page_106">106</a>, <a href="#Page_119">119</a>, <a href="#Page_227">227</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Ghost, stalking a, ii. <a href="#Page_131">131</a><br />
+<br />
+Gibson, M., ii. <a href="#Page_121">121</a><br />
+<br />
+Gibson, Mr. and Mrs. Milner, ii. <a href="#Page_431">431</a><br />
+<br />
+Gladstone, Right Hon. W. E., ii. <a href="#Page_401">401</a><br />
+<br />
+Gordon, Andrew, ii. <a href="#Page_131">131</a><br />
+<br />
+Gordon, Mr. Sheriff, ii. <a href="#Page_164">164</a><br />
+<br />
+"Great Expectations," commenced, ii. <a href="#Page_108">108</a>, <a href="#Page_136">136</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">letters concerning, ii. <a href="#Page_128">128</a>, <a href="#Page_133">133</a>, <a href="#Page_140">140</a>, <a href="#Page_142">142</a>, <a href="#Page_143">143</a>, <a href="#Page_151">151</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Guild of Literature and Art, see ii. <a href="#Page_41">41</a><br />
+<br />
+<br />
+Harness, Rev. W., ii. <a href="#Page_253">253</a>;<br />
+<br />
+Headland, Mr., ii. <a href="#Page_135">135</a>, <a href="#Page_149">149</a>, <a href="#Page_158">158</a>, <a href="#Page_160">160</a><br />
+<br />
+Helps, Sir Arthur, ii. <a href="#Page_432">432</a><br />
+<br />
+Henderson, Mrs., letter to, ii. <a href="#Page_293">293</a><br />
+<br />
+Hogarth, Georgina, ii. <a href="#Page_50">50</a>, <a href="#Page_114">114</a>, <a href="#Page_145">145</a>, <a href="#Page_179">179</a>, <a href="#Page_202">202</a>, <a href="#Page_408">408</a>, <a href="#Page_436">436</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">and <a href="#Letters">Letters</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Hogge, Mrs., letter to, ii. <a href="#Page_46">46</a><br />
+<br />
+Holmes, Mr., ii. <a href="#Page_306">306</a><br />
+<br />
+Hospital, Great Ormond Street, ii. <a href="#Page_40">40</a>, <a href="#Page_46">46</a><br />
+<br />
+Houghton, Lord, ii. <a href="#Page_432">432</a>;<br />
+<br />
+"Household Words," "The Golden Mary," ii. <a href="#Page_11">11</a>,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"A House to Let," ii. <a href="#Page_40">40</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">incorporated with "All the Year Round," ii. <a href="#Page_83">83</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">letter concerning, ii. <a href="#Page_68">68</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Hulkes, Mrs., ii. <a href="#Page_224">224</a>, <a href="#Page_315">315</a>, <a href="#Page_329">329</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">letter to, ii. <a href="#Page_232">232</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Hullah, John, ii. <a href="#Page_131">131</a><br />
+<br />
+Humphery, Mr. and Mrs., afterwards Sir W. and Lady, ii. <a href="#Page_187">187</a><br />
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_457" id="Page_457">[457]</a></span><br />
+Hunt, Leigh, ii. <a href="#Page_407">407</a><br />
+<br />
+Hutchinson, John, ii. <a href="#Page_380">380</a><br />
+<br />
+<br />
+Illustrations of Dickens's works, his descriptions for, ii. <a href="#Page_237">237</a><br />
+<br />
+Impeachment of the Five Members, Dickens on Forster's, ii. <a href="#Page_14">14</a><br />
+<br />
+Ireland, a dialogue in, ii. <a href="#Page_61">61</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">feeling for Dickens in, ii. <a href="#Page_65">65</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Fenianism in, ii. <a href="#Page_282">282</a>-<a href="#Page_286">286</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">proposed banquet to Dickens in, ii. <a href="#Page_406">406</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Dickens on the Established Church in, ii. <a href="#Page_409">409</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">and see ii. <a href="#Page_57">57</a>, <a href="#Page_60">60</a>, <a href="#Page_64">64</a></span><br />
+<br />
+<br />
+Jamaica, the insurrection in, ii. <a href="#Page_241">241</a><br />
+<br />
+Jerrold, Douglas, ii. <a href="#Page_3">3</a>, <a href="#Page_4">4</a>, <a href="#Page_19">19</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">and <a href="#Letters">Letters</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Jews, Dickens's friendly feeling for, ii. <a href="#Page_204">204</a>, <a href="#Page_223">223</a>, <a href="#Page_280">280</a><br />
+<br />
+Joachim, Joseph, ii. <a href="#Page_413">413</a><br />
+<br />
+John, Dickens's manservant, ii. <a href="#Page_54">54</a>, <a href="#Page_56">56</a>, <a href="#Page_57">57</a>, <a href="#Page_72">72</a>, <a href="#Page_153">153</a>, <a href="#Page_187">187</a>, <a href="#Page_188">188</a>, <a href="#Page_255">255</a><br />
+<br />
+Jones, Walter, letter to, ii. <a href="#Page_232">232</a><br />
+<br />
+<br />
+Keeley, Mrs., ii. <a href="#Page_417">417</a><br />
+<br />
+Kelly, one of Dickens's readings men, ii. <a href="#Page_305">305</a>, <a href="#Page_306">306</a>, <a href="#Page_342">342</a><br />
+<br />
+Kemble, Fanny, ii. <a href="#Page_344">344</a>, <a href="#Page_346">346</a><br />
+<br />
+Kent, W. Charles, ii. <a href="#Page_225">225</a>, <a href="#Page_268">268</a>, <a href="#Page_407">407</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">and <a href="#Letters">Letters</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Knight, Charles, ii. <a href="#Page_208">208</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">and <a href="#Letters">Letters</a></span><br />
+<br />
+<br />
+"Lady of Lyons, The," ii. <a href="#Page_298">298</a><br />
+<br />
+La Font, ii. <a href="#Page_440">440</a><br />
+<br />
+Landor, Walter Savage, ii. <a href="#Page_66">66</a><br />
+<br />
+Law, Dickens's opinion of English, ii. <a href="#Page_440">440</a><br />
+<br />
+Layard, A. H., ii. <a href="#Page_108">108</a>;<br />
+<br />
+Leclercq, Miss, ii. <a href="#Page_246">246</a><br />
+<br />
+Lehmann, Mrs., ii. <a href="#Page_39">39</a>, <a href="#Page_75">75</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">and <a href="#Letters">Letters</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Lehmann, F., ii. <a href="#Page_39">39</a>, <a href="#Page_75">75</a><br />
+<br />
+L&eacute;otard, ii. <a href="#Page_142">142</a><br />
+<br />
+<a name="Letters" id="Letters"></a><span class="smcap">Letters of Charles Dickens to</span>:<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Agate, John, ii. <a href="#Page_154">154</a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Anonymous, ii. <a href="#Page_276">276</a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Armstrong, the Misses, ii. <a href="#Page_175">175</a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Austin, Henry, ii. <a href="#Page_18">18</a>, <a href="#Page_25">25</a>, <a href="#Page_28">28</a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Austin, Mrs., ii. <a href="#Page_154">154</a>, <a href="#Page_180">180</a>, <a href="#Page_384">384</a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Bancroft, Mrs., ii. <a href="#Page_441">441</a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Baylis, Mr., ii. <a href="#Page_179">179</a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Benzon, Miss, ii. <a href="#Page_258">258</a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Boyle, Miss, ii. <a href="#Page_10">10</a>, <a href="#Page_132">132</a>, <a href="#Page_157">157</a>, <a href="#Page_169">169</a>, <a href="#Page_186">186</a>, <a href="#Page_245">245</a>, <a href="#Page_315">315</a>, <a href="#Page_411">411</a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Brookfield, Mrs., ii. <a href="#Page_249">249</a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Brookfield, Rev. W., ii. <a href="#Page_199">199</a>, <a href="#Page_200">200</a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Brooks, Shirley, ii. <a href="#Page_423">423</a>, <a href="#Page_438">438</a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Carlisle, the Earl of, ii. <a href="#Page_12">12</a>, <a href="#Page_118">118</a>, <a href="#Page_157">157</a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Cartwright, Samuel, ii. <a href="#Page_348">348</a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Cattermole, Mrs., ii. <a href="#Page_383">383</a>, <a href="#Page_385">385</a></span><br />
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_458" id="Page_458">[458]</a></span><span style="margin-left: 1em;">Cerjat, M. de, ii. <a href="#Page_7">7</a>, <a href="#Page_48">48</a>, <a href="#Page_86">86</a>, <a href="#Page_113">113</a>, <a href="#Page_138">138</a>, <a href="#Page_176">176</a>, <a href="#Page_200">200</a>, <a href="#Page_220">220</a>, <a href="#Page_240">240</a>, <a href="#Page_268">268</a>, <a href="#Page_387">387</a>, <a href="#Page_409">409</a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Clarke, John, ii. <a href="#Page_418">418</a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Collins, Wilkie, ii. <a href="#Page_40">40</a>, <a href="#Page_67">67</a>, <a href="#Page_101">101</a>, <a href="#Page_110">110</a>, <a href="#Page_129">129</a>, <a href="#Page_146">146</a>, <a href="#Page_182">182</a>, <a href="#Page_198">198</a>, <a href="#Page_209">209</a>, <a href="#Page_332">332</a>, <a href="#Page_397">397</a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Compton, Mrs., ii. <a href="#Page_22">22</a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Cooke, T. P., ii. <a href="#Page_21">21</a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Dallas, Mrs., ii. <a href="#Page_195">195</a>, <a href="#Page_434">434</a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Dickens, Charles, ii. <a href="#Page_310">310</a>, <a href="#Page_338">338</a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Dickens, Edward, ii. <a href="#Page_402">402</a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Dickens, Henry, ii. <a href="#Page_356">356</a>, <a href="#Page_392">392</a>, <a href="#Page_435">435</a>, <a href="#Page_438">438</a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Dickens, Miss Kate, ii. <a href="#Page_99">99</a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Dickens, Miss, ii. <a href="#Page_52">52</a>, <a href="#Page_53">53</a>, <a href="#Page_56">56</a>, <a href="#Page_63">63</a>, <a href="#Page_72">72</a>, <a href="#Page_78">78</a>, <a href="#Page_95">95</a>, <a href="#Page_99">99</a>, <a href="#Page_124">124</a>, <a href="#Page_150">150</a>, <a href="#Page_161">161</a>, <a href="#Page_163">163</a>, <a href="#Page_165">165</a>, <a href="#Page_188">188</a>, <a href="#Page_190">190</a>, <a href="#Page_243">243</a>, <a href="#Page_252">252</a>, <a href="#Page_254">254</a>, <a href="#Page_256">256</a>, <a href="#Page_273">273</a>, <a href="#Page_275">275</a>, <a href="#Page_276">276</a>, <a href="#Page_278">278</a>, <a href="#Page_279">279</a>, <a href="#Page_283">283</a>, <a href="#Page_285">285</a>, <a href="#Page_299">299</a>, <a href="#Page_302">302</a>, <a href="#Page_306">306</a>, <a href="#Page_313">313</a>, <a href="#Page_316">316</a>, <a href="#Page_321">321</a>, <a href="#Page_324">324</a>, <a href="#Page_337">337</a>, <a href="#Page_341">341</a>, <a href="#Page_343">343</a>, <a href="#Page_350">350</a>, <a href="#Page_351">351</a>, <a href="#Page_354">354</a>, <a href="#Page_363">363</a>, <a href="#Page_366">366</a>, <a href="#Page_372">372</a>, <a href="#Page_377">377</a>, <a href="#Page_380">380</a>, <a href="#Page_389">389</a>, <a href="#Page_391">391</a>, <a href="#Page_399">399</a>, <a href="#Page_412">412</a>, <a href="#Page_415">415</a>, <a href="#Page_421">421</a>, <a href="#Page_426">426</a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Dilke, C. W., ii. <a href="#Page_12">12</a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Fechter, Charles, ii. <a href="#Page_183">183</a>, <a href="#Page_185">185</a>, <a href="#Page_191">191</a>, <a href="#Page_260">260</a>, <a href="#Page_297">297</a>, <a href="#Page_361">361</a>, <a href="#Page_368">368</a>, <a href="#Page_390">390</a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Fildes, S. L., ii. <a href="#Page_435">435</a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Finlay, F. D., ii. <a href="#Page_297">297</a>, <a href="#Page_389">389</a>, <a href="#Page_408">408</a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Fitzgerald, Percy, ii. <a href="#Page_203">203</a>, <a href="#Page_217">217</a>, <a href="#Page_234">234</a>, <a href="#Page_237">237</a>, <a href="#Page_247">247</a>, <a href="#Page_263">263</a>, <a href="#Page_293">293</a>, <a href="#Page_294">294</a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Forster, John, ii. <a href="#Page_14">14</a>, <a href="#Page_42">42</a>, <a href="#Page_76">76</a>, <a href="#Page_97">97</a>, <a href="#Page_111">111</a>, <a href="#Page_128">128</a>, <a href="#Page_142">142</a>, <a href="#Page_215">215</a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Frith, W. P., ii. <a href="#Page_439">439</a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Henderson, Mrs., ii. <a href="#Page_293">293</a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Hogarth, Miss, ii. <a href="#Page_28">28</a>, <a href="#Page_31">31</a>, <a href="#Page_33">33</a>, <a href="#Page_51">51</a>, <a href="#Page_55">55</a>, <a href="#Page_58">58</a>, <a href="#Page_61">61</a>, <a href="#Page_65">65</a>, <a href="#Page_70">70</a>, <a href="#Page_74">74</a>, <a href="#Page_75">75</a>, <a href="#Page_79">79</a>, <a href="#Page_126">126</a>, <a href="#Page_132">132</a>, <a href="#Page_137">137</a>, <a href="#Page_151">151</a>, <a href="#Page_152">152</a>, <a href="#Page_156">156</a>, <a href="#Page_158">158</a>, <a href="#Page_162">162</a>, <a href="#Page_165">165</a>, <a href="#Page_172">172</a>-<a href="#Page_174">174</a>, <a href="#Page_190">190</a>, <a href="#Page_206">206</a>, <a href="#Page_248">248</a>, <a href="#Page_251">251</a>, <a href="#Page_253">253</a>, <a href="#Page_255">255</a>, <a href="#Page_257">257</a>, <a href="#Page_272">272</a>, <a href="#Page_274">274</a>, <a href="#Page_277">277</a>, <a href="#Page_279">279</a>, <a href="#Page_281">281</a>, <a href="#Page_282">282</a>, <a href="#Page_284">284</a>-<a href="#Page_286">286</a>, <a href="#Page_295">295</a>, <a href="#Page_298">298</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_317">317</a>, <a href="#Page_319">319</a>, <a href="#Page_327">327</a>, <a href="#Page_330">330</a>, <a href="#Page_334">334</a>, <a href="#Page_341">341</a>, <a href="#Page_345">345</a>, <a href="#Page_353">353</a>, <a href="#Page_358">358</a>, <a href="#Page_360">360</a>, <a href="#Page_364">364</a>, <a href="#Page_370">370</a>, <a href="#Page_371">371</a>, <a href="#Page_379">379</a>, <a href="#Page_391">391</a>, <a href="#Page_392">392</a>, <a href="#Page_396">396</a>, <a href="#Page_398">398</a>, <a href="#Page_400">400</a>, <a href="#Page_413">413</a>-<a href="#Page_419">419</a>, <a href="#Page_421">421</a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Hogge, Mrs., ii. <a href="#Page_46">46</a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Hulkes, Mrs., ii. <a href="#Page_232">232</a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Jewish Lady, a, ii. <a href="#Page_204">204</a>, <a href="#Page_223">223</a>, <a href="#Page_280">280</a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Jones, Walter, ii. <a href="#Page_232">232</a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Kent, W. Charles, ii. <a href="#Page_225">225</a>, <a href="#Page_239">239</a>, <a href="#Page_246">246</a>, <a href="#Page_299">299</a>, <a href="#Page_394">394</a>, <a href="#Page_429">429</a>, <a href="#Page_437">437</a>, <a href="#Page_439">439</a>, <a href="#Page_441">441</a>, <a href="#Page_443">443</a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Knight, Charles, ii. <a href="#Page_195">195</a>, <a href="#Page_212">212</a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Lehmann, Mrs. F., ii. <a href="#Page_196">196</a>, <a href="#Page_234">234</a>, <a href="#Page_395">395</a>, <a href="#Page_413">413</a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Longman, Thomas, ii. <a href="#Page_106">106</a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Lytton, Sir E. B., ii. <a href="#Page_116">116</a></span><br />
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_459" id="Page_459">[459]</a></span><span style="margin-left: 1em;">Macready, W. C., ii. <a href="#Page_10">10</a>, <a href="#Page_19">19</a>, <a href="#Page_22">22</a>, <a href="#Page_46">46</a>, <a href="#Page_109">109</a>, <a href="#Page_141">141</a>, <a href="#Page_150">150</a>, <a href="#Page_192">192</a>, <a href="#Page_197">197</a>, <a href="#Page_226">226</a>, <a href="#Page_227">227</a>, <a href="#Page_229">229</a>, <a href="#Page_265">265</a>, <a href="#Page_373">373</a>, <a href="#Page_383">383</a>, <a href="#Page_424">424</a>, <a href="#Page_429">429</a>, <a href="#Page_436">436</a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Major, Mrs., ii. <a href="#Page_196">196</a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Makeham, John, ii. <a href="#Page_444">444</a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Marston, Dr. Westland, ii. <a href="#Page_43">43</a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Mitton, Thomas, ii. <a href="#Page_229">229</a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Morpeth, Viscount, see <a href="#Carlisle">Carlisle, The Earl of Ollier,</a> Edmund, ii. <a href="#Page_213">213</a>, <a href="#Page_425">425</a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Ouvry, F., ii. <a href="#Page_205">205</a>, <a href="#Page_427">427</a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Owen, Professor, ii. <a href="#Page_235">235</a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Panizzi, Antonio, ii. <a href="#Page_89">89</a>, <a href="#Page_90">90</a>, <a href="#Page_92">92</a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Parkinson, J. C., ii. <a href="#Page_401">401</a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Pollock, Mrs. F., ii. <a href="#Page_440">440</a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Pollock, Sir F., ii. <a href="#Page_214">214</a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Power, Miss, ii. <a href="#Page_127">127</a>, <a href="#Page_194">194</a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Power, Mrs., ii. <a href="#Page_300">300</a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Procter, B. W., ii. <a href="#Page_5">5</a>, <a href="#Page_82">82</a>, <a href="#Page_90">90</a>, <a href="#Page_223">223</a>, <a href="#Page_259">259</a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Procter, Mrs., ii. <a href="#Page_226">226</a>, <a href="#Page_238">238</a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Reade, Charles, ii. <a href="#Page_206">206</a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Regnier, Monsieur, ii. <a href="#Page_44">44</a>, <a href="#Page_45">45</a>, <a href="#Page_102">102</a>, <a href="#Page_105">105</a>, <a href="#Page_189">189</a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Sculthorpe, W. R., ii. <a href="#Page_104">104</a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Smith, Arthur, ii. <a href="#Page_85">85</a>, <a href="#Page_147">147</a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Stanfield, Clarkson, ii. <a href="#Page_184">184</a>, <a href="#Page_219">219</a>, <a href="#Page_287">287</a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Stanfield, George, ii. <a href="#Page_289">289</a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Stone, Marcus, ii. <a href="#Page_211">211</a>, <a href="#Page_236">236</a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Stone, Frank, ii. <a href="#Page_16">16</a>, <a href="#Page_24">24</a>, <a href="#Page_25">25</a>, <a href="#Page_27">27</a>, <a href="#Page_35">35</a>, <a href="#Page_82">82</a>, <a href="#Page_103">103</a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Storrar, Mrs., ii. <a href="#Page_216">216</a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Tennent, Sir James Emerson, ii. <a href="#Page_6">6</a>, <a href="#Page_218">218</a>, <a href="#Page_259">259</a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Thackeray, W. M., ii. <a href="#Page_41">41</a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Thornbury, Walter, ii. <a href="#Page_178">178</a>, <a href="#Page_262">262</a>, <a href="#Page_286">286</a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Toole, J. L., ii. <a href="#Page_300">300</a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Ward, E. M., ii. <a href="#Page_141">141</a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Ward, Mrs., ii. <a href="#Page_441">441</a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Watkins, John, ii. <a href="#Page_148">148</a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Watson, Hon. Mrs., ii. <a href="#Page_93">93</a>, <a href="#Page_121">121</a>, <a href="#Page_144">144</a>, <a href="#Page_301">301</a>, <a href="#Page_382">382</a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">White, Mrs., ii. <a href="#Page_94">94</a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">White, Miss, ii. <a href="#Page_92">92</a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">White, Rev. James, ii. <a href="#Page_11">11</a>, <a href="#Page_15">15</a>, <a href="#Page_81">81</a>, <a href="#Page_97">97</a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Wills, W. H., ii. <a href="#Page_119">119</a>, <a href="#Page_167">167</a>, <a href="#Page_168">168</a>, <a href="#Page_171">171</a>, <a href="#Page_207">207</a>, <a href="#Page_290">290</a>, <a href="#Page_292">292</a>, <a href="#Page_295">295</a>, <a href="#Page_301">301</a>, <a href="#Page_386">386</a>, <a href="#Page_422">422</a>, <a href="#Page_433">433</a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Yates, Edmund, ii. <a href="#Page_20">20</a>, <a href="#Page_34">34</a>, <a href="#Page_41">41</a>, <a href="#Page_47">47</a>, <a href="#Page_91">91</a>, <a href="#Page_123">123</a>, <a href="#Page_149">149</a>, <a href="#Page_238">238</a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Yates, Mrs., ii. <a href="#Page_48">48</a></span><br />
+<br />
+"Lighthouse, The," see ii. <a href="#Page_198">198</a><br />
+<br />
+Linton, Mrs., ii. <a href="#Page_207">207</a><br />
+<br />
+Literary Fund, the, ii. <a href="#Page_5">5</a>, <a href="#Page_12">12</a><br />
+<br />
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_460" id="Page_460">[460]</a></span>Lockhart, Mr., ii. <a href="#Page_207">207</a><br />
+<br />
+London, Dickens's opinion of the Corporation of, ii. <a href="#Page_411">411</a>;<br />
+<br />
+Longfellow, W. H., ii. <a href="#Page_306">306</a>, <a href="#Page_308">308</a>, <a href="#Page_312">312</a>, <a href="#Page_326">326</a>, <a href="#Page_333">333</a>, <a href="#Page_361">361</a>, <a href="#Page_375">375</a><br />
+<br />
+Lowell, Miss Mabel, ii. <a href="#Page_405">405</a>, <a href="#Page_415">415</a><br />
+<br />
+Lyceum Theatre under Fechter, ii. <a href="#Page_187">187</a>, <a href="#Page_191">191</a>, <a href="#Page_245">245</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">and see <a href="#Fechter">Fechter</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Lyndhurst, Lord,ii. <a href="#Page_144">144</a><br />
+<br />
+Lytton, the first Lord,ii. <a href="#Page_108">108</a>, <a href="#Page_135">135</a>, <a href="#Page_143">143</a>, <a href="#Page_247">247</a>, <a href="#Page_268">268</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">letter to, ii. <a href="#Page_116">116</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Lytton, Lord, ii. <a href="#Page_108">108</a><br />
+<br />
+<br />
+Maclise, Daniel, ii. <a href="#Page_432">432</a>;<br />
+<br />
+Macready, W. C., ii. <a href="#Page_169">169</a>, <a href="#Page_172">172</a>, <a href="#Page_173">173</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">and <a href="#Letters">Letters</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Macready, Kate, ii. <a href="#Page_193">193</a><br />
+<br />
+Macready, Mrs., ii. <a href="#Page_172">172</a>, <a href="#Page_288">288</a><br />
+<br />
+Macready, Jonathan, ii. <a href="#Page_376">376</a><br />
+<br />
+Macready, W., ii. <a href="#Page_425">425</a><br />
+<br />
+Major, Mrs., letter to, ii. <a href="#Page_196">196</a><br />
+<br />
+Makeham, J. M., ii. <a href="#Page_432">432</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Dickens's last letter written to, ii. <a href="#Page_444">444</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Malleson, Mr. and Mrs., ii. <a href="#Page_315">315</a><br />
+<br />
+Marsh, Dickens's coachman, a story of, ii. <a href="#Page_181">181</a><br />
+<br />
+Marston, Dr. Westland, ii. <a href="#Page_42">42</a>, <a href="#Page_44">44</a>, <a href="#Page_45">45</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">letter to, ii. <a href="#Page_43">43</a></span><br />
+<br />
+"Martin Chuzzlewit," a story of Mrs. Harris, ii. <a href="#Page_41">41</a><br />
+<br />
+Mesmerism, a s&eacute;ance of, ii. <a href="#Page_100">100</a><br />
+<br />
+Missionaries, Dickens on, ii. <a href="#Page_241">241</a><br />
+<br />
+Mitton, Thomas, <a href="#Letters">Letters</a><br />
+<br />
+Molesworth, Lady, ii. <a href="#Page_187">187</a>, <a href="#Page_189">189</a><br />
+<br />
+Morgan, Captain, ii. <a href="#Page_136">136</a>, <a href="#Page_143">143</a><br />
+<br />
+Morgan, W., ii. <a href="#Page_308">308</a>, <a href="#Page_336">336</a><br />
+<br />
+Morpeth, Viscount, see <a href="#Carlisle">Carlisle, The Earl of</a><br />
+<br />
+Motley, Mr., ii. <a href="#Page_142">142</a><br />
+<br />
+Mountain, a hazardous ascent of a, ii. <a href="#Page_29">29</a><br />
+<br />
+<br />
+Narrative, ii. <a href="#Page_3">3</a>, <a href="#Page_39">39</a>, <a href="#Page_83">83</a>, <a href="#Page_107">107</a>, <a href="#Page_135">135</a>, <a href="#Page_169">169</a>, <a href="#Page_187">187</a>, <a href="#Page_208">208</a>, <a href="#Page_224">224</a>, <a href="#Page_244">244</a>, <a href="#Page_266">266</a>, <a href="#Page_325">325</a>, <a href="#Page_404">404</a>, <a href="#Page_431">431</a>, <a href="#Page_446">446</a><br />
+<br />
+Neville, Mr., ii. <a href="#Page_186">186</a><br />
+<br />
+Newsvendors' Benevolent Institution, ii. <a href="#Page_232">232</a><br />
+<br />
+New Testament, Dickens's love for the, ii. <a href="#Page_394">394</a>, <a href="#Page_403">403</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Dickens writes a history of the, for his children, ii. <a href="#Page_433">433</a></span><br />
+<br />
+"Nicholas Nickleby," see ii. <a href="#Page_200">200</a><br />
+<br />
+Norton, C. E., ii. <a href="#Page_326">326</a><br />
+<br />
+<br />
+"Oliver Twist," the reading of "The Murder" from, ii. <a href="#Page_326">326</a>, <a href="#Page_395">395</a>, <a href="#Page_397">397</a>, <a href="#Page_399">399</a><br />
+<br />
+Ollier, Edmund, ii. <a href="#Page_209">209</a>, <a href="#Page_407">407</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">letters to, ii. <a href="#Page_213">213</a>, <a href="#Page_425">425</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Olliffe, Lady, ii. <a href="#Page_187">187</a>, <a href="#Page_190">190</a><br />
+<br />
+Olliffe, Sir J., ii. <a href="#Page_417">417</a><br />
+<br />
+Olliffe, the Misses, ii. <a href="#Page_190">190</a><br />
+<br />
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_461" id="Page_461">[461]</a></span>Osgood, Mr., ii. <a href="#Page_310">310</a>, <a href="#Page_336">336</a>, <a href="#Page_337">337</a>, <a href="#Page_340">340</a>, <a href="#Page_346">346</a>, <a href="#Page_352">352</a>, <a href="#Page_356">356</a>, <a href="#Page_366">366</a><br />
+<br />
+"Our Mutual Friend," ii. <a href="#Page_208">208</a>, <a href="#Page_210">210</a>, <a href="#Page_224">224</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">and as to illustrations for, see ii. <a href="#Page_211">211</a>, <a href="#Page_237">237</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Ouvry, Frederic, ii. <a href="#Page_188">188</a>, <a href="#Page_300">300</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">letters to, ii. <a href="#Page_205">205</a>, <a href="#Page_427">427</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Owen, Professor, ii. <a href="#Page_235">235</a><br />
+<br />
+<br />
+Panizzi, Antonio, ii. <a href="#Page_84">84</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">letters to, ii. <a href="#Page_89">89</a>, <a href="#Page_90">90</a>, <a href="#Page_92">92</a></span><br />
+<br />
+<a name="Paris" id="Paris"></a>Paris, Dickens at, ii. <a href="#Page_171">171</a>, <a href="#Page_187">187</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Dickens's reading at, ii. <a href="#Page_187">187</a>-<a href="#Page_190">190</a>, <a href="#Page_192">192</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Parkinson, J. C., ii. <a href="#Page_327">327</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">letter to, ii. <a href="#Page_401">401</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Patronage, the curse of England, ii. <a href="#Page_213">213</a>, <a href="#Page_356">356</a><br />
+<br />
+"Picnic Papers," Dickens's share of the, ii. <a href="#Page_91">91</a><br />
+<br />
+Plessy, Madame, ii. <a href="#Page_440">440</a><br />
+<br />
+Pollock, Sir F., ii. <a href="#Page_97">97</a>, <a href="#Page_144">144</a>, <a href="#Page_209">209</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">letter to, ii. <a href="#Page_10">10</a>, <a href="#Page_214">214</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Pollock, Mrs. F., letter to, ii. <a href="#Page_440">440</a><br />
+<br />
+Poole, John, ii. <a href="#Page_228">228</a>;<br />
+<br />
+Portraits of Dickens,  by Frith, ii. <a href="#Page_84">84</a>, <a href="#Page_93">93</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">by John Watkins, ii. <a href="#Page_148">148</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">a caricature, ii. <a href="#Page_146">146</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Power, Miss, ii. <a href="#Page_82">82</a>, <a href="#Page_293">293</a>, <a href="#Page_300">300</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">and <a href="#Letters">Letters</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Power, Mrs., letter to, ii. <a href="#Page_300">300</a><br />
+<br />
+Presence of mind of Dickens, ii. <a href="#Page_161">161</a>, <a href="#Page_224">224</a>, <a href="#Page_230">230</a><br />
+<br />
+Procter, Adelaide, ii. <a href="#Page_238">238</a>;<br />
+<br />
+Procter, B. W., ii. <a href="#Page_83">83</a>, <a href="#Page_91">91</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">and <a href="#Letters">Letters</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Procter, Mrs., letter to, ii. <a href="#Page_226">226</a>, <a href="#Page_238">238</a><br />
+<br />
+Putnam, Mr., ii. <a href="#Page_312">312</a><br />
+<br />
+<br />
+Queen, the, his feeling for, ii. <a href="#Page_168">168</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">his interview with, ii. <a href="#Page_432">432</a></span><br />
+<br />
+<br />
+Railways, ii. <a href="#Page_242">242</a><br />
+<br />
+Reade, Charles, ii. <a href="#Page_188">188</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">letter to, ii. <a href="#Page_206">206</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Reader, Charles Dickens as a, ii. <a href="#Page_437">437</a><br />
+<br />
+<a name="Readings" id="Readings"></a>Readings, Dickens's public, for charities, ii. <a href="#Page_4">4</a>, <a href="#Page_169">169</a>, <a href="#Page_170">170</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">first reading for his own benefit, ii. <a href="#Page_39">39</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">at Paris, ii. <a href="#Page_187">187</a>, <a href="#Page_189">189</a>, <a href="#Page_192">192</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">in America, ii. <a href="#Page_267">267</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">farewell series of readings in England, ii. <a href="#Page_326">326</a>, <a href="#Page_404">404</a>, <a href="#Page_405">405</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">trial reading of "The Murder" from "Oliver Twist," ii. <a href="#Page_326">326</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">reading to the actors, ii. <a href="#Page_407">407</a>, <a href="#Page_418">418</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">farewell reading, ii. <a href="#Page_431">431</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">effects of "The Murder" reading on Dickens, ii. <a href="#Page_434">434</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">books of the, ii. <a href="#Page_438">438</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">letters concerning the readings in England, Scotland, and Ireland, ii. <a href="#Page_20">20</a>, <a href="#Page_49">49</a>, <a href="#Page_51">51</a>-<a href="#Page_67">67</a>, <a href="#Page_70">70</a>-<a href="#Page_80">80</a>, <a href="#Page_87">87</a>, <a href="#Page_103">103</a>, <a href="#Page_145">145</a>, <a href="#Page_147">147</a>, <a href="#Page_151">151</a>-<a href="#Page_168">168</a>, <a href="#Page_174">174</a>, <a href="#Page_178">178</a>, <a href="#Page_197">197</a>, <a href="#Page_200">200</a>, <a href="#Page_251">251</a>-<a href="#Page_258">258</a>, <a href="#Page_272">272</a>-<a href="#Page_286">286</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">letters concerning American, ii. <a href="#Page_83">83</a>, <a href="#Page_85">85</a>, <a href="#Page_290">290</a>, <a href="#Page_294">294</a>, <a href="#Page_298">298</a>, <a href="#Page_299">299</a>, <a href="#Page_306">306</a>-<a href="#Page_382">382</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">letters concerning the farewell series of, ii. <a href="#Page_391">391</a>, <a href="#Page_392">392</a>, <a href="#Page_395">395</a>-<a href="#Page_400">400</a>, <a href="#Page_412">412</a>-<a href="#Page_421">421</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Reform, Dickens on Parliamentary, ii. <a href="#Page_87">87</a>, <a href="#Page_269">269</a><br />
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_462" id="Page_462">[462]</a></span><br />
+Regnier, M., <a href="#Letters">Letters</a><br />
+<br />
+Reynolds, Dr. Russell, ii. <a href="#Page_448">448</a><br />
+<br />
+Roberts, David, ii. <a href="#Page_75">75</a>;<br />
+<br />
+Rochester Cathedral, proposed burial of Dickens in, ii. <a href="#Page_448">448</a><br />
+<br />
+Royal Academy, female students at the, ii. <a href="#Page_121">121</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Dickens's last public appearance, at the dinner of the, ii. <a href="#Page_431">431</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Russel, Alexander, ii. <a href="#Page_389">389</a>, <a href="#Page_390">390</a>, <a href="#Page_398">398</a>, <a href="#Page_406">406</a><br />
+<br />
+Russell, Lord John, ii. <a href="#Page_85">85</a>;<br />
+<br />
+Russell, W. H., ii. <a href="#Page_4">4</a><br />
+<br />
+Ryland, Arthur, ii. <a href="#Page_4">4</a>, <a href="#Page_430">430</a>;<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+Sainton-Dolby, Madame, ii. <a href="#Page_295">295</a>, <a href="#Page_391">391</a><br />
+<br />
+Saville, Miss, ii. <a href="#Page_186">186</a><br />
+<br />
+Scheffer, Ary, ii. <a href="#Page_149">149</a><br />
+<br />
+Scott, Dickens's dresser, ii. <a href="#Page_272">272</a>, <a href="#Page_305">305</a>, <a href="#Page_306">306</a>, <a href="#Page_317">317</a>, <a href="#Page_321">321</a>, <a href="#Page_342">342</a>, <a href="#Page_370">370</a>, <a href="#Page_416">416</a><br />
+<br />
+Sculthorpe, W. R., letter to, ii. <a href="#Page_104">104</a><br />
+<br />
+Shaftesbury, Lord, ii. <a href="#Page_242">242</a><br />
+<br />
+<ins title="Transcriber's Note: original reads 'Shee'">Shea</ins>, Mr. Justice, ii. <a href="#Page_247">247</a><br />
+<br />
+Smith, Arthur, ii. <a href="#Page_4">4</a>, <a href="#Page_39">39</a>, <a href="#Page_52">52</a>, <a href="#Page_53">53</a>, <a href="#Page_56">56</a>-<a href="#Page_60">60</a>, <a href="#Page_64">64</a>-<a href="#Page_67">67</a>, <a href="#Page_71">71</a>, <a href="#Page_72">72</a>, <a href="#Page_78">78</a>, <a href="#Page_80">80</a>, <a href="#Page_104">104</a>, <a href="#Page_109">109</a>, <a href="#Page_135">135</a>, <a href="#Page_145">145</a>, <a href="#Page_149">149</a>-<a href="#Page_153">153</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">letters to, ii. <a href="#Page_85">85</a>, <a href="#Page_147">147</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Speaking, Dickens on public, ii. <a href="#Page_426">426</a>, <a href="#Page_428">428</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">advice to his son Henry on public, ii. <a href="#Page_435">435</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Stage-coach, American story of a, ii. <a href="#Page_292">292</a><br />
+<br />
+Stanfield, Clarkson, ii. <a href="#Page_75">75</a>, <a href="#Page_194">194</a>, <a href="#Page_267">267</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">and <a href="#Letters">Letters</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Stanfield, George, letter to, ii. <a href="#Page_289">289</a><br />
+<br />
+Stanley, Dean, ii. <a href="#Page_448">448</a>, <a href="#Page_449">449</a><br />
+<br />
+Stanley, Lady Augusta, ii. <a href="#Page_449">449</a><br />
+<br />
+Staplehurst, Dickens in the railway accident at, ii. <a href="#Page_224">224</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">description of the accident, ii. <a href="#Page_229">229</a>-<a href="#Page_233">233</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">effects of the accident on Dickens, ii. <a href="#Page_388">388</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Staunton, Mr. Secretary, ii. <a href="#Page_351">351</a><br />
+<br />
+Steele, Mr., ii. <a href="#Page_447">447</a>, <a href="#Page_448">448</a><br />
+<br />
+Stone, Ellen, ii. <a href="#Page_81">81</a><br />
+<br />
+Stone, Frank, ii. <a href="#Page_84">84</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">and <a href="#Letters">Letters</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Stone, Marcus, ii. <a href="#Page_84">84</a>, <a href="#Page_106">106</a>, <a href="#Page_208">208</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">letters to, ii. <a href="#Page_211">211</a>, <a href="#Page_236">236</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Storrar, Mrs., ii. <a href="#Page_209">209</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">letter to, ii. <a href="#Page_216">216</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Sumner, Charles, ii. <a href="#Page_351">351</a>, <a href="#Page_355">355</a><br />
+<br />
+<i>Sun, The</i>, newspaper, ii. <a href="#Page_225">225</a>;<br />
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_463" id="Page_463">[463]</a></span><br />
+Sympathy, letters of, ii. <a href="#Page_94">94</a>, <a href="#Page_97">97</a>, <a href="#Page_123">123</a>, <a href="#Page_154">154</a>, <a href="#Page_180">180</a>, <a href="#Page_289">289</a>, <a href="#Page_293">293</a><br />
+<br />
+<br />
+"Tale of Two Cities, A," ii. <a href="#Page_83">83</a>, <a href="#Page_84">84</a>, <a href="#Page_158">158</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">letters concerning, ii. <a href="#Page_98">98</a>, <a href="#Page_102">102</a>, <a href="#Page_105">105</a>, <a href="#Page_106">106</a>, <a href="#Page_116">116</a></span><br />
+<br />
+<a name="Tavistock" id="Tavistock"></a>Tavistock House, sale of, ii. <a href="#Page_107">107</a>;<br />
+<br />
+Taylor, Bayard, ii. <a href="#Page_405">405</a><br />
+<br />
+Tennent, Sir James Emerson, ii. <a href="#Page_209">209</a>, <a href="#Page_224">224</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">letters to, ii. <a href="#Page_218">218</a>, <a href="#Page_259">259</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Tennyson, Alfred, Dickens's admiration for, ii. <a href="#Page_98">98</a><br />
+<br />
+Terry, Miss Kate, ii. <a href="#Page_193">193</a><br />
+<br />
+Thackeray, W. M., ii. <a href="#Page_4">4</a>, <a href="#Page_39">39</a>, <a href="#Page_137">137</a>, <a href="#Page_208">208</a>, <a href="#Page_210">210</a>, <a href="#Page_214">214</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">letter to, ii. <a href="#Page_41">41</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Thames, drainage of the, ii. <a href="#Page_50">50</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">embankment of the, ii. <a href="#Page_410">410</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Theatre, Dickens on the, ii. <a href="#Page_271">271</a>, <a href="#Page_438">438</a><br />
+<br />
+Theatrical Fund, the, ii. <a href="#Page_35">35</a><br />
+<br />
+<a name="Theatrical" id="Theatrical"></a>Theatrical performances of Charles Dickens:<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">for the Jerrold Memorial Fund, ii. <a href="#Page_19">19</a>, <a href="#Page_23">23</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">and see ii. <a href="#Page_3">3</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">letters concerning the, ii. <a href="#Page_6">6</a>, <a href="#Page_11">11</a>, <a href="#Page_198">198</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Thornbury, Walter, ii. <a href="#Page_170">170</a>, <a href="#Page_292">292</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">letters to, ii. <a href="#Page_178">178</a>, <a href="#Page_262">262</a>, <a href="#Page_286">286</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Toole, J. L., ii. <a href="#Page_54">54</a>, <a href="#Page_268">268</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">letter to, ii. <a href="#Page_300">300</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Townshend, Chauncey Hare, ii. <a href="#Page_7">7</a>, <a href="#Page_86">86</a>, <a href="#Page_96">96</a>, <a href="#Page_115">115</a>, <a href="#Page_136">136</a>, <a href="#Page_140">140</a>, <a href="#Page_371">371</a>, <a href="#Page_410">410</a><br />
+<br />
+<br />
+"Uncommercial Traveller, The," ii. <a href="#Page_107">107</a><br />
+<br />
+<br />
+Viardot, Madame, ii. <a href="#Page_193">193</a>;<br />
+<br />
+Volunteers, Dickens on the, ii. <a href="#Page_115">115</a><br />
+<br />
+<br />
+Wales, the Prince of, popularity of, ii. <a href="#Page_203">203</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Dickens attends lev&eacute;e of, ii. <a href="#Page_432">432</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Wales, the Princess of, her arrival in England, ii. <a href="#Page_195">195</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">the illuminations in honour of, ii. <a href="#Page_198">198</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">popularity of, ii. <a href="#Page_203">203</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Ward, E. M., letter to, ii. <a href="#Page_141">141</a><br />
+<br />
+Ward, Mrs., letter to, ii. <a href="#Page_441">441</a><br />
+<br />
+Watkins, John, ii. <a href="#Page_148">148</a><br />
+<br />
+Watson, Hon. Mrs., ii. <a href="#Page_9">9</a>, <a href="#Page_70">70</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">and <a href="#Letters">Letters</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Watson, Sir Thomas, ii. <a href="#Page_405">405</a>, <a href="#Page_407">407</a><br />
+<br />
+Watson, Wentworth, ii. <a href="#Page_79">79</a><br />
+<br />
+Watts's refuge for poor travellers, ii. <a href="#Page_259">259</a><br />
+<br />
+Webster, Benjamin, ii. <a href="#Page_361">361</a><br />
+<br />
+Webster, a story of the murderer, ii. <a href="#Page_333">333</a><br />
+<br />
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_464" id="Page_464">[464]</a></span>Westminster Abbey, burial of Dickens in, ii. <a href="#Page_448">448</a><br />
+<br />
+White, Clara, ii. <a href="#Page_142">142</a>, <a href="#Page_181">181</a>, <a href="#Page_208">208</a><br />
+<br />
+White, Rev. James, ii. <a href="#Page_209">209</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">and <a href="#Letters">Letters</a></span><br />
+<br />
+White, Mrs., ii. <a href="#Page_212">212</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">letter to, ii. <a href="#Page_94">94</a></span><br />
+<br />
+White, Miss, ii. <a href="#Page_81">81</a>, <a href="#Page_84">84</a>, <a href="#Page_96">96</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">letter to, ii. <a href="#Page_92">92</a></span><br />
+<br />
+White, Richard Grant, ii. <a href="#Page_85">85</a><br />
+<br />
+Williams, Mr. and Mrs. Barney, ii. <a href="#Page_337">337</a>, <a href="#Page_359">359</a><br />
+<br />
+Wills, W. H., ii. <a href="#Page_83">83</a>, <a href="#Page_379">379</a>, <a href="#Page_383">383</a>, <a href="#Page_406">406</a>, <a href="#Page_430">430</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">and <a href="#Letters">Letters</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Wills, Mrs., ii. <a href="#Page_75">75</a>, <a href="#Page_96">96</a>, <a href="#Page_120">120</a><br />
+<br />
+Working men, clubs for, ii. <a href="#Page_209">209</a>, <a href="#Page_213">213</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Dickens on the management of such clubs, ii. <a href="#Page_356">356</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">feeling of, for Dickens, ii. <a href="#Page_420">420</a></span><br />
+<br />
+<br />
+Yates, Edmund, ii. <a href="#Page_5">5</a>, <a href="#Page_129">129</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">and <a href="#Letters">Letters</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Yates, Mrs., ii. <a href="#Page_129">129</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">letter to, ii. <a href="#Page_48">48</a></span><br />
+</div>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<h2>
+THE END.</h2>
+<div class='center'>
+<small>CHARLES DICKENS AND EVANS, CRYSTAL PALACE PRESS.</small><br /><br /><br />
+</div>
+
+<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 part played in "The Frozen Deep" by its author, Mr. Wilkie Collins.</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> The Earl of Carlisle was at this time Viceroy of Ireland.</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> Niece to the Rev. W. Harness.</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> The birthplace of Mr. Forster.</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> Mr. Edmund Yates.</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> With whom Mr. and Mrs. Wills were staying at Aberystwith.</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> Lieutenant Andrew Gordon, R.N., son of the Sheriff of Midlothian.</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> Alluding to a translation of a play by M. Maquet, which M. Fechter
+was then preparing for his theatre.</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> Now Mrs. Dallas Glyn.</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> Formerly Miss Talfourd.</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> His travelling journal.</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> Answer to letter from Jewish lady, remonstrating with him on injustice
+to the Jews, shown in the character of Fagin, and asking for subscription
+for the benefit of the Jewish poor.</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> In answer to another letter from the "Jewish lady," in which she
+gives her reasons for still being dissatisfied with the character of Riah.</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> Now Captain E. Newton Dickenson.</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> This was a circular note which he sent in answer to innumerable
+letters of enquiry, after the accident.</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> This letter was written in reply to the Committee's congratulations
+upon Mr. Dickens's escape from the accident to the tidal train from
+Folkestone, at Staplehurst, just previous to this date.</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> Madame Sainton Dolby.</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> The nearest neighbour at Higham, and intimate friends.</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> Dr. Fordyce Barker.</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 Agricultural College, Cirencester.</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> "No Thoroughfare."</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> The Mr. H. F. Chorley so often mentioned was the well-known
+musical critic, and a dear and intimate friend of Charles Dickens and his
+family. We have no letters to him, Mr. Chorley having destroyed all his
+correspondence before his death.</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> Mr. Chauncey Hare Townshend. He was one of the dearest friends
+of Charles Dickens and a very constant correspondent; but no letters
+addressed to him are in existence.</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> An American family of brothers and a sister who came to London
+to give a musical entertainment shortly after Charles Dickens's return from
+his first visit to America. He had a great interest in, and liking for,
+these young people.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_25_25" id="Footnote_25_25"></a><a href="#FNanchor_25_25"><span class="label">[25]</span></a> Cousin and adopted child of Mr. and Mrs. Austin.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_26_26" id="Footnote_26_26"></a><a href="#FNanchor_26_26"><span class="label">[26]</span></a> A model of a Swiss ch&acirc;let, and a present from M. Charles Fechter,
+used by Charles Dickens as a summer writing-room.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_27_27" id="Footnote_27_27"></a><a href="#FNanchor_27_27"><span class="label">[27]</span></a> This letter has been already published by Mr. Forster in his "Life."</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_28_28" id="Footnote_28_28"></a><a href="#FNanchor_28_28"><span class="label">[28]</span></a> Herr Joseph Joachim, the renowned violinist.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_29_29" id="Footnote_29_29"></a><a href="#FNanchor_29_29"><span class="label">[29]</span></a> His sister-in-law, Mrs. Augustus Dickens, always a welcome visitor at
+Gad's Hill.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_30_30" id="Footnote_30_30"></a><a href="#FNanchor_30_30"><span class="label">[30]</span></a> Of the Guild of Literature and Art.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_31_31" id="Footnote_31_31"></a><a href="#FNanchor_31_31"><span class="label">[31]</span></a> The housekeeper at the office.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_32_32" id="Footnote_32_32"></a><a href="#FNanchor_32_32"><span class="label">[32]</span></a> On the death of his second wife.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_33_33" id="Footnote_33_33"></a><a href="#FNanchor_33_33"><span class="label">[33]</span></a> Of the Readings. The intention was carried out. Mr. Kent's book,
+"Charles Dickens as a Reader," was published in 1872.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_34_34" id="Footnote_34_34"></a><a href="#FNanchor_34_34"><span class="label">[34]</span></a> No doubt Charles Dickens intended to add the Reading Books to the
+legacy of his MSS. to Mr. Forster. But he did not do so, therefore the
+"Readings" are not a part of the "Forster Collection" at the South
+Kensington Museum.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_35_35" id="Footnote_35_35"></a><a href="#FNanchor_35_35"><span class="label">[35]</span></a> A new collective edition of "Kent's Poems," dedicated to his cousin,
+Colonel Kent, of the 77th Regiment.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_36_36" id="Footnote_36_36"></a><a href="#FNanchor_36_36"><span class="label">[36]</span></a> Miss Marie Wilton.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_37_37" id="Footnote_37_37"></a><a href="#FNanchor_37_37"><span class="label">[37]</span></a> This letter has lately been presented by Mr. Charles Kent to the
+British Museum.</p></div></div>
+
+<p><br /><br />&nbsp;</p>
+<div class='tnote'><h3>Transcriber's Notes:</h3>
+<p>The index for this volume was originally references for
+Volume I. To aid the reader, the parts referring to Volume I were
+extracted and appended to the end of Volume I's 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>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
+
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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. 2 (of 3), 1857-1870
+
+Author: Charles Dickens
+
+Editor: Mamie Dickens
+        Georgina Hogarth
+
+Release Date: June 20, 2008 [EBook #25853]
+
+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:
+
+
+
+
+THE LETTERS
+
+OF
+
+[Illustration: HW: Charles Dickens]
+
+
+
+
+THE LETTERS
+
+OF
+
+CHARLES DICKENS.
+
+EDITED BY
+
+HIS SISTER-IN-LAW AND HIS ELDEST DAUGHTER.
+
+=In Two Volumes.=
+
+VOL. II.
+
+1857 TO 1870.
+
+
+
+        London:
+        CHAPMAN AND HALL, 193, PICCADILLY.
+        1880.
+
+[_The Right of Translation is Reserved._]
+
+
+
+
+CHARLES DICKENS AND EVANS, CRYSTAL PALACE PRESS.
+
+
+
+
+ERRATA.
+
+VOL. II.
+
+
+        Page 84, line 35. For "South Kensington
+             Museum," _read_ "the South Kensington Museum."
+
+        " 108, line 26. For "frequent contributor,"
+             _read_ "a frequent contributor."
+
+        " 113, lines 6, 7. For "great remonstrance,"
+             _read_ "Great Remonstrance."
+
+        " 130, line 10. For "after," _read_ "afore."
+
+        " 160,  "   32. For "a head," _read_ "ahead."
+
+        " 247,  "   12. For "Shea," _read_ "Shoe."
+
+        " 292,  "   12. For "Mabel's progress," _read_
+              "Mabel's Progress."
+
+
+
+
+=Book II.=--_Continued._
+
+
+
+
+THE
+
+LETTERS OF CHARLES DICKENS.
+
+
+
+
+1857.
+
+NARRATIVE.
+
+
+This was a very full year in many ways. In February, Charles Dickens
+obtained possession of Gad's Hill, and was able to turn workmen into it.
+In April he stayed, with his wife and sister-in-law, for a week or two
+at Wate's Hotel, Gravesend, to be at hand to superintend the beginning
+of his alterations of the house, and from thence we give a letter to
+Lord Carlisle. He removed his family, for a summer residence in the
+house, in June; and he finished "Little Dorrit" there early in the
+summer. One of his first visitors at Gad's Hill was the famous writer,
+Hans Christian Andersen. In January "The Frozen Deep" had been played at
+the Tavistock House theatre with such great success, that it was
+necessary to repeat it several times, and the theatre was finally
+demolished at the end of that month. In June Charles Dickens heard, with
+great grief, of the death of his dear friend Douglas Jerrold; and as a
+testimony of admiration for his genius and affectionate regard for
+himself, it was decided to organise, under the management of Charles
+Dickens, a series of entertainments, "in memory of the late Douglas
+Jerrold," the fund produced by them (a considerable sum) to be
+presented to Mr. Jerrold's family. The amateur company, including many
+of Mr. Jerrold's colleagues on "Punch," gave subscription performances
+of "The Frozen Deep;" the Gallery of Illustration, in Regent Street,
+being engaged for the purpose. Charles Dickens gave two readings at St.
+Martin's Hall of "The Christmas Carol" (to such immense audiences and
+with such success, that the idea of giving public readings for his _own_
+benefit first occurred to him at this time). The professional actors,
+among them the famous veteran actor, Mr. T. P. Cooke, gave a performance
+of Mr. Jerrold's plays of "The Rent Day" and "Black-eyed Susan," in
+which Mr. T. P. Cooke sustained the character in which he had originally
+made such great success when the play was written. A lecture was given
+by Mr. Thackeray, and another by Mr. W. H. Russell. Finally, the Queen
+having expressed a desire to see the play, which had been much talked of
+during that season, there was another performance before her Majesty and
+the Prince Consort at the Gallery of Illustration in July, and at the
+end of that month Charles Dickens read his "Carol" in the Free Trade
+Hall, at Manchester. And to wind up the "Memorial Fund" entertainments,
+"The Frozen Deep" was played again at Manchester, also in the great Free
+Trade Hall, at the end of August. For the business of these
+entertainments he secured the assistance of Mr. Arthur Smith, of whom he
+writes to Mr. Forster, at this time: "I have got hold of Arthur Smith,
+as the best man of business I know, and go to work with him to-morrow
+morning." And when he began his own public readings, both in town and
+country, he felt himself most fortunate in having the co-operation of
+this invaluable man of business, and also of his zealous friendship and
+pleasant companionship.
+
+In July, his second son, Walter Landor, went to India as a cadet in the
+"Company's service," from which he was afterwards transferred to the
+42nd Royal Highlanders. His father and his elder brother went to see him
+off, to Southampton. From this place Charles Dickens writes to Mr.
+Edmund Yates, a young man in whom he had been interested from his
+boyhood, both for the sake of his parents and for his own sake, and for
+whom he had always an affectionate regard.
+
+In September he made a short tour in the North of England, with Mr.
+Wilkie Collins, out of which arose the "Lazy Tour of Two Idle
+Apprentices," written by them jointly, and published in "Household
+Words." Some letters to his sister-in-law during this expedition are
+given here, parts of which (as is the case with many letters to his
+eldest daughter and his sister-in-law) have been published in Mr.
+Forster's book.
+
+The letters which follow are almost all on the various subjects
+mentioned in our notes, and need little explanation.
+
+His letter to Mr. Procter makes allusion to a legacy lately left to that
+friend.
+
+The letters to Mr. Dilke, the original and much-respected editor of "The
+Athenaeum," and to Mr. Forster, on the subject of the "Literary Fund,"
+refer, as the letters indicate, to a battle which they were carrying on
+together with that institution.
+
+A letter to Mr. Frank Stone is an instance of his kind, patient, and
+judicious criticism of a young writer, and the letter which follows it
+shows how thoroughly it was understood and how perfectly appreciated by
+the authoress of the "Notes" referred to. Another instance of the same
+kind criticism is given in a second letter this year to Mr. Edmund
+Yates.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. B. W. Procter.]
+
+                                 TAVISTOCK HOUSE, _January 2nd, 1857._
+
+MY DEAR PROCTER,
+
+I have to thank you for a delightful book, which has given me unusual
+pleasure. My delight in it has been a little dashed by certain farewell
+verses, but I have made up my mind (and you have no idea of the
+obstinacy of my character) not to believe them.
+
+Perhaps it is not taking a liberty--perhaps it is--to congratulate you
+on Kenyon's remembrance. Either way I can't help doing it with all my
+heart, for I know no man in the world (myself excepted) to whom I would
+rather the money went.
+
+                                            Affectionately yours ever.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Sir James Emerson Tennent.]
+
+                                 TAVISTOCK HOUSE, _January 9th, 1857._
+
+MY DEAR TENNENT,
+
+
+I must thank you for your earnest and affectionate letter. It has given
+me the greatest pleasure, mixing the play in my mind confusedly and
+delightfully with Pisa, the Valetta, Naples, Herculanaeum--God knows what
+not.
+
+As to the play itself; when it is made as good as my care can make it, I
+derive a strange feeling out of it, like writing a book in company; a
+satisfaction of a most singular kind, which has no exact parallel in my
+life; a something that I suppose to belong to the life of a labourer in
+art alone, and which has to me a conviction of its being actual truth
+without its pain, that I never could adequately state if I were to try
+never so hard.
+
+You touch so kindly and feelingly on the pleasure such little pains
+give, that I feel quite sorry you have never seen this drama in progress
+during the last ten weeks here. Every Monday and Friday evening during
+that time we have been at work upon it. I assure you it has been a
+remarkable lesson to my young people in patience, perseverance,
+punctuality, and order; and, best of all, in that kind of humility which
+is got from the earned knowledge that whatever the right hand finds to
+do must be done with the heart in it, and in a desperate earnest.
+
+When I changed my dress last night (though I did it very quickly), I was
+vexed to find you gone. I wanted to have secured you for our green-room
+supper, which was very pleasant. If by any accident you should be free
+next Wednesday night (our last), pray come to that green-room supper. It
+would give me cordial pleasure to have you there.
+
+                           Ever, my dear Tennent, very heartily yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: M. de Cerjat.]
+
+                     TAVISTOCK HOUSE, _Monday Night, Jan, 17th, 1857._
+
+MY DEAR CERJAT,
+
+So wonderfully do good (epistolary) intentions become confounded with
+bad execution, that I assure you I laboured under a perfect and most
+comfortable conviction that I had answered your Christmas Eve letter of
+1855. More than that, in spite of your assertions to the contrary, I
+still strenuously believe that I did so! I have more than half a mind
+("Little Dorrit" and my other occupations notwithstanding) to charge you
+with having forgotten my reply!! I have even a wild idea that Townshend
+reproached me, when the last old year was new, with writing to you
+instead of to him!!! We will argue it out, as well as we can argue
+anything without poor dear Haldimand, when I come back to Elysee. In any
+case, however, don't discontinue your annual letter, because it has
+become an expected and a delightful part of the season to me.
+
+With one of the prettiest houses in London, and every conceivable (and
+inconceivable) luxury in it, Townshend is voluntarily undergoing his own
+sentence of transportation in Nervi, a beastly little place near Genoa,
+where you would as soon find a herd of wild elephants in any villa as
+comfort. He has a notion that he _must_ be out of England in the winter,
+but I believe him to be altogether wrong (as I have just told him in a
+letter), unless he could just take his society with him.
+
+Workmen are now battering and smashing down my theatre here, where we
+have just been acting a new play of great merit, done in what I may call
+(modestly speaking of the getting-up, and not of the acting) an
+unprecedented way. I believe that anything so complete has never been
+seen. We had an act at the North Pole, where the slightest and greatest
+thing the eye beheld were equally taken from the books of the Polar
+voyagers. Out of thirty people, there were certainly not two who might
+not have gone straight to the North Pole itself, completely furnished
+for the winter! It has been the talk of all London for these three
+weeks. And now it is a mere chaos of scaffolding, ladders, beams,
+canvases, paint-pots, sawdust, artificial snow, gas-pipes, and
+ghastliness. I have taken such pains with it for these ten weeks in all
+my leisure hours, that I feel now shipwrecked--as if I had never been
+without a play on my hands before. A third topic comes up as this
+ceases.
+
+Down at Gad's Hill, near Rochester, in Kent--Shakespeare's Gad's Hill,
+where Falstaff engaged in the robbery--is a quaint little country-house
+of Queen Anne's time. I happened to be walking past, a year and a half
+or so ago, with my sub-editor of "Household Words," when I said to him:
+"You see that house? It has always a curious interest for me, because
+when I was a small boy down in these parts I thought it the most
+beautiful house (I suppose because of its famous old cedar-trees) ever
+seen. And my poor father used to bring me to look at it, and used to say
+that if I ever grew up to be a clever man perhaps I might own that
+house, or such another house. In remembrance of which, I have always in
+passing looked to see if it was to be sold or let, and it has never been
+to me like any other house, and it has never changed at all." We came
+back to town, and my friend went out to dinner. Next morning he came to
+me in great excitement, and said: "It is written that you were to have
+that house at Gad's Hill. The lady I had allotted to me to take down to
+dinner yesterday began to speak of that neighbourhood. 'You know it?' I
+said; 'I have been there to-day.' 'O yes,' said she, 'I know it very
+well. I was a child there, in the house they call Gad's Hill Place. My
+father was the rector, and lived there many years. He has just died, has
+left it to me, and I want to sell it.' 'So,' says the sub-editor, 'you
+must buy it. Now or never!'" I did, and hope to pass next summer there,
+though I may, perhaps, let it afterwards, furnished, from time to time.
+
+All about myself I find, and the little sheet nearly full! But I know,
+my dear Cerjat, the subject will have its interest for you, so I give it
+its swing. Mrs. Watson was to have been at the play, but most
+unfortunately had three children sick of gastric fever, and could not
+leave them. She was here some three weeks before, looking extremely well
+in the face, but rather thin. I have not heard of your friend Mr.
+Percival Skelton, but I much misdoubt an amateur artist's success in
+this vast place. I hope you detected a remembrance of our happy visit to
+the Great St. Bernard in a certain number of "Little Dorrit"? Tell Mrs.
+Cerjat, with my love, that the opinions I have expressed to her on the
+subject of cows have become matured in my mind by experience and
+venerable age; and that I denounce the race as humbugs, who have been
+getting into poetry and all sorts of places without the smallest reason.
+Haldimand's housekeeper is an awful woman to consider. Pray give him our
+kindest regards and remembrances, if you ever find him in a mood to take
+it. "Our" means Mrs. Dickens's, Georgie's, and mine. We often, often
+talk of our old days at Lausanne, and send loving regard to Mrs. Cerjat
+and all your house.
+
+                          Adieu, my dear fellow; ever cordially yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. W. C. Macready.]
+
+                                TAVISTOCK HOUSE, _January 28th, 1857._
+
+MY DEAREST MACREADY,
+
+Your friend and servant is as calm as Pecksniff, saving for his knitted
+brows now turning into cordage over Little Dorrit. The theatre has
+disappeared, the house is restored to its usual conditions of order, the
+family are tranquil and domestic, dove-eyed peace is enthroned in this
+study, fire-eyed radicalism in its master's breast.
+
+I am glad to hear that our poetess is at work again, and shall be very
+much pleased to have some more contributions from her.
+
+Love from all to your dear sister, and to Katie, and to all the house.
+
+We dined yesterday at Frederick Pollock's. I begged an amazing
+photograph of you, and brought it away. It strikes me as one of the most
+ludicrous things I ever saw in my life. I think of taking a
+public-house, and having it copied larger, for the size. You may
+remember it? Very square and big--the Saracen's Head with its hair cut,
+and in modern gear? Staring very hard? As your particular friend, I
+would not part with it on any consideration. I will never get such a
+wooden head again.
+
+                                                  Ever affectionately.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Mary Boyle.]
+
+                                TAVISTOCK HOUSE, _February 7th, 1857._
+
+MY DEAR MARY,
+
+
+Half-a-dozen words on this, my birthday, to thank you for your kind and
+welcome remembrance, and to assure you that your Joseph is proud of it.
+
+For about ten minutes after his death, on each occasion of that event
+occurring, Richard Wardour was in a floored condition. And one night, to
+the great terror of Devonshire, the Arctic Regions, and Newfoundland
+(all of which localities were afraid to speak to him, as his ghost sat
+by the kitchen fire in its rags), he very nearly did what he never did,
+went and fainted off, dead, again. But he always plucked up, on the turn
+of ten minutes, and became facetious.
+
+Likewise he chipped great pieces out of all his limbs (solely, as I
+imagine, from moral earnestness and concussion of passion, for I never
+know him to hit himself in any way) and terrified Aldersley[1] to that
+degree, by lunging at him to carry him into the cave, that the said
+Aldersley always shook like a mould of jelly, and muttered, "By G----,
+this is an awful thing!"
+
+                                                  Ever affectionately.
+
+P.S.--I shall never cease to regret Mrs. Watson's not having been there.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Rev. James White.]
+
+                            TAVISTOCK HOUSE, _Sunday, Feb. 8th, 1857._
+
+MY DEAR WHITE,
+
+I send these lines by Mary and Katey, to report my love to all.
+
+Your note about the _Golden Mary_ gave me great pleasure; though I don't
+believe in one part of it; for I honestly believe that your story, as
+really belonging to the rest of the narrative, had been generally
+separated from the other stories, and greatly liked. I had not that
+particular shipwreck that you mention in my mind (indeed I doubt if I
+know it), and John Steadiman merely came into my head as a staunch sort
+of name that suited the character. The number has done "Household Words"
+great service, and has decidedly told upon its circulation.
+
+You should have come to the play. I much doubt if anything so complete
+will ever be seen again. An incredible amount of pains and ingenuity was
+expended on it, and the result was most remarkable even to me.
+
+When are you going to send something more to H. W.? Are you lazy??
+Low-spirited??? Pining for Paris????
+
+                                                  Ever affectionately.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. C. W. Dilke.]
+
+            OFFICE OF "HOUSEHOLD WORDS," _Thursday, March 19th, 1857._
+
+MY DEAR MR. DILKE,
+
+Forster has another notion about the Literary Fund. Will you name a day
+next week--that day being neither Thursday nor Saturday--when we shall
+hold solemn council there at half-past four?
+
+For myself, I beg to report that I have my war-paint on, that I have
+buried the pipe of peace, and am whooping for committee scalps.
+
+                                                Ever faithfully yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: The Earl of Carlisle.]
+
+                       GRAVESEND, KENT, _Wednesday, April 15th, 1857._
+
+MY DEAR LORD CARLISLE,
+
+I am writing by the river-side for a few days, and at the end of last
+week ---- appeared here with your note of introduction. I was not in the
+way; but as ---- had come express from London with it, Mrs. Dickens
+opened it, and gave her (in the limited sense which was of no use to
+her) an audience. She did not quite seem to know what she wanted of me.
+But she said she had understood at Stafford House that I had a theatre
+in which she could read; with a good deal of modesty and diffidence she
+at last got so far. Now, my little theatre turns my house out of window,
+costs fifty pounds to put up, and is only two months taken down;
+therefore, is quite out of the question. This Mrs. Dickens explained,
+and also my profound inability to do anything for ---- readings which
+they could not do for themselves. She appeared fully to understand the
+explanation, and indeed to have anticipated for herself how powerless I
+must be in such a case.
+
+She described herself as being consumptive, and as being subject to an
+effusion of blood from the lungs; about the last condition, one would
+think, poor woman, for the exercise of public elocution as an art.
+
+Between ourselves, I think the whole idea a mistake, and have thought so
+from its first announcement. It has a fatal appearance of trading upon
+Uncle Tom, and am I not a man and a brother? which you may be by all
+means, and still not have the smallest claim to my attention as a public
+reader. The town is over-read from all the white squares on the
+draught-board; it has been considerably harried from all the black
+squares--now with the aid of old banjoes, and now with the aid of Exeter
+Hall; and I have a very strong impression that it is by no means to be
+laid hold of from this point of address. I myself, for example, am the
+meekest of men, and in abhorrence of slavery yield to no human creature,
+and yet I don't admit the sequence that I want Uncle Tom (or Aunt
+Tomasina) to expound "King Lear" to me. And I believe my case to be the
+case of thousands.
+
+I trouble you with this much about it, because I am naturally desirous
+you should understand that if I could possibly have been of any service,
+or have suggested anything to this poor lady, I would not have lost the
+opportunity. But I cannot help her, and I assure you that I cannot
+honestly encourage her to hope. I fear her enterprise has no hope in it.
+
+In your absence I have always followed you through the papers, and felt
+a personal interest and pleasure in the public affection in which you
+are held over there.[2] At the same time I must confess that I should
+prefer to have you here, where good public men seem to me to be dismally
+wanted. I have no sympathy with demagogues, but am a grievous Radical,
+and think the political signs of the times to be just about as bad as
+the spirit of the people will admit of their being. In all other
+respects I am as healthy, sound, and happy as your kindness can wish. So
+you will set down my political despondency as my only disease.
+
+On the tip-top of Gad's Hill, between this and Rochester, on the very
+spot where Falstaff ran away, I have a pretty little old-fashioned
+house, which I shall live in the hope of showing to you one day. Also I
+have a little story respecting the manner in which it became mine, which
+I hope (on the same occasion in the clouds) to tell you. Until then and
+always, I am, dear Lord Carlisle,
+
+                                    Yours very faithfully and obliged.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. John Forster.]
+
+                                    TAVISTOCK HOUSE, _May 13th, 1857._
+
+MY DEAR FORSTER,
+
+I have gone over Dilke's memoranda, and I think it quite right and
+necessary that those points should be stated. Nor do I see the least
+difficulty in the way of their introduction into the pamphlet. But I do
+not deem it possible to get the pamphlet written and published before
+the dinner. I have so many matters pressing on my attention, that I
+cannot turn to it immediately on my release from my book just finished.
+It shall be done and distributed early next month.
+
+As to anything being lost by its not being in the hands of the people
+who dine (as you seem to think), I have not the least misgiving on that
+score. They would say, if it were issued, just what they will say
+without it.
+
+Lord Granville is committed to taking the chair, and will make the best
+speech he can in it. The pious ---- will cram him with as many
+distortions of the truth as his stomach may be strong enough to receive.
+----, with Bardolphian eloquence, will cool his nose in the modest
+merits of the institution. ---- will make a neat and appropriate speech
+on both sides, round the corner and over the way. And all this would be
+done exactly to the same purpose and in just the same strain, if twenty
+thousand copies of the pamphlet had been circulated.
+
+                                                  Ever affectionately.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Rev. James White.]
+
+                            TAVISTOCK HOUSE, _Friday, May 22nd, 1857._
+
+MY DEAR WHITE,
+
+My emancipation having been effected on Saturday, the ninth of this
+month, I take some shame to myself for not having sooner answered your
+note. But the host of things to be done as soon as I was free, and the
+tremendous number of ingenuities to be wrought out at Gad's Hill, have
+kept me in a whirl of their own ever since.
+
+We purpose going to Gad's Hill for the summer on the 1st of June; as,
+apart from the master's eye being a necessary ornament to the spot, I
+clearly see that the workmen yet lingering in the yard must be squeezed
+out by bodily pressure, or they will never go. How will this suit you
+and yours? If you will come down, we can take you all in, on your way
+north; that is to say, we shall have that ample verge and room enough,
+until about the eighth; when Hans Christian Andersen (who has been
+"coming" for about three years) will come for a fortnight's stay in
+England. I shall like you to see the little old-fashioned place. It
+strikes me as being comfortable.
+
+So let me know your little game. And with love to Mrs. White, Lotty, and
+Clara,
+
+                                Believe me, ever affectionately yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. Frank Stone, A.R.A.]
+
+                OFFICE OF "HOUSEHOLD WORDS," _Monday, June 1st, 1857._
+
+MY DEAR STONE,
+
+I know that what I am going to say will not be agreeable; but I rely on
+the authoress's good sense; and say it, knowing it to be the truth.
+
+These "Notes" are destroyed by too much smartness. It gives the
+appearance of perpetual effort, stabs to the heart the nature that is in
+them, and wearies by the manner and not by the matter. It is the
+commonest fault in the world (as I have constant occasion to observe
+here), but it is a very great one. Just as you couldn't bear to have an
+epergne or a candlestick on your table, supported by a light figure
+always on tiptoe and evidently in an impossible attitude for the
+sustainment of its weight, so all readers would be more or less
+oppressed and worried by this presentation of everything in one smart
+point of view, when they know it must have other, and weightier, and
+more solid properties. Airiness and good spirits are always delightful,
+and are inseparable from notes of a cheerful trip; but they should
+sympathise with many things as well as see them in a lively way. It is
+but a word or a touch that expresses this humanity, but without that
+little embellishment of good nature there is no such thing as humour. In
+this little MS. everything is too much patronised and condescended to,
+whereas the slightest touch of feeling for the rustic who is of the
+earth earthy, or of sisterhood with the homely servant who has made her
+face shine in her desire to please, would make a difference that the
+writer can scarcely imagine without trying it. The only relief in the
+twenty-one slips is the little bit about the chimes. It _is_ a relief,
+simply because it is an indication of some kind of sentiment. You don't
+want any sentiment laboriously made out in such a thing. You don't want
+any maudlin show of it. But you do want a pervading suggestion that it
+is there. It makes all the difference between being playful and being
+cruel. Again I must say, above all things--especially to young people
+writing: For the love of God don't condescend! Don't assume the attitude
+of saying, "See how clever I am, and what fun everybody else is!" Take
+any shape but that.
+
+I observe an excellent quality of observation throughout, and think the
+boy at the shop, and all about him, particularly good. I have no doubt
+whatever that the rest of the journal will be much better if the writer
+chooses to make it so. If she considers for a moment within herself, she
+will know that she derived pleasure from everything she saw, because she
+saw it with innumerable lights and shades upon it, and bound to humanity
+by innumerable fine links; she cannot possibly communicate anything of
+that pleasure to another by showing it from one little limited point
+only, and that point, observe, the one from which it is impossible to
+detach the exponent as the patroness of a whole universe of inferior
+souls. This is what everybody would mean in objecting to these notes
+(supposing them to be published), that they are too smart and too
+flippant.
+
+As I understand this matter to be altogether between us three, and as I
+think your confidence, and hers, imposes a duty of friendship on me, I
+discharge it to the best of my ability. Perhaps I make more of it than
+you may have meant or expected; if so, it is because I am interested and
+wish to express it. If there had been anything in my objection not
+perfectly easy of removal, I might, after all, have hesitated to state
+it; but that is not the case. A very little indeed would make all this
+gaiety as sound and wholesome and good-natured in the reader's mind as
+it is in the writer's.
+
+                                                Affectionately always.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Anonymous.]
+
+                 GAD'S HILL PLACE, HIGHAM, _Thursday, June 4th, 1857._
+
+MY DEAR ----
+
+Coming home here last night, from a day's business in London, I found
+your most excellent note awaiting me, in which I have had a pleasure to
+be derived from none but good and natural things. I can now honestly
+assure you that I believe you will write _well_, and that I have a
+lively hope that I may be the means of showing you yourself in print one
+day. Your powers of graceful and light-hearted observation need nothing
+but the little touches on which we are both agreed. And I am perfectly
+sure that they will be as pleasant to you as to anyone, for nobody can
+see so well as you do, without feeling kindly too.
+
+To confess the truth to you, I was half sorry, yesterday, that I had
+been so unreserved; but not half as sorry, yesterday, as I am glad
+to-day. You must not mind my adding that there is a noble candour and
+modesty in your note, which I shall never be able to separate from you
+henceforth.
+
+                                          Affectionately yours always.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. Henry Austin.]
+
+                               GAD'S HILL, _Saturday, June 6th, 1857._
+
+MY DEAR HENRY,
+
+Here is a very serious business on the great estate respecting the water
+supply. Last night, they had pumped the well dry merely in raising the
+family supply for the day; and this morning (very little water having
+been got into the cisterns) it is dry again! It is pretty clear to me
+that we must look the thing in the face, and at once bore deeper, dig,
+or do some beastly thing or other, to secure this necessary in
+abundance. Meanwhile I am in a most plaintive and forlorn condition
+without your presence and counsel. I raise my voice in the wilderness
+and implore the same!!!
+
+Wild legends are in circulation among the servants how that Captain
+Goldsmith on the knoll above--the skipper in that crow's-nest of a
+house--has millions of gallons of water always flowing for him. Can he
+have damaged my well? Can we imitate him, and have our millions of
+gallons? Goldsmith or I must fall, so I conceive.
+
+If you get this, send me a telegraph message informing me when I may
+expect comfort. I am held by four of the family while I write this, in
+case I should do myself a mischief--it certainly won't be taking to
+drinking water.
+
+                              Ever affectionately (most despairingly).
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. W. C. Macready.]
+
+                           TAVISTOCK HOUSE, _Monday, July 13th, 1857._
+
+MY DEAREST MACREADY,
+
+Many thanks for your Indian information. I shall act upon it in the most
+exact manner. Walter sails next Monday. Charley and I go down with him
+to Southampton next Sunday. We are all delighted with the prospect of
+seeing you at Gad's Hill. These are my Jerrold engagements: On Friday,
+the 24th, I have to repeat my reading at St. Martin's Hall; on Saturday,
+the 25th, to repeat "The Frozen Deep" at the Gallery of Illustration for
+the last time. On Thursday, the 30th, or Friday, the 31st, I shall
+probably read at Manchester. Deane, the general manager of the
+Exhibition, is going down to-night, and will arrange all the
+preliminaries for me. If you and I went down to Manchester together, and
+were there on a Sunday, he would give us the whole Exhibition to
+ourselves. It is probable, I think (as he estimates the receipts of a
+night at about seven hundred pounds), that we may, in about a fortnight
+or so after the reading, play "The Frozen Deep" at Manchester. But of
+this contingent engagement I at present know no more than you do.
+
+Now, will you, upon this exposition of affairs, choose your own time for
+coming to us, and, when you have made your choice, write to me at Gad's
+Hill? I am going down this afternoon for rest (which means violent
+cricket with the boys) after last Saturday night; which was a teaser,
+but triumphant. The St. Martin's Hall audience was, I must confess, a
+very extraordinary thing. The two thousand and odd people were like one,
+and their enthusiasm was something awful.
+
+Yet I have seen that before, too. Your young remembrance cannot recall
+the man; but he flourished in my day--a great actor, sir--a noble
+actor--thorough artist! I have seen him do wonders in that way. He
+retired from the stage early in life (having a monomaniacal delusion
+that he was old), and is said to be still living in your county.
+
+All join in kindest love to your dear sister and all the rest.
+
+                         Ever, my dearest Macready,
+                                            Most affectionately yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. Edmund Yates.]
+
+                           TAVISTOCK HOUSE, _Sunday, July 19th, 1857._
+
+MY DEAR YATES,
+
+Although I date this ashore, I really write it from Southampton (don't
+notice this fact in your reply, for I shall be in town on Wednesday). I
+have come here on an errand which will grow familiar to you before you
+know that Time has flapped his wings over your head. Like me, you will
+find those babies grow to be young men before you are quite sure they
+are born. Like me, you will have great teeth drawn with a wrench, and
+will only then know that you ever cut them. I am here to send Walter
+away over what they call, in Green Bush melodramas, "the Big Drink," and
+I don't at all know this day how he comes to be mine, or I his.
+
+I don't write to say this--or to say how seeing Charley, and he going
+aboard the ship before me just now, I suddenly came into possession of a
+photograph of my own back at sixteen and twenty, and also into a
+suspicion that I had doubled the last age. I merely write to mention
+that Telbin and his wife are going down to Gad's Hill with us, about
+mid-day next Sunday, and that if you and Mrs. Yates will come too, we
+shall be delighted to have you. We can give you a bed, and you can be in
+town (if you have such a savage necessity) by twenty minutes before ten
+on Monday morning.
+
+I was very much pleased (as I had reason to be) with your account of the
+reading in _The Daily News_. I thank you heartily.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. T. P. Cooke.]
+
+        IN REMEMBRANCE OF THE LATE MR. DOUGLAS JERROLD.
+
+               COMMITTEE'S OFFICE, GALLERY OF ILLUSTRATION,
+                           REGENT STREET, _Thursday, July 30th, 1857._
+
+MY DEAR MR. COOKE,
+
+I cannot rest satisfied this morning without writing to congratulate you
+on your admirable performance of last night. It was so fresh and
+vigorous, so manly and gallant, that I felt as if it splashed against my
+theatre-heated face along with the spray of the breezy sea. What I felt
+everybody felt; I should feel it quite an impertinence to take myself
+out of the crowd, therefore, if I could by any means help doing so. But
+I can't; so I hope you will feel that you bring me on yourself, and have
+only yourself to blame.
+
+                                              Always faithfully yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mrs. Compton.]
+
+                        GAD'S HILL PLACE, HIGHAM BY ROCHESTER,
+                                        _Sunday Night, Aug 2nd, 1857._
+
+MY DEAR MRS. COMPTON,
+
+We are going to play "The Frozen Deep" (pursuant to requisition from
+town magnates, etc.) at Manchester, at the New Free Trade Hall, on the
+nights of Friday and Saturday, the 21st and 22nd August.
+
+The place is out of the question for my girls. Their action could not be
+seen, and their voices could not be heard. You and I have played, there
+and elsewhere, so sociably and happily, that I am emboldened to ask you
+whether you would play my sister-in-law Georgina's part (Compton and
+babies permitting).
+
+We shall go down in the old pleasant way, and shall have the Art
+Treasures Exhibition to ourselves on the Sunday; when even "he" (as
+Rogers always called every pretty woman's husband) might come and join
+us.
+
+What do you say? What does he say? and what does baby say? When I use
+the term "baby," I use it in two tenses--present and future.
+
+Answer me at this address, like the Juliet I saw at Drury Lane--when was
+it?--yesterday. And whatever your answer is, if you will say that you
+and Compton will meet us at the North Kent Station, London Bridge, next
+Sunday at a quarter before one, and will come down here for a breath of
+sweet air and stay all night, you will give your old friends great
+pleasure. Not least among them,
+
+                                                     Yours faithfully.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. W. C. Macready.]
+
+                        GAD'S HILL PLACE, HIGHAM BY ROCHESTER,
+                                             _Monday, Aug. 3rd, 1857._
+
+MY DEAREST MACREADY,
+
+I write to you in reference to your last note, as soon as I positively
+know our final movements in the Jerrold matter.
+
+We are going to wind up by acting at Manchester (on solemn requisition)
+on the evenings of Friday and Saturday, the 21st and 22nd (actresses
+substituted for the girls, of course). We shall have to leave here on
+the morning of the 20th. You thought of coming on the 16th; can't you
+make it a day or two earlier, so as to be with us a whole week? Decide
+and pronounce. Again, cannot you bring Katey with you? Decide and
+pronounce thereupon, also.
+
+I read at Manchester last Friday. As many thousand people were there as
+you like to name. The collection of pictures in the Exhibition is
+wonderful. And the power with which the modern English school asserts
+itself is a very gratifying and delightful thing to behold. The care for
+the common people, in the provision made for their comfort and
+refreshment, is also admirable and worthy of all commendation. But they
+want more amusement, and particularly (as it strikes me) _something in
+motion_, though it were only a twisting fountain. The thing is too still
+after their lives of machinery, and art flies over their heads in
+consequence.
+
+I hope you have seen my tussle with the "Edinburgh." I saw the chance
+last Friday week, as I was going down to read the "Carol" in St.
+Martin's Hall. Instantly turned to, then and there, and wrote half the
+article. Flew out of bed early next morning, and finished it by noon.
+Went down to Gallery of Illustration (we acted that night), did the
+day's business, corrected the proofs in Polar costume in dressing-room,
+broke up two numbers of "Household Words" to get it out directly, played
+in "Frozen Deep" and "Uncle John," presided at supper of company, made
+no end of speeches, went home and gave in completely for four hours,
+then got sound asleep, and next day was as fresh as you used to be in
+the far-off days of your lusty youth.
+
+All here send kindest love to your dear good sister and all the house.
+
+                                         Ever and ever affectionately.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. Frank Stone, A.R.A.]
+
+                  TAVISTOCK HOUSE, _Sunday Afternoon, Aug. 9th, 1857._
+
+MY DEAR STONE,
+
+Now here, without any preface, is a good, confounding, stunning question
+for you--would you like to play "Uncle John" on the two nights at
+Manchester?
+
+It is not a long part. You could have a full rehearsal on the Friday,
+and I could sit in the wing at night and pull you through all the
+business. Perhaps you might not object to being in the thing in your own
+native place, and the relief to me would be enormous.
+
+This is what has come into my head lying in bed to-day (I have been in
+bed all day), and this is just my plain reason for writing to you.
+
+It's a capital part, and you are a capital old man. You know the play as
+we play it, and the Manchester people don't. Say the word, and I'll send
+you my own book by return of post.
+
+The agitation and exertion of Richard Wardour are so great to me, that I
+cannot rally my spirits in the short space of time I get. The strain is
+so great to make a show of doing it, that I want to be helped out of
+"Uncle John" if I can. Think of yourself far more than me; but if you
+half think you are up to the joke, and half doubt your being so, then
+give me the benefit of the doubt and play the part.
+
+Answer me at Gad's Hill.
+
+                                                  Ever affectionately.
+
+P.S.--If you play, I shall immediately announce it to all concerned. If
+you don't, I shall go on as if nothing had happened, and shall say
+nothing to anyone.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. Henry Austin.]
+
+                        GAD'S HILL PLACE, _Saturday, Aug. 15th, 1857._
+
+MY DEAR HENRY,
+
+At last, I am happy to inform you, we have got at a famous spring!! It
+rushed in this morning, ten foot deep. And our friends talk of its
+supplying "a ton a minute for yourself and your family, sir, for
+nevermore."
+
+They ask leave to bore ten feet lower, to prevent the possibility of
+what they call "a choking with sullage." Likewise, they are going to
+insert "a rose-headed pipe;" at the mention of which implement, I am
+(secretly) well-nigh distracted, having no idea of what it means. But I
+have said "Yes," besides instantly standing a bottle of gin. Can you
+come back, and can you get down on Monday morning, to advise and
+endeavour to decide on the mechanical force we shall use for raising the
+water? I would return with you, as I shall have to be in town until
+Thursday, and then to go to Manchester until the following Tuesday.
+
+I send this by hand to John, to bring to you.
+
+                                                  Ever affectionately.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. Frank Stone, A.R.A.]
+
+                          GAD'S HILL PLACE, _Monday, Aug. 17th, 1857._
+
+MY DEAR STONE,
+
+I received your kind note this morning, and write this reply here to
+take to London with me and post in town, being bound for that village
+and three days' drill of the professional ladies who are to succeed the
+Tavistock girls.
+
+My book I enclose. There is a slight alteration (which does not affect
+you) at the end of the first act, in order that the piece may be played
+through without having the drop curtain down. You will not find the
+situations or business difficult, with me on the spot to put you right.
+
+Now, as to the dress. You will want a pair of pumps, and a pair of white
+silk socks; these you can get at Manchester. The extravagantly and
+anciently-frilled shirts that I have had got up for the part, I will
+bring you down; large white waistcoat, I will bring you down; large
+white hat, I will bring you down; dressing-gown, I will bring you down;
+white gloves and ditto choker you can get at Manchester. There then
+remain only a pair of common nankeen tights, to button below the calf,
+and blue wedding-coat. The nankeen tights you had best get made at once;
+my "Uncle John" coat I will send you down in a parcel by to-morrow's
+train, to have altered in Manchester to your shape and figure. You will
+then be quite independent of Christian chance and Jewish Nathan, which
+latter potentate is now at Canterbury with the cricket amateurs, and
+might fail.
+
+A Thursday's rehearsal is (unfortunately) now impracticable, the passes
+for the railway being all made out, and the company's sailing orders
+issued. But, as I have already suggested, with a careful rehearsal on
+Friday morning, and with me at the wing at night to put you right, you
+will find yourself sliding through it easily. There is nothing in the
+least complicated in the business. As to the dance, you have only to
+knock yourself up for a twelvemonth and it will go nobly.
+
+After all, too, if you _should_, through any unlucky breakdown, come to
+be afraid of it, I am no worse off than I was before, if I have to do it
+at last. Keep your pecker up with that.
+
+I am heartily obliged to you, my dear old boy, for your affectionate and
+considerate note, and I wouldn't have you do it, really and
+sincerely--immense as the relief will be to me--unless you are quite
+comfortable in it, and able to enjoy it.
+
+                                                  Ever affectionately.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. Frank Stone, A.R.A.]
+
+              OFFICE OF "HOUSEHOLD WORDS," _Tuesday, Aug. 18th, 1857._
+
+MY DEAR STONE,
+
+I sent you a telegraph message last night, in total contradiction of the
+letter you received from me this morning.
+
+The reason was simply this: Arthur Smith and the other business men,
+both in Manchester and here, urged upon me, in the strongest manner,
+that they were afraid of the change; that it was well known in
+Manchester that I had done the part in London; that there was a danger
+of its being considered disrespectful in me to give it up; also that
+there was a danger that it might be thought that I did so at the last
+minute, after an immense let, whereas I might have done it at first,
+etc. etc. etc. Having no desire but for the success of our object, and a
+becoming recognition on my part of the kind Manchester public's
+cordiality, I gave way, and thought it best to go on.
+
+I do so against the grain, and against every inclination, and against
+the strongest feeling of gratitude to you. My people at home will be
+miserable too when they hear I am going to do it. If I could have heard
+from you sooner, and got the bill out sooner, I should have been firmer
+in considering my own necessity of relief. As it is, I sneak under; and
+I hope you will feel the reasons, and approve.
+
+                                                  Ever affectionately.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. Henry Austin.]
+
+                       GAD'S HILL PLACE, _Wednesday, Sept. 2nd, 1857._
+
+MY DEAR HENRY,
+
+The second conspirator has been here this morning to ask whether you
+wish the windlass to be left in the yard, and whether you will want him
+and his mate any more, and, if so, when? Of course he says (rolling
+something in the form of a fillet in at one broken tooth all the while,
+and rolling it out at another) that they could wish fur to have the
+windlass if it warn't any ways a hill conwenience fur to fetch her away.
+I have told him that if he will come back on Friday he shall have your
+reply. Will you, therefore, send it me by return of post? He says he'll
+"look up" (as if he was an astronomer) "a Friday arterdinner."
+
+On Monday I am going away with Collins for ten days or a fortnight, on a
+"tour in search of an article" for "Household Words." We have not the
+least idea where we are going; but _he_ says, "Let's look at the Norfolk
+coast," and _I_ say, "Let's look at the back of the Atlantic." I don't
+quite know what I mean by that; but have a general impression that I
+mean something knowing.
+
+I am horribly used up after the Jerrold business. Low spirits, low
+pulse, low voice, intense reaction. If I were not like Mr. Micawber,
+"falling back for a spring" on Monday, I think I should slink into a
+corner and cry.
+
+                                                  Ever affectionately.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Hogarth.]
+
+              ALLONBY, CUMBERLAND, _Wednesday Night, Sept. 9th, 1857._
+
+MY DEAR GEORGY,
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Think of Collins's usual luck with me! We went up a Cumberland mountain
+yesterday--a huge black hill, fifteen hundred feet high. We took for a
+guide a capital innkeeper hard by. It rained in torrents--as it only
+does rain in a hill country--the whole time. At the top, there were
+black mists and the darkness of night. It then came out that the
+innkeeper had not been up for twenty years, and he lost his head and
+himself altogether; and we couldn't get down again! What wonders the
+Inimitable performed with his compass until it broke with the heat and
+wet of his pocket no matter; it did break, and then we wandered about,
+until it was clear to the Inimitable that the night must be passed
+there, and the enterprising travellers probably die of cold. We took our
+own way about coming down, struck, and declared that the guide might
+wander where he would, but we would follow a watercourse we lighted
+upon, and which must come at last to the river. This necessitated
+amazing gymnastics; in the course of which performances, Collins fell
+into the said watercourse with his ankle sprained, and the great
+ligament of the foot and leg swollen I don't know how big.
+
+How I enacted Wardour over again in carrying him down, and what a
+business it was to get him down; I may say in Gibbs's words: "Vi lascio
+a giudicare!" But he was got down somehow, and we got off the mountain
+somehow; and now I carry him to bed, and into and out of carriages,
+exactly like Wardour in private life. I don't believe he will stand for
+a month to come. He has had a doctor, and can wear neither shoe nor
+stocking, and has his foot wrapped up in a flannel waistcoat, and has a
+breakfast saucer of liniment, and a horrible dabbling of lotion
+incessantly in progress. We laugh at it all, but I doubt very much
+whether he can go on to Doncaster. It will be a miserable blow to our H.
+W. scheme, and I say nothing about it as yet; but he is really so
+crippled that I doubt the getting him there. We have resolved to fall
+to work to-morrow morning and begin our writing; and there, for the
+present, that point rests.
+
+This is a little place with fifty houses, five bathing-machines, five
+girls in straw hats, five men in straw hats, and no other company. The
+little houses are all in half-mourning--yellow stone on white stone, and
+black; and it reminds me of what Broadstairs might have been if it had
+not inherited a cliff, and had been an Irishman. But this is a capital
+little homely inn, looking out upon the sea; and we are really very
+comfortably lodged. I can just stand upright in my bedroom. Otherwise,
+it is a good deal like one of Ballard's top-rooms. We have a very
+obliging and comfortable landlady; and it is a clean nice place in a
+rough wild country. We came here haphazard, but could not have done
+better.
+
+We lay last night at a place called Wigton--also in half-mourning--with
+the wonderful peculiarity that it had no population, no business, no
+streets to speak of; but five linendrapers within range of our small
+windows, one linendraper's next door, and five more linendrapers round
+the corner. I ordered a night-light in my bedroom. A queer little old
+woman brought me one of the common Child's night-lights, and seeming to
+think that I looked at it with interest, said: "It's joost a vara
+keeyourious thing, sir, and joost new coom oop. It'll burn awt hoors a'
+end, an no gootther, nor no waste, nor ony sike a thing, if you can
+creedit what I say, seein' the airticle."
+
+Of course _I_ shall go to Doncaster, whether or no (please God), and my
+postage directions to you remain unchanged. Love to Mamey, Katey,
+Charley, Harry, and the darling Plorn.
+
+                                                  Ever affectionately.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Hogarth.]
+
+                        LANCASTER, _Saturday Night, Sept. 12th, 1857._
+
+MY DEAR GEORGY,
+
+I received your letter at Allonby yesterday, and was delighted to get
+it. We came back to Carlisle last night (to a capital inn, kept by
+Breach's brother), and came on here to-day. We are on our way to
+Doncaster; but Sabbath observance throws all the trains out; and
+although it is not a hundred miles from here, we shall have, as well as
+I can make out the complicated lists of trains, to sleep at Leeds--which
+I particularly detest as an odious place--to-morrow night.
+
+Accustomed as you are to the homage which men delight to render to the
+Inimitable, you would be scarcely prepared for the proportions it
+assumes in this northern country. Station-masters assist him to alight
+from carriages, deputations await him in hotel entries, innkeepers bow
+down before him and put him into regal rooms, the town goes down to the
+platform to see him off, and Collins's ankle goes into the newspapers!!!
+
+It is a great deal better than it was, and he can get into new hotels
+and up the stairs with two thick sticks, like an admiral in a farce. His
+spirits have improved in a corresponding degree, and he contemplates
+cheerfully the keeping house at Doncaster. I thought (as I told you) he
+would never have gone there, but he seems quite up to the mark now. Of
+course he can never walk out, or see anything of any place. We have done
+our first paper for H. W., and sent it up to the printer's.
+
+The landlady of the little inn at Allonby lived at Greta Bridge, in
+Yorkshire, when I went down there before "Nickleby," and was smuggled
+into the room to see me, when I was secretly found out. She is an
+immensely fat woman now. "But I could tuck my arm round her waist then,
+Mr. Dickens," the landlord said when she told me the story as I was
+going to bed the night before last. "And can't you do it now," I said,
+"you insensible dog? Look at me! Here's a picture!" Accordingly, I got
+round as much of her as I could; and this gallant action was the most
+successful I have ever performed, on the whole. I think it was the
+dullest little place I ever entered; and what with the monotony of an
+idle sea, and what with the monotony of another sea in the room
+(occasioned by Collins's perpetually holding his ankle over a pail of
+salt water, and laving it with a milk jug), I struck yesterday, and came
+away.
+
+We are in a very remarkable old house here, with genuine old rooms and
+an uncommonly quaint staircase. I have a state bedroom, with two
+enormous red four-posters in it, each as big as Charley's room at Gad's
+Hill. Bellew is to preach here to-morrow. "And we know he is a friend of
+yours, sir," said the landlord, when he presided over the serving of the
+dinner (two little salmon trout; a sirloin steak; a brace of partridges;
+seven dishes of sweets; five dishes of dessert, led off by a bowl of
+peaches; and in the centre an enormous bride-cake--"We always have it
+here, sir," said the landlord, "custom of the house.") (Collins turned
+pale, and estimated the dinner at half a guinea each.)
+
+This is the stupidest of letters, but all description is gone, or going,
+into "The Lazy Tour of Two Idle Apprentices."
+
+Kiss the darling Plorn, who is often in my thoughts. Best love to
+Charley, Mamey, and Katie. I will write to you again from Doncaster,
+where I shall be rejoiced to find another letter from you.
+
+                               Ever affectionately, my dearest Georgy.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Hogarth.]
+
+                  ANGEL HOTEL, DONCASTER, _Tuesday, Sept. 15th, 1857._
+
+MY DEAR GEORGY,
+
+I found your letter here on my arrival yesterday. I had hoped that the
+wall would have been almost finished by this time, and the additions to
+the house almost finished too--but patience, patience!
+
+We have very good, clean, and quiet apartments here, on the second
+floor, looking down into the main street, which is full of horse
+jockeys, bettors, drunkards, and other blackguards, from morning to
+night--and all night. The races begin to-day and last till Friday, which
+is the Cup Day. I am not going to the course this morning, but have
+engaged a carriage (open, and pair) for to-morrow and Friday.
+
+"The Frozen Deep's" author gets on as well as could be expected. He can
+hobble up and down stairs when absolutely necessary, and limps to his
+bedroom on the same floor. He talks of going to the theatre to-night in
+a cab, which will be the first occasion of his going out, except to
+travel, since the accident. He sends his kind regards and thanks for
+enquiries and condolence. I am perpetually tidying the rooms after him,
+and carrying all sorts of untidy things which belong to him into his
+bedroom, which is a picture of disorder. You will please to imagine
+mine, airy and clean, little dressing-room attached, eight water-jugs (I
+never saw such a supply), capital sponge-bath, perfect arrangement, and
+exquisite neatness. We breakfast at half-past eight, and fall to work
+for H. W. afterwards. Then I go out, and--hem! look for subjects.
+
+The mayor called this morning to do the honours of the town, whom it
+pleased the Inimitable to receive with great courtesy and affability. He
+propounded invitation to public _dejeuner_, which it did _not_ please
+the Inimitable to receive, and which he graciously rejected.
+
+That's all the news. Everything I can describe by hook or by crook, I
+describe for H. W. So there is nothing of that sort left for letters.
+
+Best love to dear Mamey and Katey, and to Charley, and to Harry. Any
+number of kisses to the noble Plorn.
+
+                                                  Ever affectionately.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. Arthur Ryland.]
+
+                 GAD'S HILL PLACE, _Saturday Evening, Oct. 3rd, 1857._
+
+MY DEAR SIR,
+
+I have had the honour and pleasure of receiving your letter of the 28th
+of last month, informing me of the distinction that has been conferred
+upon me by the Council of the Birmingham and Midland Institute.
+
+Allow me to assure you with much sincerity, that I am highly gratified
+by having been elected one of the first honorary members of that
+establishment. Nothing could have enhanced my interest in so important
+an undertaking; but the compliment is all the more welcome to me on that
+account.
+
+I accept it with a due sense of its worth, with many acknowledgments and
+with all good wishes.
+
+                        I am ever, my dear Sir, very faithfully yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. Edmund Yates.]
+
+                     TAVISTOCK HOUSE, _Monday Night, Nov. 16th, 1857._
+
+MY DEAR YATES,
+
+I retain the story with pleasure; and I need not tell you that you are
+not mistaken in the last lines of your note.
+
+Excuse me, on that ground, if I say a word or two as to what I think (I
+mention it with a view to the future) might be better in the paper. The
+opening is excellent. But it passes too completely into the Irishman's
+narrative, does not light it up with the life about it, or the
+circumstances under which it is delivered, and does not carry through
+it, as I think it should with a certain indefinable subtleness, the
+thread with which you begin your weaving. I will tell Wills to send me
+the proof, and will try to show you what I mean when I shall have gone
+over it carefully.
+
+                                              Faithfully yours always.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. Frank Stone, A.R.A.]
+
+                        TAVISTOCK HOUSE, _Wednesday, Dec. 13th, 1857._
+
+MY DEAR STONE,
+
+I find on enquiry that the "General Theatrical Fund" has relieved
+non-members in one or two instances; but that it is exceedingly
+unwilling to do so, and would certainly not do so again, saving on some
+very strong and exceptional case. As its trustee, I could not represent
+to it that I think it ought to sail into those open waters, for I very
+much doubt the justice of such cruising, with a reference to the
+interests of the patient people who support it out of their small
+earnings.
+
+                                                  Affectionately ever.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[1] The part played in "The Frozen Deep" by its author, Mr. Wilkie
+Collins.
+
+[2] The Earl of Carlisle was at this time Viceroy of Ireland.
+
+
+
+
+Book III.
+
+1858 TO 1870.
+
+
+
+
+1858.
+
+NARRATIVE.
+
+
+All through this year, Charles Dickens was constantly moving about from
+place to place. After much and careful consideration, he had come to the
+determination of, for the future, giving readings for his own benefit.
+And although in the spring of this year he gave one reading of his
+"Christmas Carol" for a charity, all the other readings, beginning from
+the 29th April, and ever after, were for himself. In the autumn of this
+year he made reading tours in England, Scotland, and Ireland, always
+accompanied by his friend and secretary, Mr. Arthur Smith. At Newcastle,
+Charles Dickens was joined by his daughters, who accompanied him in his
+Scotch tour. The letters to his sister-in-law, and to his eldest
+daughter, are all given here, and will be given in all future reading
+tours, as they form a complete diary of his life and movements at these
+times. To avoid the constant repetition of the two names, the beginning
+of the letters will be dispensed with in all cases where they follow
+each other in unbroken succession. The Mr. Frederick Lehmann mentioned
+in the letter written from Sheffield, had married a daughter of Mr.
+Robert Chambers, and niece of Mrs. Wills. Coming to settle in London a
+short time after this date, Mr. and Mrs. Lehmann became intimately known
+to Charles Dickens and his family--more especially to his eldest
+daughter, to whom they have been, and are, the kindest and truest of
+friends. The "pretty little boy" mentioned as being under Mrs. Wills's
+care, was their eldest son.
+
+We give the letter to Mr. Thackeray, not because it is one of very great
+interest, but because, being the only one we have, we are glad to have
+the two names associated together in this work.
+
+The "little speech" alluded to in this first letter to Mr. Macready was
+one made by Charles Dickens at a public dinner, which was given in aid
+of the Hospital for Sick Children, in Great Ormond Street. He afterwards
+(early in April) gave a reading from his "Christmas Carol" for this same
+charity.
+
+The Christmas number of "Household Words," mentioned in a letter to Mr.
+Wilkie Collins, was called "A House to Let," and contained stories
+written by Charles Dickens, Mr. Wilkie Collins, and other contributors
+to "Household Words."
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. W. Wilkie Collins.]
+
+                           TAVISTOCK HOUSE, _Sunday, Jan. 17th, 1858._
+
+MY DEAR WILKIE,
+
+I am very sorry to receive so bad an account of the foot. But I hope it
+is all in the past tense now.
+
+I met with an incident the other day, which I think is a good deal in
+your way, for introduction either into a long or short story. Dr.
+Sutherland and Dr. Monro went over St. Luke's with me (only last
+Friday), to show me some distinctly and remarkably developed types of
+insanity. Among other patients, we passed a deaf and dumb man, now
+afflicted with incurable madness too, of whom they said that it was only
+when his madness began to develop itself in strongly-marked mad actions,
+that it began to be suspected. "Though it had been there, no doubt, some
+time." This led me to consider, suspiciously, what employment he had
+been in, and so to ask the question. "Aye," says Dr. Sutherland, "that
+is the most remarkable thing of all, Mr. Dickens. He was employed in the
+transmission of electric-telegraph messages; and it is impossible to
+conceive what delirious despatches that man may have been sending about
+all over the world!"
+
+Rejoiced to hear such good report of the play.
+
+                                                      Ever faithfully.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. Edmund Yates.]
+
+                           TAVISTOCK HOUSE, _Tuesday, Feb. 2nd, 1858._
+
+MY DEAR YATES,
+
+Your quotation is, as I supposed, all wrong. The text is _not_ "which
+his 'owls was organs." When Mr. Harris went into an empty dog-kennel, to
+spare his sensitive nature the anguish of overhearing Mrs. Harris's
+exclamations on the occasion of the birth of her first child (the
+Princess Royal of the Harris family), "he never took his hands away from
+his ears, or came out once, till he was showed the baby." On
+encountering that spectacle, he was (being of a weakly constitution)
+"took with fits." For this distressing complaint he was medically
+treated; the doctor "collared him, and laid him on his back upon the
+airy stones"--please to observe what follows--"and she was told, to ease
+her mind, his 'owls was organs."
+
+That is to say, Mrs. Harris, lying exhausted on her bed, in the first
+sweet relief of freedom from pain, merely covered with the counterpane,
+and not yet "put comfortable," hears a noise apparently proceeding from
+the back-yard, and says, in a flushed and hysterical manner: "What 'owls
+are those? Who is a-'owling? Not my ugebond?" Upon which the doctor,
+looking round one of the bottom posts of the bed, and taking Mrs.
+Harris's pulse in a reassuring manner, says, with much admirable
+presence of mind: "Howls, my dear madam?--no, no, no! What are we
+thinking of? Howls, my dear Mrs. Harris? Ha, ha, ha! Organs, ma'am,
+organs. Organs in the streets, Mrs. Harris; no howls."
+
+                                                     Yours faithfully.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. W. M. Thackeray.]
+
+                           TAVISTOCK HOUSE, _Tuesday, Feb. 2nd, 1858._
+
+MY DEAR THACKERAY,
+
+The wisdom of Parliament, in that expensive act of its greatness which
+constitutes the Guild, prohibits that corporation _from doing anything_
+until it shall have existed in a perfectly useless condition for seven
+years. This clause (introduced by some private-bill magnate of official
+might) seemed so ridiculous, that nobody could believe it to have this
+meaning; but as I felt clear about it when we were on the very verge of
+granting an excellent literary annuity, I referred the point to counsel,
+and my construction was confirmed without a doubt.
+
+It is therefore needless to enquire whether an association in the nature
+of a provident society could address itself to such a case as you
+confide to me. The prohibition has still two or three years of life in
+it.
+
+But, assuming the gentleman's title to be considered as an "author" as
+established, there is no question that it comes within the scope of the
+Literary Fund. They would habitually "lend" money if they did what I
+consider to be their duty; as it is they only give money, but they give
+it in such instances.
+
+I have forwarded the envelope to the Society of Arts, with a request
+that they will present it to Prince Albert, approaching H.R.H. in the
+Siamese manner.
+
+                                                      Ever faithfully.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. John Forster.]
+
+                   TAVISTOCK HOUSE, _Wednesday Night, Feb. 3rd, 1858._
+
+MY DEAR FORSTER,
+
+I beg to report two phenomena:
+
+1. An excellent little play in one act, by Marston, at the Lyceum;
+title, "A Hard Struggle;" as good as "La Joie fait Peur," though not at
+all like it.
+
+2. Capital acting in the same play, by Mr. Dillon. Real good acting, in
+imitation of nobody, and honestly made out by himself!!
+
+I went (at Marston's request) last night, and cried till I sobbed again.
+I have not seen a word about it from Oxenford. But it is as wholesome
+and manly a thing altogether as I have seen for many a day. (I would
+have given a hundred pounds to have played Mr. Dillon's part).
+
+Love to Mrs. Forster.
+
+                                                  Ever affectionately.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Dr. Westland Marston.]
+
+                         TAVISTOCK HOUSE, _Wednesday, Feb. 3rd, 1858._
+
+MY DEAR MARSTON,
+
+I most heartily and honestly congratulate you on your charming little
+piece. It moved me more than I could easily tell you, if I were to try.
+Except "La Joie fait Peur," I have seen nothing nearly so good, and
+there is a subtlety in the comfortable presentation of the child who is
+to become a devoted woman for Reuben's sake, which goes a long way
+beyond Madame de Girardin. I am at a loss to let you know how much I
+admired it last night, or how heartily I cried over it. A touching idea,
+most delicately conceived and wrought out by a true artist and poet, in
+a spirit of noble, manly generosity, that no one should be able to study
+without great emotion.
+
+It is extremely well acted by all concerned; but Mr. Dillon's
+performance is really admirable, and deserving of the highest
+commendation. It is good in these days to see an actor taking such
+pains, and expressing such natural and vigorous sentiment. There is only
+one thing I should have liked him to change. I am much mistaken if any
+man--least of all any such man--would crush a letter written by the hand
+of the woman he loved. Hold it to his heart unconsciously and look about
+for it the while, he might; or he might do any other thing with it that
+expressed a habit of tenderness and affection in association with the
+idea of her; but he would never crush it under any circumstances. He
+would as soon crush her heart.
+
+You will see how closely I went with him, by my minding so slight an
+incident in so fine a performance. There is no one who could approach
+him in it; and I am bound to add that he surprised me as much as he
+pleased me.
+
+I think it might be worth while to try the people at the Francais with
+the piece. They are very good in one-act plays; such plays take well
+there, and this seems to me well suited to them. If you would like
+Samson or Regnier to read the play (in English), I know them well, and
+would be very glad indeed to tell them that I sent it with your sanction
+because I had been so much struck by it.
+
+                                              Faithfully yours always.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Monsieur Regnier.]
+
+           TAVISTOCK HOUSE, LONDON, W.C., _Thursday, Feb. 11th, 1858._
+
+MY DEAR REGNIER,
+
+I want you to read the enclosed little play. You will see that it is in
+one act--about the length of "La Joie fait Pour." It is now acting at
+the Lyceum Theatre here, with very great success. The author is Mr.
+Westland Marston, a dramatic writer of reputation, who wrote a very
+well-known tragedy called "The Patrician's Daughter," in which Macready
+and Miss Faucit acted (under Macready's management at Drury Lane) some
+years ago.
+
+This little piece is so very powerful on the stage, its interest is so
+simple and natural, and the part of Reuben is such a very fine one, that
+I cannot help thinking you might make one grand _coup_ with it, if with
+your skilful hand you arranged it for the Francais. I have communicated
+this idea of mine to the author, "_et la-dessus je vous ecris_." I am
+anxious to know your opinion, and shall expect with much interest to
+receive a little letter from you at your convenience.
+
+Mrs. Dickens, Miss Hogarth, and all the house send a thousand kind loves
+and regards to Madame Regnier and the dear little boys. You will bring
+them to London when you come, with all the force of the Francais--will
+you not?
+
+                        Ever, my dear Regnier, faithfully your Friend.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Monsieur Regnier.]
+
+                         TAVISTOCK HOUSE, _Saturday, Feb. 20th, 1858._
+
+MY DEAR REGNIER,
+
+Let me thank you with all my heart for your most patient and kind
+letter. I made its contents known to Mr. Marston, and I enclose you his
+reply. You will see that he cheerfully leaves the matter in your hands,
+and abides by your opinion and discretion.
+
+You need not return his letter, my friend. There is great excitement
+here this morning, in consequence of the failure of the Ministry last
+night to carry the bill they brought in to please your Emperor and his
+troops. _I_, for one, am extremely glad of their defeat.
+
+"Le vieux P----," I have no doubt, will go staggering down the Rue de la
+Paix to-day, with his stick in his hand and his hat on one side,
+predicting the downfall of everything, in consequence of this event. His
+handwriting shakes more and more every quarter, and I think he mixes a
+great deal of cognac with his ink. He always gives me some astonishing
+piece of news (which is never true), or some suspicious public prophecy
+(which is never verified), and he always tells me he is dying (which he
+never is).
+
+Adieu, my dear Regnier, accept a thousand thanks from me, and believe
+me, now and always,
+
+                                Your affectionate and faithful Friend.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. W. C. Macready.]
+
+                                  TAVISTOCK HOUSE, _March 15th, 1858._
+
+MY DEAREST MACREADY,
+
+I have safely received your cheque this morning, and will hand it over
+forthwith to the honorary secretary of the hospital. I hope you have
+read the little speech in the hospital's publication of it. They had it
+taken by their own shorthand-writer, and it is done verbatim.
+
+You may be sure that it is a good and kind charity. It is amazing to me
+that it is not at this day ten times as large and rich as it is. But I
+hope and trust that I have happily been able to give it a good thrust
+onward into a great course. We all send our most affectionate love to
+all the house. I am devising all sorts of things in my mind, and am in a
+state of energetic restlessness incomprehensible to the calm
+philosophers of Dorsetshire. What a dream it is, this work and strife,
+and how little we do in the dream after all! Only last night, in my
+sleep, I was bent upon getting over a perspective of barriers, with my
+hands and feet bound. Pretty much what we are all about, waking, I
+think?
+
+But, Lord! (as I said before) you smile pityingly, not bitterly, at this
+hubbub, and moralise upon it, in the calm evenings when there is no
+school at Sherborne.
+
+                                        Ever affectionately and truly.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mrs Hogge.[3]]
+
+              TAVISTOCK HOUSE, TAVISTOCK SQUARE, LONDON, W.C.,
+                                        _Wednesday, April 14th, 1858._
+
+MY DEAR MRS. HOGGE,
+
+After the profoundest cogitation, I come reluctantly to the conclusion
+that I do not know that orphan. If you were the lady in want of him, I
+should certainly offer _myself_. But as you are not, I will not hear of
+the situation.
+
+It is wonderful to think how many charming little people there must be,
+to whom this proposal would be like a revelation from Heaven. Why don't
+I know one, and come to Kensington, boy in hand, as if I had walked (I
+wish to God I had) out of a fairy tale! But no, I do _not_ know that
+orphan. He is crying somewhere, by himself, at this moment. I can't dry
+his eyes. He is being neglected by some ogress of a nurse. I can't
+rescue him.
+
+I will make a point of going to the Athenaeum on Monday night; and if I
+had five hundred votes to give, Mr. Macdonald should have them all, for
+your sake.
+
+I grieve to hear that you have been ill, but I hope that the spring,
+when it comes, will find you blooming with the rest of the flowers.
+
+                                                Very faithfully yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. Edmund Yates.]
+
+                  TAVISTOCK HOUSE, TAVISTOCK SQUARE, LONDON, W.C.,
+                                        _Wednesday, April 28th, 1858._
+
+MY DEAR YATES,
+
+For a good many years I have suffered a great deal from charities, but
+never anything like what I suffer now. The amount of correspondence they
+inflict upon me is really incredible. But this is nothing. Benevolent
+men get behind the piers of the gates, lying in wait for my going out;
+and when I peep shrinkingly from my study-windows, I see their
+pot-bellied shadows projected on the gravel. Benevolent bullies drive up
+in hansom cabs (with engraved portraits of their benevolent institutions
+hanging over the aprons, like banners on their outward walls), and stay
+long at the door. Benevolent area-sneaks get lost in the kitchens and
+are found to impede the circulation of the knife-cleaning machine. My
+man has been heard to say (at The Burton Arms) "that if it was a
+wicious place, well and good--_that_ an't door work; but that wen all
+the Christian wirtues is always a-shoulderin' and a-helberin' on you in
+the 'all, a-tryin' to git past you and cut upstairs into master's room,
+why no wages as you couldn't name wouldn't make it up to you."
+
+                                                     Persecuted ever.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mrs Yates.]
+
+(THE CHARMING ACTRESS, THE MOTHER OF MR. EDMUND YATES.)
+
+                       TAVISTOCK HOUSE, TAVISTOCK SQUARE, W.C.,
+                                    _Saturday Evening, May 15th, 1858._
+
+MY DEAR MRS. YATES,
+
+Pray believe that I was sorry with all my heart to miss you last
+Thursday, and to learn the occasion of your absence; also that, whenever
+you can come, your presence will give me a new interest in that evening.
+No one alive can have more delightful associations with the lightest
+sound of your voice than I have; and to give you a minute's interest and
+pleasure, in acknowledgment of the uncountable hours of happiness you
+gave me when you were a mysterious angel to me, would honestly gratify
+my heart.
+
+                                 Very faithfully and gratefully yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: M. de Cerjat.]
+
+                              GAD'S HILL, _Wednesday, July 7th, 1858._
+
+MY DEAR CERJAT,
+
+I should vainly try to tell you--so I _won't_ try--how affected I have
+been by your warm-hearted letter, or how thoroughly well convinced I
+always am of the truth and earnestness of your friendship. I thank you,
+my dear, dear fellow, with my whole soul. I fervently return that
+friendship and I highly cherish it.
+
+You want to know all about me? I am still reading in London every
+Thursday, and the audiences are very great, and the success immense. On
+the 2nd of August I am going away on a tour of some four months in
+England, Ireland, and Scotland. I shall read, during that time, not
+fewer than four or five times a week. It will be sharp work; but
+probably a certain musical clinking will come of it, which will mitigate
+the hardship.
+
+At this present moment I am on my little Kentish freehold (_not_ in
+top-boots, and not particularly prejudiced that I know of), looking on
+as pretty a view out of my study window as you will find in a long day's
+English ride. My little place is a grave red brick house (time of George
+the First, I suppose), which I have added to and stuck bits upon in all
+manner of ways, so that it is as pleasantly irregular, and as violently
+opposed to all architectural ideas, as the most hopeful man could
+possibly desire. It is on the summit of Gad's Hill. The robbery was
+committed before the door, on the man with the treasure, and Falstaff
+ran away from the identical spot of ground now covered by the room in
+which I write. A little rustic alehouse, called The Sir John Falstaff,
+is over the way--has been over the way, ever since, in honour of the
+event. Cobham Woods and Park are behind the house; the distant Thames in
+front; the Medway, with Rochester, and its old castle and cathedral, on
+one side. The whole stupendous property is on the old Dover Road, so
+when you come, come by the North Kent Railway (not the South-Eastern) to
+Strood or Higham, and I'll drive over to fetch you.
+
+The blessed woods and fields have done me a world of good, and I am
+quite myself again. The children are all as happy as children can be. My
+eldest daughter, Mary, keeps house, with a state and gravity becoming
+that high position; wherein she is assisted by her sister Katie, and by
+her aunt Georgina, who is, and always has been, like another sister. Two
+big dogs, a bloodhound and a St. Bernard, direct from a convent of that
+name, where I think you once were, are their principal attendants in the
+green lanes. These latter instantly untie the neckerchiefs of all tramps
+and prowlers who approach their presence, so that they wander about
+without any escort, and drive big horses in basket-phaetons through
+murderous bye-ways, and never come to grief. They are very curious about
+your daughters, and send all kinds of loves to them and to Mrs. Cerjat,
+in which I heartily join.
+
+You will have read in the papers that the Thames in London is most horrible.
+I have to cross Waterloo or London Bridge to get to the railroad when I
+come down here, and I can certify that the offensive smells, even in
+that short whiff, have been of a most head-and-stomach-distending
+nature. Nobody knows what is to be done; at least everybody knows a
+plan, and everybody else knows it won't do; in the meantime cartloads of
+chloride of lime are shot into the filthy stream, and do something I
+hope. You will know, before you get this, that the American telegraph
+line has parted again, at which most men are sorry, but very few
+surprised. This is all the news, except that there is an Italian Opera
+at Drury Lane, price eighteenpence to the pit, where Viardot, by far the
+greatest artist of them all, sings, and which is full when the dear
+opera can't let a box; and except that the weather has been
+exceptionally hot, but is now quite cool. On the top of this hill it has
+been cold, actually cold at night, for more than a week past.
+
+I am going over to Rochester to post this letter, and must write another
+to Townshend before I go. My dear Cerjat, I have written lightly
+enough, because I want you to know that I am becoming cheerful and
+hearty. God bless you! I love you, and I know that you love me.
+
+                                  Ever your attached and affectionate.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Hogarth.]
+
+                       WEST HOE, PLYMOUTH, _Thursday, Aug. 5th, 1858._
+
+MY DEAREST GEORGY,
+
+I received your letter this morning with the greatest pleasure, and read
+it with the utmost interest in all its domestic details.
+
+We had a most wonderful night at Exeter. It is to be regretted that we
+cannot take the place again on our way back. It was a prodigious cram,
+and we turned away no end of people. But not only that, I think they
+were the finest audience I have ever read to. I don't think I ever read,
+in some respects, so well; and I never beheld anything like the personal
+affection which they poured out upon me at the end. It was really a very
+remarkable sight, and I shall always look back upon it with pleasure.
+
+Last night here was not so bright. There are quarrels of the strangest
+kind between the Plymouth people and the Stonehouse people. The room is
+at Stonehouse (Tracy says the wrong room; there being a Plymouth room in
+this hotel, and he being a Plymouthite). We had a fair house, but not at
+all a great one. All the notabilities come this morning to "Little
+Dombey," for which we have let one hundred and thirty stalls, which
+local admiration of local greatness considers very large. For "Mrs. Gamp
+and the Boots," to-night, we have also a very promising let. But the
+races are on, and there are two public balls to-night, and the yacht
+squadron are all at Cherbourg to boot. Arthur is of opinion that "Two
+Sixties" will do very well for us. I doubt the "Two Sixties" myself.
+_Mais nous verrons._
+
+The room is a very handsome one, but it is on the top of a windy and
+muddy hill, leading (literally) to nowhere; and it looks (except that it
+is new and _mortary_) as if the subsidence of the waters after the
+Deluge might have left it where it is. I have to go right through the
+company to get to the platform. Big doors slam and resound when anybody
+comes in; and all the company seem afraid of one another. Nevertheless
+they were a sensible audience last night, and much impressed and
+pleased.
+
+Tracy is in the room (wandering about, and never finishing a sentence),
+and sends all manner of sea-loves to you and the dear girls. I send all
+manner of land-loves to you from myself, out of my heart of hearts, and
+also to my dear Plorn and the boys.
+
+Arthur sends his kindest love. He knows only two characters. He is
+either always corresponding, like a Secretary of State, or he is
+transformed into a rout-furniture dealer of Rathbone Place, and drags
+forms about with the greatest violence, without his coat.
+
+I have no time to add another word.
+
+                         Ever, dearest Georgy, your most affectionate.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Dickens.]
+
+                                   LONDON, _Saturday, Aug. 7th, 1858._
+
+MY DEAREST MAMEY,
+
+The closing night at Plymouth was a very great scene, and the morning
+there was exceedingly good too. You will be glad to hear that at Clifton
+last night, a torrent of five hundred shillings bore Arthur away,
+pounded him against the wall, flowed on to the seats over his body,
+scratched him, and damaged his best dress suit. All to his unspeakable
+joy.
+
+This is a very short letter, but I am going to the Burlington Arcade,
+desperately resolved to have all those wonderful instruments put into
+operation on my head, with a view to refreshing it.
+
+Kindest love to Georgy and to all.
+
+                                               Ever your affectionate.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Dickens.]
+
+                              SHREWSBURY, _Thursday, Aug. 12th, 1858._
+
+A wonderful audience last night at Wolverhampton. If such a thing can
+be, they were even quicker and more intelligent than the audience I had
+in Edinburgh. They were so wonderfully good and were so much on the
+alert this morning by nine o'clock for another reading, that we are
+going back there at about our Bradford time. I never saw such people.
+And the local agent would take no money, and charge no expenses of his
+own.
+
+This place looks what Plorn would call "ortily" dull. Local agent
+predicts, however, "great satisfaction to Mr. Dickens, and excellent
+attendance." I have just been to look at the hall, where everything was
+wrong, and where I have left Arthur making a platform for me out of
+dining-tables.
+
+If he comes back in time, I am not quite sure but that he is himself
+going to write to Gad's Hill. We talk of coming up from Chester _in the
+night to-morrow, after the reading_; and of showing our precious selves
+at an apparently impossibly early hour in the Gad's Hill breakfast-room
+on Saturday morning.
+
+I have not felt the fatigue to any extent worth mentioning; though I
+get, every night, into the most violent heats. We are going to dine at
+three o'clock (it wants a quarter now) and have not been here two
+hours, so I have seen nothing of Clement.
+
+Tell Georgy with my love, that I read in the same room in which we
+acted, but at the end opposite to that where our stage was. We are not
+at the inn where the amateur company put up, but at The Lion, where the
+fair Miss Mitchell was lodged alone. We have the strangest little rooms
+(sitting-room and two bed-rooms all together), the ceilings of which I
+can touch with my hand. The windows bulge out over the street, as if
+they were little stern-windows in a ship. And a door opens out of the
+sitting-room on to a little open gallery with plants in it, where one
+leans over a queer old rail, and looks all downhill and slant-wise at
+the crookedest black and yellow old houses, all manner of shapes except
+straight shapes. To get into this room we come through a china closet;
+and the man in laying the cloth has actually knocked down, in that
+repository, two geraniums and Napoleon Bonaparte.
+
+I think that's all I have to say, except that at the Wolverhampton
+theatre they played "Oliver Twist" last night (Mr. Toole the Artful
+Dodger), "in consequence of the illustrious author honouring the town
+with his presence." We heard that the device succeeded very well, and
+that they got a good many people.
+
+John's spirits have been equable and good since we rejoined him. Berry
+has always got something the matter with his digestion--seems to me the
+male gender of Maria Jolly, and ought to take nothing but Revalenta
+Arabica. Bottled ale is not to be got in these parts, and Arthur is
+thrown upon draught.
+
+My dearest love to Georgy and to Katey, also to Marguerite. Also to all
+the boys and the noble Plorn.
+
+                                        Ever your affectionate Father.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Hogarth.]
+
+                TAVISTOCK HOUSE, TAVISTOCK SQUARE, LONDON, W.C.,
+                                 _Wednesday Morning, Aug. 18th, 1858._
+
+I write this hurried line before starting, to report that my cold is
+decidedly better, thank God (though still bad), and that I hope to be
+able to stagger through to-night. After dinner yesterday I began to
+recover my voice, and I think I sang half the Irish Melodies to myself,
+as I walked about to test it. I got home at half-past ten, and
+mustard-poulticed and barley-watered myself tremendously.
+
+Love to the dear girls, and to all.
+
+                                                  Ever affectionately.
+
+
+[Sidenote: The same.]
+
+            ADELPHI HOTEL, LIVERPOOL, _Friday Night, Aug. 20th, 1858._
+
+I received your welcome and interesting letter to-day, and I write you a
+very hurried and bad reply; but it is _after the reading_, and you will
+take the will for the deed under these trying circumstances, I know.
+
+We have had a tremendous night; the largest house I have ever had since
+I first began--two thousand three hundred people. To-morrow afternoon,
+at three, I read again.
+
+My cold has been oppressive, and is not yet gone. I have been very hard
+to sleep too, and last night I was all but sleepless. This morning I was
+very dull and seedy; but I got a good walk, and picked up again. It has
+been blowing all day, and I fear we shall have a sick passage over to
+Dublin to-morrow night.
+
+Tell Mamie (with my dear love to her and Katie) that I will write to her
+from Dublin--probably on Sunday. Tell her too that the stories she told
+me in her letter were not only capital stories in themselves, but
+_excellently told_ too.
+
+What Arthur's state has been to-night--he, John, Berry, and Boylett, all
+taking money and going mad together--you _cannot_ imagine. They turned
+away hundreds, sold all the books, rolled on the ground of my room
+knee-deep in checks, and made a perfect pantomime of the whole thing. He
+has kept quite well, I am happy to say, and sends a hundred loves.
+
+In great haste and fatigue.
+
+                                                  Ever affectionately.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Dickens.]
+
+                  MORRISON'S HOTEL, DUBLIN, _Monday, Aug. 23rd, 1858._
+
+We had a nasty crossing here. We left Holyhead at one in the morning,
+and got here at six. Arthur was incessantly sick the whole way. I was
+not sick at all, but was in as healthy a condition otherwise as humanity
+need be. We are in a beautiful hotel. Our sitting-room is exactly like
+the drawing-room at the Peschiere in all its dimensions. I never saw two
+rooms so exactly resembling one another in their proportions. Our
+bedrooms too are excellent, and there are baths and all sorts of
+comforts.
+
+The Lord Lieutenant is away, and the place looks to me as if its
+professional life were away too. Nevertheless, there are numbers of
+people in the streets. Somehow, I hardly seem to think we are going to
+do enormously here; but I have scarcely any reason for supposing so
+(except that a good many houses are shut up); and I _know_ nothing about
+it, for Arthur is now gone to the agent and to the room. The men came by
+boat direct from Liverpool. They had a rough passage, were all ill, and
+did not get here till noon yesterday. Donnybrook Fair, or what remains
+of it, is going on, within two or three miles of Dublin. They went out
+there yesterday in a jaunting-car, and John described it to us at
+dinner-time (with his eyebrows lifted up, and his legs well asunder), as
+"Johnny Brooks's Fair;" at which Arthur, who was drinking bitter ale,
+nearly laughed himself to death. Berry is always unfortunate, and when I
+asked what had happened to Berry on board the steamboat, it appeared
+that "an Irish gentleman which was drunk, and fancied himself the
+captain, wanted to knock Berry down."
+
+I am surprised by finding this place very much larger than I had
+supposed it to be. Its bye-parts are bad enough, but cleaner, too, than
+I had supposed them to be, and certainly very much cleaner than the old
+town of Edinburgh. The man who drove our jaunting-car yesterday hadn't a
+piece in his coat as big as a penny roll, and had had his hat on
+(apparently without brushing it) ever since he was grown up. But he was
+remarkably intelligent and agreeable, with something to say about
+everything. For instance, when I asked him what a certain building was,
+he didn't say "courts of law" and nothing else, but: "Av you plase, sir,
+it's the foor coorts o' looyers, where Misther O'Connell stood his trial
+wunst, ye'll remimber, sir, afore I tell ye of it." When we got into the
+Phoenix Park, he looked round him as if it were his own, and said:
+"THAT'S a park, sir, av yer plase." I complimented it, and he said:
+"Gintlemen tills me as they'r bin, sir, over Europe, and never see a
+park aqualling ov it. 'Tis eight mile roond, sir, ten mile and a half
+long, and in the month of May the hawthorn trees are as beautiful as
+brides with their white jewels on. Yonder's the vice-regal lodge, sir;
+in them two corners lives the two sicretirries, wishing I was them, sir.
+There's air here, sir, av yer plase! There's scenery here, sir! There's
+mountains--thim, sir! Yer coonsider it a park, sir? It is that, sir!"
+
+You should have heard John in my bedroom this morning endeavouring to
+imitate a bath-man, who had resented his interference, and had said as
+to the shower-bath: "Yer'll not be touching _that_, young man. Divil a
+touch yer'll touch o' that insthrument, young man!" It was more
+ridiculously unlike the reality than I can express to you, yet he was so
+delighted with his powers that he went off in the absurdest little
+gingerbeery giggle, backing into my portmanteau all the time.
+
+My dear love to Katie and to Georgy, also to the noble Plorn and all the
+boys. I shall write to Katie next, and then to Aunty. My cold, I am
+happy to report, is very much better. I lay in the wet all night on
+deck, on board the boat, but am not as yet any the worse for it. Arthur
+was quite insensible when we got to Dublin, and stared at our luggage
+without in the least offering to claim it. He left his kindest love for
+all before he went out. I will keep the envelope open until he comes in.
+
+                             Ever, my dearest Mamie,
+                                        Your most affectionate Father.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Hogarth.]
+
+               MORRISON'S HOTEL, DUBLIN, _Wednesday, Aug. 25th, 1858._
+
+I begin my letter to you to-day, though I don't know when I may send it
+off. We had a very good house last night, after all, that is to say, a
+great rush of shillings and good half-crowns, though the stalls were
+comparatively few. For "Little Dombey," this morning, we have an immense
+stall let--already more than two hundred--and people are now fighting in
+the agent's shop to take more. Through some mistake of our printer's,
+the evening reading for this present Wednesday was dropped, in a great
+part of the announcements, and the agent opened no plan for it. I have
+therefore resolved not to have it at all. Arthur Smith has waylaid me
+in all manner of ways, but I remain obdurate. I am frightfully tired,
+and really relieved by the prospect of an evening--overjoyed.
+
+They were a highly excitable audience last night, but they certainly did
+not comprehend--internally and intellectually comprehend--"The Chimes"
+as a London audience do. I am quite sure of it. I very much doubt the
+Irish capacity of receiving the pathetic; but of their quickness as to
+the humorous there can be no doubt. I shall see how they go along with
+Little Paul, in his death, presently.
+
+While I was at breakfast this morning, a general officer was announced
+with great state--having a staff at the door--and came in, booted and
+plumed, and covered with Crimean decorations. It was Cunninghame, whom
+we knew in Genoa--then a captain. He was very hearty indeed, and came to
+ask me to dinner. Of course I couldn't go. Olliffe has a brother at
+Cork, who has just now (noon) written to me, proposing dinners and
+excursions in that neighbourhood which would fill about a week; I being
+there a day and a half, and reading three times. The work will be very
+severe here, and I begin to feel depressed by it. (By "here," I mean
+Ireland generally, please to observe.)
+
+We meant, as I said in a letter to Katie, to go to Queenstown yesterday
+and bask on the seashore. But there is always so much to do that we
+couldn't manage it after all. We expect a tremendous house to-morrow
+night as well as to-day; and Arthur is at the present instant up to his
+eyes in business (and seats), and, between his regret at losing
+to-night, and his desire to make the room hold twice as many as it
+_will_ hold, is half distracted. I have become a wonderful
+Irishman--must play an Irish part some day--and his only relaxation is
+when I enact "John and the Boots," which I consequently do enact all day
+long. The papers are full of remarks upon my white tie, and describe it
+as being of enormous size, which is a wonderful delusion, because, as
+you very well know, it is a small tie. Generally, I am happy to report,
+the Emerald press is in favour of my appearance, and likes my eyes. But
+one gentleman comes out with a letter at Cork, wherein he says that
+although only forty-six I look like an old man. _He_ is a rum customer,
+I think.
+
+The Rutherfords are living here, and wanted me to dine with them, which,
+I needn't say, could not be done; all manner of people have called, but
+I have seen only two. John has given it up altogether as to rivalry with
+the Boots, and did not come into my room this morning at all. Boots
+appeared triumphant and alone. He was waiting for me at the hotel-door
+last night. "Whaa't sart of a hoose, sur?" he asked me. "Capital." "The
+Lard be praised fur the 'onor o' Dooblin!"
+
+Arthur buys bad apples in the streets and brings them home and doesn't
+eat them, and then I am obliged to put them in the balcony because they
+make the room smell faint. Also he meets countrymen with honeycomb on
+their heads, and leads them (by the buttonhole when they have one) to
+this gorgeous establishment and requests the bar to buy honeycomb for
+his breakfast; then it stands upon the sideboard uncovered and the flies
+fall into it. He buys owls, too, and castles, and other horrible
+objects, made in bog-oak (that material which is not appreciated at
+Gad's Hill); and he is perpetually snipping pieces out of newspapers and
+sending them all over the world. While I am reading he conducts the
+correspondence, and his great delight is to show me seventeen or
+eighteen letters when I come, exhausted, into the retiring-place. Berry
+has not got into any particular trouble for forty-eight hours, except
+that he is all over boils. I have prescribed the yeast, but
+ineffectually. It is indeed a sight to see him and John sitting in
+pay-boxes, and surveying Ireland out of pigeon-holes.
+
+                                       _Same Evening before Bed-time._
+
+Everybody was at "Little Dombey" to-day, and although I had some little
+difficulty to work them up in consequence of the excessive crowding of
+the place, and the difficulty of shaking the people into their seats,
+the effect was unmistakable and profound. The crying was universal, and
+they were extraordinarily affected. There is no doubt we could stay here
+a week with that one reading, and fill the place every night. Hundreds
+of people have been there to-night, under the impression that it would
+come off again. It was a most decided and complete success.
+
+Arthur has been imploring me to stop here on the Friday after Limerick,
+and read "Little Dombey" again. But I have positively said "No." The
+work is too hard. It is not like doing it in one easy room, and always
+the same room. With a different place every night, and a different
+audience with its own peculiarity every night, it is a tremendous
+strain. I was sick of it to-day before I began, then got myself into
+wonderful train.
+
+Here follows a dialogue (but it requires imitation), which I had
+yesterday morning with a little boy of the house--landlord's son, I
+suppose--about Plorn's age. I am sitting on the sofa writing, and find
+him sitting beside me.
+
+        INIMITABLE. Holloa, old chap.
+
+        YOUNG IRELAND. Hal-loo!
+
+        INIMITABLE (_in his delightful way_). What a
+        nice old fellow you are. I am very fond of
+        little boys.
+
+        YOUNG IRELAND. Air yer? Ye'r right.
+
+        INIMITABLE. What do you learn, old fellow?
+
+        YOUNG IRELAND (_very intent on Inimitable, and
+        always childish, except in his brogue_). I
+        lairn wureds of three sillibils, and wureds of
+        two sillibils, and wureds of one sillibil.
+
+        INIMITABLE (_gaily_). Get out, you humbug! You
+        learn only words of one syllable.
+
+        YOUNG IRELAND (_laughs heartily_). You may say
+        that it is mostly wureds of one sillibil.
+
+        INIMITABLE. Can you write?
+
+        YOUNG IRELAND. Not yet. Things comes by
+        deegrays.
+
+        INIMITABLE. Can you cipher?
+
+        YOUNG IRELAND (_very quickly_). Wha'at's that?
+
+        INIMITABLE. Can you make figures?
+
+        YOUNG IRELAND. I can make a nought, which is
+        not asy, being roond.
+
+        INIMITABLE. I say, old boy, wasn't it you I saw
+        on Sunday morning in the hall, in a soldier's
+        cap? You know--in a soldier's cap?
+
+        YOUNG IRELAND (_cogitating deeply_). Was it a
+        very good cap?
+
+        INIMITABLE. Yes.
+
+        YOUNG IRELAND. Did it fit unkommon?
+
+        INIMITABLE. Yes.
+
+        YOUNG IRELAND. Dat was me!
+
+There are two stupid old louts at the room, to show people into their
+places, whom John calls "them two old Paddies," and of whom he says,
+that he "never see nothing like them (snigger) hold idiots" (snigger).
+They bow and walk backwards before the grandees, and our men hustle them
+while they are doing it.
+
+We walked out last night, with the intention of going to the theatre;
+but the Piccolomini establishment (they were doing the "Lucia") looked
+so horribly like a very bad jail, and the Queen's looked so
+blackguardly, that we came back again, and went to bed. I seem to be
+always either in a railway carriage, or reading, or going to bed. I get
+so knocked up, whenever I have a minute to remember it, that then I go
+to bed as a matter of course.
+
+I send my love to the noble Plorn, and to all the boys. To dear Mamie
+and Katie, and to yourself of course, in the first degree. I am looking
+forward to the last Irish reading on Thursday, with great impatience.
+But when we shall have turned this week, once knocked off Belfast, I
+shall see land, and shall (like poor Timber in the days of old) "keep up
+a good heart." I get so wonderfully hot every night in my dress clothes,
+that they positively won't dry in the short interval they get, and I
+have been obliged to write to Doudney's to make me another suit, that I
+may have a constant change.
+
+                         Ever, my dearest Georgy, most affectionately.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Dickens.]
+
+                                 BELFAST, _Saturday, Aug. 28th, 1858._
+
+When I went down to the Rotunda at Dublin on Thursday night, I said to
+Arthur, who came rushing at me: "You needn't tell me. I know all about
+it." The moment I had come out of the door of the hotel (a mile off), I
+had come against the stream of people turned away. I had struggled
+against it to the room. There, the crowd in all the lobbies and passages
+was so great, that I had a difficulty in getting in. They had broken all
+the glass in the pay-boxes. They had offered frantic prices for stalls.
+Eleven bank-notes were thrust into that pay-box (Arthur saw them) at one
+time, for eleven stalls. Our men were flattened against walls, and
+squeezed against beams. Ladies stood all night with their chins against
+my platform. Other ladies sat all night upon my steps. You never saw
+such a sight. And the reading went tremendously! It is much to be
+regretted that we troubled ourselves to go anywhere else in Ireland. We
+turned away people enough to make immense houses for a week.
+
+We arrived here yesterday at two. The room will not hold more than from
+eighty to ninety pounds. The same scene was repeated with the additional
+feature, that the people are much rougher here than in Dublin, and that
+there was a very great uproar at the opening of the doors, which, the
+police in attendance being quite inefficient and only looking on, it was
+impossible to check. Arthur was in the deepest misery because shillings
+got into stalls, and half-crowns got into shillings, and stalls got
+nowhere, and there was immense confusion. It ceased, however, the moment
+I showed myself; and all went most brilliantly, in spite of a great
+piece of the cornice of the ceiling falling with a great crash within
+four or five inches of the head of a young lady on my platform (I was
+obliged to have people there), and in spite of my gas suddenly going out
+at the time of the game of forfeits at Scrooge's nephew's, through some
+Belfastian gentleman accidentally treading on the flexible pipe, and
+needing to be relighted.
+
+We shall not get to Cork before mid-day on Monday; it being difficult to
+get from here on a Sunday. We hope to be able to start away to-morrow
+morning to see the Giant's Causeway (some sixteen miles off), and in
+that case we shall sleep at Dublin to-morrow night, leaving here by the
+train at half-past three in the afternoon. Dublin, you must understand,
+is on the way to Cork. This is a fine place, surrounded by lofty hills.
+The streets are very wide, and the place is very prosperous. The whole
+ride from Dublin here is through a very picturesque and various country;
+and the amazing thing is, that it is all particularly neat and orderly,
+and that the houses (outside at all events) are all brightly whitewashed
+and remarkably clean. I want to climb one of the neighbouring hills
+before this morning's "Dombey." I am now waiting for Arthur, who has
+gone to the bank to remit his last accumulation of treasure to London.
+
+Our men are rather indignant with the Irish crowds, because in the
+struggle they don't sell books, and because, in the pressure, they can't
+force a way into the room afterwards to sell them. They are deeply
+interested in the success, however, and are as zealous and ardent as
+possible. I shall write to Katie next. Give her my best love, and kiss
+the darling Plorn for me, and give my love to all the boys.
+
+                       Ever, my dearest Mamie,
+                                        Your most affectionate Father.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Hogarth.]
+
+            MORRISON'S HOTEL, DUBLIN, _Sunday Night, Aug. 29th, 1858._
+
+I am so delighted to find your letter here to-night (eleven o'clock),
+and so afraid that, in the wear and tear of this strange life, I have
+written to Gad's Hill in the wrong order, and have not written to you,
+as I should, that I resolve to write this before going to bed. You will
+find it a wretchedly stupid letter; but you may imagine, my dearest
+girl, that I am tired.
+
+The success at Belfast has been equal to the success here. Enormous! We
+turned away half the town. I think them a better audience, on the whole,
+than Dublin; and the personal affection there was something
+overwhelming. I wish you and the dear girls could have seen the people
+look at me in the street; or heard them ask me, as I hurried to the
+hotel after reading last night, to "do me the honour to shake hands,
+Misther Dickens, and God bless you, sir; not ounly for the light you've
+been to me this night, but for the light you've been in mee house, sir
+(and God love your face), this many a year." Every night, by-the-bye,
+since I have been in Ireland, the ladies have beguiled John out of the
+bouquet from my coat. And yesterday morning, as I had showered the
+leaves from my geranium in reading "Little Dombey," they mounted the
+platform, after I was gone, and picked them all up as keepsakes!
+
+I have never seen _men_ go in to cry so undisguisedly as they did at
+that reading yesterday afternoon. They made no attempt whatever to hide
+it, and certainly cried more than the women. As to the "Boots" at night,
+and "Mrs. Gamp" too, it was just one roar with me and them; for they
+made me laugh so that sometimes I _could not_ compose my face to go on.
+
+You must not let the new idea of poor dear Landor efface the former
+image of the fine old man. I wouldn't blot him out, in his tender
+gallantry, as he sat upon that bed at Forster's that night, for a
+million of wild mistakes at eighty years of age.
+
+I hope to be at Tavistock House before five o'clock next Saturday
+morning, and to lie in bed half the day, and come home by the 10.50 on
+Sunday.
+
+Tell the girls that Arthur and I have each ordered at Belfast a trim,
+sparkling, slap-up _Irish jaunting-car_!!! I flatter myself we shall
+astonish the Kentish people. It is the oddest carriage in the world, and
+you are always falling off. But it is gay and bright in the highest
+degree. Wonderfully Neapolitan.
+
+What with a sixteen mile ride before we left Belfast, and a sea-beach
+walk, and a two o'clock dinner, and a seven hours' railway ride since, I
+am--as we say here--"a thrifle weary." But I really am in wonderful
+force, considering the work. For which I am, as I ought to be, very
+thankful.
+
+Arthur was exceedingly unwell last night--could not cheer up at all. He
+was so very unwell that he left the hall(!) and became invisible after
+my five minutes' rest. I found him at the hotel in a jacket and
+slippers, and with a hot bath just ready. He was in the last stage of
+prostration. The local agent was with me, and proposed that he (the
+wretched Arthur) should go to his office and balance the accounts then
+and there. He went, in the jacket and slippers, and came back in twenty
+minutes, _perfectly well_, in consequence of the admirable balance. He
+is now sitting opposite to me ON THE BAG OF SILVER, forty pounds (it
+must be dreadfully hard), writing to Boulogne.
+
+I suppose it is clear that the next letter I write is Katie's. Either
+from Cork or from Limerick, it shall report further. At Limerick I read
+in the theatre, there being no other place.
+
+Best love to Mamie and Katie, and dear Plorn, and all the boys left when
+this comes to Gad's Hill; also to my dear good Anne, and her little
+woman.
+
+                                                  Ever affectionately.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. W. Wilkie Collins.]
+
+                      GAD'S HILL PLACE, HIGHAM BY ROCHESTER, KENT,
+                                            _Monday, Sept. 6th, 1858._
+
+MY DEAR WILKIE,
+
+First, let me report myself here for something less than eight-and-forty
+hours. I come last (and direct--a pretty hard journey) from Limerick.
+The success in Ireland has been immense.
+
+The work is very hard, sometimes overpowering; but I am none the worse
+for it, and arrived here quite fresh.
+
+Secondly, will you let me recommend the enclosed letter from Wigan, as
+the groundwork of a capital article, in your way, for H. W.? There is
+not the least objection to a plain reference to him, or to Phelps, to
+whom the same thing happened a year or two ago, near Islington, in the
+case of a clever and capital little daughter of his. I think it a
+capital opportunity for a discourse on gentility, with a glance at those
+other schools which advertise that the "sons of gentlemen only" are
+admitted, and a just recognition of the greater liberality of our public
+schools. There are tradesmen's sons at Eton, and Charles Kean was at
+Eton, and Macready (also an actor's son) was at Rugby. Some such title
+as "Scholastic Flunkeydom," or anything infinitely contemptuous, would
+help out the meaning. Surely such a schoolmaster must swallow all the
+silver forks that the pupils are expected to take when they come, and
+are not expected to take away with them when they go. And of course he
+could not exist, unless he had flunkey customers by the dozen.
+
+Secondly--no, this is thirdly now--about the Christmas number. I have
+arranged so to stop my readings, as to be available for it on _the 15th
+of November_, which will leave me time to write a good article, if I
+clear my way to one. Do you see your way to our making a Christmas
+number of this idea that I am going very briefly to hint? Some
+disappointed person, man or woman, prematurely disgusted with the world,
+for some reason or no reason (the person should be young, I think)
+retires to an old lonely house, or an old lonely mill, or anything you
+like, with one attendant, resolved to shut out the world, and hold no
+communion with it. The one attendant sees the absurdity of the idea,
+pretends to humour it, but really thus to slaughter it. Everything that
+happens, everybody that comes near, every breath of human interest that
+floats into the old place from the village, or the heath, or the four
+cross-roads near which it stands, and from which belated travellers
+stray into it, shows beyond mistake that you can't shut out the world;
+that you are in it, to be of it; that you get into a false position the
+moment you try to sever yourself from it; and that you must mingle with
+it, and make the best of it, and make the best of yourself into the
+bargain.
+
+If we could plot out a way of doing this together, I would not be afraid
+to take my part. If we could not, could we plot out a way of doing it,
+and taking in stories by other hands? If we could not do either (but I
+think we could), shall we fall back upon a round of stories again? That
+I would rather not do, if possible. Will you think about it?
+
+And can you come and dine at Tavistock House _on Monday, the 20th
+September, at half-past five_? I purpose being at home there with the
+girls that day.
+
+Answer this, according to my printed list for the week. I am off to
+Huddersfield on Wednesday morning.
+
+I think I will now leave off; merely adding that I have got a splendid
+brogue (it really is exactly like the people), and that I think of
+coming out as the only legitimate successor of poor Power.
+
+                           Ever, my dear Wilkie, affectionately yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Mary Boyle.]
+
+                      STATION HOTEL, YORK, _Friday, Sept. 10th, 1858._
+
+DEAREST MEERY,
+
+First let me tell you that all the magicians and spirits in your employ
+have fulfilled the instructions of their wondrous mistress to
+admiration. Flowers have fallen in my path wherever I have trod; and
+when they rained upon me at Cork I was more amazed than you ever saw me.
+
+Secondly, receive my hearty and loving thanks for that same. (Excuse a
+little Irish in the turn of that sentence, but I can't help it).
+
+Thirdly, I have written direct to Mr. Boddington, explaining that I am
+bound to be in Edinburgh on the day when he courteously proposes to do
+me honour.
+
+I really cannot tell you how truly and tenderly I feel your letter, and
+how gratified I am by its contents. Your truth and attachment are
+always so precious to me that I can_not_ get my heart out on my sleeve
+to show it you. It is like a child, and, at the sound of some familiar
+voices, "goes and hides."
+
+You know what an affection I have for Mrs. Watson, and how happy it made
+me to see her again--younger, much, than when I first knew her in
+Switzerland.
+
+God bless you always!
+
+                                            Ever affectionately yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Hogarth.]
+
+                 ROYAL HOTEL, SCARBOROUGH, _Sunday, Sept. 11th, 1858._
+
+MY DEAREST GEORGY,
+
+We had a very fine house indeed at York. All kinds of applications have
+been made for another reading there, and no doubt it would be
+exceedingly productive; but it cannot be done. At Harrogate yesterday;
+the queerest place, with the strangest people in it, leading the oddest
+lives of dancing, newspaper reading, and tables d'hote. The piety of
+York obliging us to leave that place for this at six this morning, and
+there being no night train from Harrogate, we had to engage a special
+engine. We got to bed at one, and were up again before five; which,
+after yesterday's fatigues, leaves me a little worn out at this present.
+
+I have no accounts of this place as yet, nor have I received any letter
+here. But the post of this morning is not yet delivered, I believe. We
+have a charming room, overlooking the sea. Leech is here (living within
+a few doors), with the partner of his bosom, and his young family. I
+write at ten in the morning, having been here two hours; and you will
+readily suppose that I have not seen him.
+
+Of news, I have not the faintest breath. I seem to have been doing
+nothing all my life but riding in railway-carriages and reading. The
+railway of the morning brought us through Castle Howard, and under the
+woods of Easthorpe, and then just below Malton Abbey, where I went to
+poor Smithson's funeral. It was a most lovely morning, and, tired as I
+was, I couldn't sleep for looking out of window.
+
+Yesterday, at Harrogate, two circumstances occurred which gave Arthur
+great delight. Firstly, he chafed his legs sore with his black bag of
+silver. Secondly, the landlord asked him as a favour, "If he could
+oblige him with a little silver." He obliged him directly with some
+forty pounds' worth; and I suspect the landlord to have repented of
+having approached the subject. After the reading last night we walked
+over the moor to the railway, three miles, leaving our men to follow
+with the luggage in a light cart. They passed us just short of the
+railway, and John was making the night hideous and terrifying the
+sleeping country, by _playing the horn_ in prodigiously horrible and
+unmusical blasts.
+
+My dearest love, of course, to the dear girls, and to the noble Plorn.
+Apropos of children, there was one gentleman at the "Little Dombey"
+yesterday morning, who exhibited, or rather concealed, the profoundest
+grief. After crying a good deal without hiding it, he covered his face
+with both his hands, and laid it down on the back of the seat before
+him, and really shook with emotion. He was not in mourning, but I
+supposed him to have lost some child in old time. There was a remarkably
+good fellow of thirty or so, too, who found something so very ludicrous
+in "Toots," that he _could not_ compose himself at all, but laughed
+until he sat wiping his eyes with his handkerchief. And whenever he felt
+"Toots" coming again he began to laugh and wipe his eyes afresh, and
+when he came he gave a kind of cry, as if it were too much for him. It
+was uncommonly droll, and made me laugh heartily.
+
+                            Ever, dear Georgy, your most affectionate.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Dickens.]
+
+               SCARBOROUGH ARMS, LEEDS, _Wednesday, Sept. 15th, 1858._
+
+MY DEAREST MAMIE,
+
+I have added a pound to the cheque. I would recommend your seeing the
+poor railway man again and giving him ten shillings, and telling him to
+let you see him again in about a week. If he be then still unable to
+lift weights and handle heavy things, I would then give him another ten
+shillings, and so on.
+
+Since I wrote to Georgy from Scarborough, we have had, thank God,
+nothing but success. The Hull people (not generally considered
+excitable, even on their own showing) were so enthusiastic, that we were
+obliged to promise to go back there for two readings. I have positively
+resolved not to lengthen out the time of my tour, so we are now
+arranging to drop some small places, and substitute Hull again and York
+again. But you will perhaps have heard this in the main from Arthur. I
+know he wrote to you after the reading last night. This place I have
+always doubted, knowing that we should come here when it was recovering
+from the double excitement of the festival and the Queen. But there is a
+very large hall let indeed, and the prospect of to-night consequently
+looks bright.
+
+Arthur told you, I suppose, that he had his shirt-front and waistcoat
+torn off last night? He was perfectly enraptured in consequence. Our men
+got so knocked about that he gave them five shillings apiece on the
+spot. John passed several minutes upside down against a wall, with his
+head amongst the people's boots. He came out of the difficulty in an
+exceedingly touzled condition, and with his face much flushed. For all
+this, and their being packed as you may conceive they would be packed,
+they settled down the instant I went in, and never wavered in the
+closest attention for an instant. It was a very high room, and required
+a great effort.
+
+Oddly enough, I slept in this house three days last year with Wilkie.
+Arthur has the bedroom I occupied then, and I have one two doors from
+it, and Gordon has the one between. Not only is he still with us, but he
+_has_ talked of going on to Manchester, going on to London, and coming
+back with us to Darlington next Tuesday!!!
+
+These streets look like a great circus with the season just finished.
+All sorts of garish triumphal arches were put up for the Queen, and they
+have got smoky, and have been looked out of countenance by the sun, and
+are blistered and patchy, and half up and half down, and are hideous to
+behold. Spiritless men (evidently drunk for some time in the royal
+honour) are slowly removing them, and on the whole it is more like the
+clearing away of "The Frozen Deep" at Tavistock House than anything
+within your knowledge--with the exception that we are not in the least
+sorry, as we were then. Vague ideas are in Arthur's head that when we
+come back to Hull, we are to come here, and are to have the Town Hall (a
+beautiful building), and read to the million. I can't say yet. That
+depends. I remember that when I was here before (I came from Rockingham
+to make a speech), I thought them a dull and slow audience. I hope I may
+have been mistaken. I never saw better audiences than the Yorkshire
+audiences generally.
+
+I am so perpetually at work or asleep, that I have not a scrap of news.
+I saw the Leech family at Scarboro', both in my own house (that is to
+say, hotel) and in theirs. They were not at either reading. Scarboro' is
+gay and pretty, and I think Gordon had an idea that we were always at
+some such place.
+
+Kiss the darling Plorn for me, and give him my love; dear Katie too,
+giving her the same. I feel sorry that I cannot get down to Gad's Hill
+this next time, but I shall look forward to our being there with Georgy,
+after Scotland. Tell the servants that I remember them, and hope they
+will live with us many years.
+
+                              Ever, my dearest Mamie,
+                                        Your most affectionate Father.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Hogarth.]
+
+                   KING'S HEAD, SHEFFIELD, _Friday, Sept. 17th, 1858._
+
+I write you a few lines to Tavistock House, thinking you may not be
+sorry to find a note from me there on your arrival from Gad's Hill.
+
+Halifax was too small for us. I never saw such an audience though. They
+were really worth reading to for nothing, though I didn't do exactly
+that. It is as horrible a place as I ever saw, I think.
+
+The run upon the tickets here is so immense that Arthur is obliged to
+get great bills out, signifying that no more can be sold. It will be by
+no means easy to get into the place the numbers who have already paid.
+It is the hall we acted in. Crammed to the roof and the passages. We
+must come back here towards the end of October, and are again altering
+the list and striking out small places.
+
+The trains are so strange and unintelligible in this part of the country
+that we were obliged to leave Halifax at eight this morning, and
+breakfast on the road--at Huddersfield again, where we had an hour's
+wait. Wills was in attendance on the platform, and took me (here at
+Sheffield, I mean) out to Frederick Lehmann's house to see Mrs. Wills.
+She looked pretty much the same as ever, I thought, and was taking care
+of a very pretty little boy. The house and grounds are as nice as
+anything _can_ be in this smoke. A heavy thunderstorm is passing over
+the town, and it is raining hard too.
+
+This is a stupid letter, my dearest Georgy, but I write in a hurry, and
+in the thunder and lightning, and with the crowd of to-night before me.
+
+                                             Ever most affectionately.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Hogarth.]
+
+                               STATION HOTEL, NEWCASTLE-ON-TYNE,
+                                           _Sunday, Sept. 26th, 1858._
+
+                              EXTRACT.
+
+The girls (as I have no doubt they have already told you for themselves)
+arrived here in good time yesterday, and in very fresh condition. They
+persisted in going to the room last night, though I had arranged for
+their remaining quiet.
+
+We have done a vast deal here. I suppose you know that we are going to
+Berwick, and that we mean to sleep there and go on to Edinburgh on
+Monday morning, arriving there before noon? If it be as fine to-morrow
+as it is to-day, the girls will see the coast piece of railway between
+Berwick and Edinburgh to great advantage. I was anxious that they
+should, because that kind of pleasure is really almost the only one they
+are likely to have in their present trip.
+
+Stanfield and Roberts are in Edinburgh, and the Scottish Royal Academy
+gave them a dinner on Wednesday, to which I was very pressingly
+invited. But, of course, my going was impossible. I read twice that day.
+
+Remembering what you do of Sunderland, you will be surprised that our
+profit there was very considerable. I read in a beautiful new theatre,
+and (I thought to myself) quite wonderfully. Such an audience I never
+beheld for rapidity and enthusiasm. The room in which we acted
+(converted into a theatre afterwards) was burnt to the ground a year or
+two ago. We found the hotel, so bad in our time, really good. I walked
+from Durham to Sunderland, and from Sunderland to Newcastle.
+
+Don't you think, as we shall be at home at eleven in the forenoon this
+day fortnight, that it will be best for you and Plornish to come to
+Tavistock House for that Sunday, and for us all to go down to Gad's Hill
+next day? My best love to the noble Plornish. If he is quite reconciled
+to the postponement of his trousers, I should like to behold his first
+appearance in them. But, if not, as he is such a good fellow, I think it
+would be a pity to disappoint and try him.
+
+And now, my dearest Georgy, I think I have said all I have to say before
+I go out for a little air. I had a very hard day yesterday, and am
+tired.
+
+                                          Ever your most affectionate.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. John Forster.]
+
+                       TAVISTOCK HOUSE, TAVISTOCK SQUARE, LONDON,
+                                            _Sunday, Oct. 10th, 1858._
+
+MY DEAR FORSTER,
+
+As to the truth of the readings, I cannot tell you what the
+demonstrations of personal regard and respect are. How the densest and
+most uncomfortably-packed crowd will be hushed in an instant when I show
+my face. How the youth of colleges, and the old men of business in the
+town, seem equally unable to get near enough to me when they cheer me
+away at night. How common people and gentlefolks will stop me in the
+streets and say: "Mr. Dickens, will you let me touch the hand that has
+filled my home with so many friends?" And if you saw the mothers, and
+fathers, and sisters, and brothers in mourning, who invariably come to
+"Little Dombey," and if you studied the wonderful expression of comfort
+and reliance with which they hang about me, as if I had been with them,
+all kindness and delicacy, at their own little death-bed, you would
+think it one of the strangest things in the world.
+
+As to the mere effect, of course I don't go on doing the thing so often
+without carefully observing myself and the people too in every little
+thing, and without (in consequence) greatly improving in it.
+
+At Aberdeen, we were crammed to the street twice in one day. At Perth
+(where I thought when I arrived there literally could be nobody to
+come), the nobility came posting in from thirty miles round, and the
+whole town came and filled an immense hall. As to the effect, if you had
+seen them after Lilian died, in "The Chimes," or when Scrooge woke and
+talked to the boy outside the window, I doubt if you would ever have
+forgotten it. And at the end of "Dombey" yesterday afternoon, in the
+cold light of day, they all got up, after a short pause, gentle and
+simple, and thundered and waved their hats with that astonishing
+heartiness and fondness for me, that for the first time in all my public
+career they took me completely off my legs, and I saw the whole eighteen
+hundred of them reel on one side as if a shock from without had shaken
+the hall.
+
+The dear girls have enjoyed themselves immensely, and their trip has
+been a great success. I hope I told you (but I forget whether I did or
+no) how splendidly Newcastle[4] came out. I am reminded of Newcastle at
+the moment because they joined me there.
+
+I am anxious to get to the end of my readings, and to be at home again,
+and able to sit down and think in my own study. But the fatigue, though
+sometimes very great indeed, hardly tells upon me at all. And although
+all our people, from Smith downwards, have given in, more or less, at
+times, I have never been in the least unequal to the work, though
+sometimes sufficiently disinclined for it. My kindest and best love to
+Mrs. Forster.
+
+                                                  Ever affectionately.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Dickens.]
+
+                        ROYAL HOTEL, DERBY, _Friday, Oct. 22nd, 1858._
+
+MY DEAREST MAMIE,
+
+I am writing in a very poor condition; I have a bad cold all over me,
+pains in my back and limbs, and a very sensitive and uncomfortable
+throat. There was a great draught up some stone steps near me last
+night, and I daresay that caused it.
+
+The weather on my first two nights at Birmingham was so intolerably
+bad--it blew hard, and never left off raining for one single
+moment--that the houses were not what they otherwise would have been. On
+the last night the weather cleared, and we had a grand house.
+
+Last night at Nottingham was almost, if not quite, the most amazing we
+have had. It is not a very large place, and the room is by no means a
+very large one, but three hundred and twenty stalls were let, and all
+the other tickets were sold.
+
+Here we have two hundred and twenty stalls let for to-night, and the
+other tickets are gone in proportion. It is a pretty room, but not
+large.
+
+I have just been saying to Arthur that if there is not a large let for
+York, I would rather give it up, and get Monday at Gad's Hill. We have
+telegraphed to know. If the answer comes (as I suppose it will) before
+post time, I will tell you in a postscript what we decide to do. Coming
+to London in the night of to-morrow (Saturday), and having to see Mr.
+Ouvry on Sunday, and having to start for York early on Monday, I fear I
+should not be able to get to Gad's Hill at all. You won't expect me till
+you see me.
+
+Arthur and I have considered Plornish's joke in all the immense number
+of aspects in which it presents itself to reflective minds. We have come
+to the conclusion that it is the best joke ever made. Give the dear boy
+my love, and the same to Georgy, and the same to Katey, and take the
+same yourself. Arthur (excessively low and inarticulate) mutters that he
+"unites."
+
+[We knocked up Boylett, Berry, and John so frightfully yesterday, by
+tearing the room to pieces and altogether reversing it, as late as four
+o'clock, that we gave them a supper last night. They shine all over
+to-day, as if it had been entirely composed of grease.]
+
+                          Ever, my dearest Mamie,
+                                        Your most affectionate Father.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Hogarth.]
+
+                           WOLVERHAMPTON, _Wednesday, Nov. 3rd, 1858._
+
+Little Leamington came out in the most amazing manner yesterday--turned
+away hundreds upon hundreds of people. They are represented as the
+dullest and worst of audiences. I found them very good indeed, even in
+the morning.
+
+There awaited me at the hotel, a letter from the Rev. Mr. Young,
+Wentworth Watson's tutor, saying that Mrs. Watson wished her boy to
+shake hands with me, and that he would bring him in the evening. I
+expected him at the hotel before the readings. But he did not come. He
+spoke to John about it in the room at night. The crowd and confusion,
+however, were very great, and I saw nothing of him. In his letter he
+said that Mrs. Watson was at Paris on her way home, and would be at
+Brighton at the end of this week. I suppose I shall see her there at the
+end of next week.
+
+We find a let of two hundred stalls here, which is very large for this
+place. The evening being fine too, and blue being to be seen in the sky
+beyond the smoke, we expect to have a very full hall. Tell Mamey and
+Katey that if they had been with us on the railway to-day between
+Leamington and this place, they would have seen (though it is only an
+hour and ten minutes by the express) fires and smoke indeed. We came
+through a part of the Black Country that you know, and it looked at its
+blackest. All the furnaces seemed in full blast, and all the coal-pits
+to be working.
+
+It is market-day here, and the ironmasters are standing out in the
+street (where they always hold high change), making such an iron hum and
+buzz, that they confuse me horribly. In addition, there is a bellman
+announcing something--not the readings, I beg to say--and there is an
+excavation being made in the centre of the open place, for a statue, or
+a pump, or a lamp-post, or something or other, round which all the
+Wolverhampton boys are yelling and struggling.
+
+And here is Arthur, begging to have dinner at half-past three instead of
+four, because he foresees "a wiry evening" in store for him. Under which
+complication of distractions, to which a waitress with a tray at this
+moment adds herself, I sink, and leave off.
+
+My best love to the dear girls, and to the noble Plorn, and to you.
+Marguerite and Ellen Stone not forgotten. All yesterday and to-day I
+have been doing everything to the tune of:
+
+        And the day is dark and dreary.
+
+                     Ever, dearest Georgy,
+                                  Your most affectionate and faithful.
+
+P.S.--I hope the brazier is intolerably hot, and half stifles all the
+family. Then, and not otherwise, I shall think it in satisfactory work.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Rev. James White.]
+
+                TAVISTOCK HOUSE, TAVISTOCK SQUARE, LONDON, W. C.,
+                                             _Friday, Nov. 5th, 1858._
+
+MY DEAR WHITE,
+
+May I entreat you to thank Mr. Carter very earnestly and kindly in my
+name, for his proffered hospitality; and, further, to explain to him
+that since my readings began, I have known them to be incompatible with
+all social enjoyments, and have neither set foot in a friend's house nor
+sat down to a friend's table in any one of all the many places I have
+been to, but have rigidly kept myself to my hotels. To this resolution I
+must hold until the last. There is not the least virtue in it. It is a
+matter of stern necessity, and I submit with the worst grace possible.
+
+Will you let me know, either at Southampton or Portsmouth, whether any
+of you, and how many of you, if any, are coming over, so that Arthur
+Smith may reserve good seats? Tell Lotty I hope she does not contemplate
+coming to the morning reading; I always hate it so myself.
+
+Mary and Katey are down at Gad's Hill with Georgy and Plornish, and they
+have Marguerite Power and Ellen Stone staying there. I am sorry to say
+that even my benevolence descries no prospect of their being able to
+come to my native place.
+
+On Saturday week, the 13th, my tour, please God, ends.
+
+My best love to Mrs. White, and to Lotty, and to Clara.
+
+                            Ever, my dear White, affectionately yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. Frank Stone, A.R.A.]
+
+                 TAVISTOCK HOUSE, TAVISTOCK SQUARE, LONDON, W.C.,
+                                            _Monday, Dec. 13th, 1858._
+
+MY DEAR STONE,
+
+Many thanks for these discourses. They are very good, I think, as
+expressing what many men have felt and thought; otherwise not specially
+remarkable. They have one fatal mistake, which is a canker at the foot
+of their ever being widely useful. Half the misery and hypocrisy of the
+Christian world arises (as I take it) from a stubborn determination to
+refuse the New Testament as a sufficient guide in itself, and to force
+the Old Testament into alliance with it--whereof comes all manner of
+camel-swallowing and of gnat-straining. But so to resent this miserable
+error, or to (by any implication) depreciate the divine goodness and
+beauty of the New Testament, is to commit even a worse error. And to
+class Jesus Christ with Mahomet is simply audacity and folly. I might as
+well hoist myself on to a high platform, to inform my disciples that the
+lives of King George the Fourth and of King Alfred the Great belonged to
+one and the same category.
+
+                                                  Ever affectionately.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. B. W. Procter.]
+
+                           TAVISTOCK HOUSE, _Sunday, Dec. 18th, 1858._
+
+MY DEAR PROCTER,
+
+A thousand thanks for the little song. I am charmed with it, and shall
+be delighted to brighten "Household Words" with such a wise and genial
+light. I no more believe that your poetical faculty has gone by, than I
+believe that you have yourself passed to the better land. You and it
+will travel thither in company, rely upon it. So I still hope to hear
+more of the trade-songs, and to learn that the blacksmith has hammered
+out no end of iron into good fashion of verse, like a cunning workman,
+as I know him of old to be.
+
+                               Very faithfully yours, my dear Procter.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[3] Niece to the Rev. W. Harness.
+
+[4] The birthplace of Mr. Forster.
+
+
+
+
+1859.
+
+NARRATIVE.
+
+
+During the winter, Charles Dickens was living at Tavistock House,
+removing to Gad's Hill for the summer early in June, and returning to
+London in November. At this time a change was made in his weekly
+journal. "Household Words" became absolutely his own--Mr. Wills being
+his partner and editor, as before--and was "incorporated with 'All the
+Year Round,'" under which title it was known thenceforth. The office was
+still in Wellington Street, but in a different house. The first number
+with the new name appeared on the 30th April, and it contained the
+opening of "A Tale of Two Cities."
+
+The first letter which follows shows that a proposal for a series of
+readings in America had already been made to him. It was carefully
+considered and abandoned for the time. But the proposal was constantly
+renewed, and the idea never wholly relinquished for many years before he
+actually decided on making so distant a "reading tour."
+
+Mr. Procter contributed to the early numbers of "All the Year Round"
+some very spirited "Songs of the Trades." We give notes from Charles
+Dickens to the veteran poet, both in the last year, and in this year,
+expressing his strong approval of them.
+
+The letter and two notes to Mr. (afterwards Sir Antonio) Panizzi, for
+which we are indebted to Mr. Louis Fagan, one of Sir A. Panizzi's
+executors, show the warm sympathy and interest which he always felt for
+the cause of Italian liberty, and for the sufferings of the State
+prisoners who at this time took refuge in England.
+
+We give a little note to the dear friend and companion of Charles
+Dickens's daughters, "Lotty" White, because it is a pretty specimen of
+his writing, and because the young girl, who is playfully "commanded" to
+get well and strong, died early in July of this year. She was, at the
+time this note was written, first attacked with the illness which was
+fatal to all her sisters. Mamie and Kate Dickens went from Gad's Hill to
+Bonchurch to pay a last visit to their friend, and he writes to his
+eldest daughter there. Also we give notes of loving sympathy and
+condolence to the bereaved father and mother.
+
+In the course of this summer Charles Dickens was not well, and went for
+a week to his old favourite, Broadstairs--where Mr. Wilkie Collins and
+his brother, Mr. Charles Allston Collins, were staying--for sea-air and
+change, preparatory to another reading tour, in England only. His letter
+from Peterborough to Mr. Frank Stone, giving him an account of a reading
+at Manchester (Mr. Stone's native town), was one of the last ever
+addressed to that affectionate friend, who died very suddenly, to the
+great grief of Charles Dickens, in November. The letter to Mr. Thomas
+Longman, which closes this year, was one of introduction to that
+gentleman of young Marcus Stone, then just beginning his career as an
+artist, and to whom the premature death of his father made it doubly
+desirable that he should have powerful helping hands.
+
+Charles Dickens refers, in a letter to Mrs. Watson, to his portrait by
+Mr. Frith, which was finished at the end of 1858. It was painted for Mr.
+Forster, and is now in the "Forster Collection" at South Kensington
+Museum.
+
+The Christmas number of this year, again written by several hands as
+well as his own, was "The Haunted House." In November, his story of "A
+Tale of Two Cities" was finished in "All the Year Round," and in
+December was published, complete, with dedication to Lord John Russell.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. Arthur Smith.]
+
+             TAVISTOCK HOUSE, TAVISTOCK SQUARE, LONDON, W.C.,
+                                         _Wednesday, Jan. 26th, 1859._
+
+MY DEAR ARTHUR,
+
+Will you first read the enclosed letters, having previously welcomed,
+with all possible cordiality, the bearer, Mr. Thomas C. Evans, from New
+York?
+
+You having read them, let me explain that Mr. Fields is a highly
+respectable and influential man, one of the heads of the most classical
+and most respected publishing house in America; that Mr. Richard Grant
+White is a man of high reputation; and that Felton is the Greek
+Professor in their Cambridge University, perhaps the most distinguished
+scholar in the States.
+
+The address to myself, referred to in one of the letters, being on its
+way, it is quite clear that I must give some decided and definite answer
+to the American proposal. Now, will you carefully discuss it with Mr.
+Evans before I enter on it at all? Then, will you dine here with him on
+Sunday--which I will propose to him--and arrange to meet at half-past
+four for an hour's discussion?
+
+The points are these:
+
+First. I have a very grave question within myself whether I could go to
+America at all.
+
+Secondly. If I did go, I could not possibly go before the autumn.
+
+Thirdly. If I did go, how long must I stay?
+
+Fourthly. If the stay were a short one, could _you_ go?
+
+Fifthly. What is his project? What could I make? What occurs to you upon
+his proposal?
+
+I have told him that the business arrangements of the readings have been
+from the first so entirely in your hands, that I enter upon nothing
+connected with them without previous reference to you.
+
+                                                      Ever faithfully.
+
+
+[Sidenote: M. de Cerjat.]
+
+                           TAVISTOCK HOUSE, _Tuesday, Feb. 1st, 1859._
+
+MY DEAR CERJAT,
+
+I received your always welcome annual with even more interest than usual
+this year, being (in common with my two girls and their aunt) much
+excited and pleased by your account of your daughter's engagement. Apart
+from the high sense I have of the affectionate confidence with which you
+tell me what lies so tenderly on your own heart, I have followed the
+little history with a lively sympathy and regard for her. I hope, with
+you, that it is full of promise, and that you will all be happy in it.
+The separation, even in the present condition of travel (and no man can
+say how much the discovery of a day may advance it), is nothing. And so
+God bless her and all of you, and may the rosy summer bring her all the
+fulness of joy that we all wish her.
+
+To pass from the altar to Townshend (which is a long way), let me report
+him severely treated by Bully, who rules him with a paw of iron; and
+complaining, moreover, of indigestion. He drives here every Sunday, but
+at all other times is mostly shut up in his beautiful house, where I
+occasionally go and dine with him _tete-a-tete_, and where we always
+talk of you and drink to you. That is a rule with us from which we never
+depart. He is "seeing a volume of poems through the press;" rather an
+expensive amusement. He has not been out at night (except to this house)
+save last Friday, when he went to hear me read "The Poor Traveller,"
+"Mrs. Gamp," and "The Trial" from "Pickwick." He came into my room at
+St. Martin's Hall, and I fortified him with weak brandy-and-water. You
+will be glad to hear that the said readings are a greater _furore_ than
+they ever have been, and that every night on which they now take
+place--once a week--hundreds go away, unable to get in, though the hall
+holds thirteen hundred people. I dine with ---- to-day, by-the-bye,
+along with his agent; concerning whom I observe him to be always divided
+between an unbounded confidence and a little latent suspicion. He always
+tells me that he is a gem of the first water; oh yes, the best of
+business men! and then says that he did not quite like his conduct
+respecting that farm-tenant and those hay-ricks.
+
+There is a general impression here, among the best-informed, that war in
+Italy, to begin with, is inevitable, and will break out before April. I
+know a gentleman at Genoa (Swiss by birth), deeply in with the
+authorities at Turin, who is already sending children home.
+
+In England we are quiet enough. There is a world of talk, as you know,
+about Reform bills; but I don't believe there is any general strong
+feeling on the subject. According to my perceptions, it is undeniable
+that the public has fallen into a state of indifference about public
+affairs, mainly referable, as I think, to the people who administer
+them--and there I mean the people of all parties--which is a very bad
+sign of the times. The general mind seems weary of debates and
+honourable members, and to have taken _laissez-aller_ for its motto.
+
+My affairs domestic (which I know are not without their interest for
+you) flow peacefully. My eldest daughter is a capital housekeeper, heads
+the table gracefully, delegates certain appropriate duties to her sister
+and her aunt, and they are all three devotedly attached. Charley, my
+eldest boy, remains in Barings' house. Your present correspondent is
+more popular than he ever has been. I rather think that the readings in
+the country have opened up a new public who were outside before; but
+however that may be, his books have a wider range than they ever had,
+and his public welcomes are prodigious. Said correspondent is at present
+overwhelmed with proposals to go and read in America. Will never go,
+unless a small fortune be first paid down in money on this side of the
+Atlantic. Stated the figure of such payment, between ourselves, only
+yesterday. Expects to hear no more of it, and assuredly will never go
+for less. You don't say, my dear Cerjat, when you are coming to England!
+Somehow I feel that this marriage ought to bring you over, though I
+don't know why. You shall have a bed here and a bed at Gad's Hill, and
+we will go and see strange sights together. When I was in Ireland, I
+ordered the brightest jaunting-car that ever was seen. It has just this
+minute arrived per steamer from Belfast. Say you are coming, and you
+shall be the first man turned over by it; somebody must be (for my
+daughter Mary drives anything that can be harnessed, and I know of no
+English horse that would understand a jaunting-car coming down a Kentish
+hill), and you shall be that somebody if you will. They turned the
+basket-phaeton over, last summer, in a bye-road--Mary and the other
+two--and had to get it up again; which they did, and came home as if
+nothing had happened. They send their loves to Mrs. Cerjat, and to you,
+and to all, and particularly to the dear _fiancee_. So do I, with all my
+heart, and am ever your attached and affectionate friend.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. Antonio Panizzi.]
+
+                    TAVISTOCK HOUSE, _Monday Night, March 14th, 1859._
+
+MY DEAR PANIZZI,
+
+If you should feel no delicacy in mentioning, or should see no objection
+to mentioning, to Signor Poerio, or any of the wronged Neapolitan
+gentlemen to whom it is your happiness and honour to be a friend on
+their arrival in this country, an idea that has occurred to me, I should
+regard it as a great kindness in you if you would be my exponent. I
+think you will have no difficulty in believing that I would not, on any
+consideration, obtrude my name or projects upon any one of those noble
+souls, if there were any reason of the slightest kind against it. And if
+you see any such reason, I pray you instantly to banish my letter from
+your thoughts.
+
+It seems to me probable that some narrative of their ten years'
+suffering will, somehow or other, sooner or later, be by some of them
+laid before the English people. The just interest and indignation alive
+here, will (I suppose) elicit it. False narratives and garbled stories
+will, in any case, of a certainty get about. If the true history of the
+matter is to be told, I have that sympathy with them and respect for
+them which would, all other considerations apart, render it unspeakably
+gratifying to me to be the means of its diffusion. What I desire to lay
+before them is simply this. If for my new successor to "Household Words"
+a narrative of their ten years' trial could be written, I would take any
+conceivable pains to have it rendered into English, and presented in the
+sincerest and best way to a very large and comprehensive audience. It
+should be published exactly as you might think best for them, and
+remunerated in any way that you might think generous and right. They
+want no mouthpiece and no introducer, but perhaps they might have no
+objection to be associated with an English writer, who is possibly not
+unknown to them by some general reputation, and who certainly would be
+animated by a strong public and private respect for their honour,
+spirit, and unmerited misfortunes. This is the whole matter; assuming
+that such a thing is to be done, I long for the privilege of helping to
+do it. These gentlemen might consider it an independent means of making
+money, and I should be delighted to pay the money.
+
+In my absence from town, my friend and sub-editor, Mr. Wills (to whom I
+had expressed my feeling on the subject), has seen, I think, three of
+the gentlemen together. But as I hear, returning home to-night, that
+they are in your good hands, and as nobody can be a better judge than
+you of anything that concerns them, I at once decide to write to you and
+to take no other step whatever. Forgive me for the trouble I have
+occasioned you in the reading of this letter, and never think of it
+again if you think that by pursuing it you would cause them an instant's
+uneasiness.
+
+                                    Believe me, very faithfully yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. Antonio Panizzi.]
+
+                         TAVISTOCK HOUSE, _Tuesday, March 15th, 1859._
+
+MY DEAR PANIZZI,
+
+Let me thank you heartily for your kind and prompt letter. I am really
+and truly sensible of your friendliness.
+
+I have not heard from Higgins, but of course I am ready to serve on the
+Committee.
+
+                                              Always faithfully yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. B. W. Procter.]
+
+                        TAVISTOCK HOUSE, _Saturday, March 19th, 1859._
+
+MY DEAR PROCTER,
+
+I think the songs are simply ADMIRABLE! and I have no doubt of this
+being a popular feature in "All the Year Round." I would not omit the
+sexton, and I would not omit the spinners and weavers; and I would omit
+the hack-writers, and (I think) the alderman; but I am not so clear
+about the chorister. The pastoral I a little doubt finding audience for;
+but I am not at all sure yet that my doubt is well founded.
+
+Had I not better send them all to the printer, and let you have proofs
+kept by you for publishing? I shall not have to make up the first number
+of "All the Year Round" until early in April. I don't like to send the
+manuscript back, and I never do like to do so when I get anything that I
+know to be thoroughly, soundly, and unquestionably good. I am hard at
+work upon my story, and expect a magnificent start. With hearty thanks,
+
+                                            Ever yours affectionately.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. Edmund Yates.]
+
+                 TAVISTOCK HOUSE, TAVISTOCK SQUARE, LONDON, W.C.,
+                                          _Tuesday, March 29th, 1859._
+
+MY DEAR EDMUND,
+
+1. I think that no one seeing the place can well doubt that my house at
+Gad's Hill is the place for the letter-box. The wall is accessible by
+all sorts and conditions of men, on the bold high road, and the house
+altogether is the great landmark of the whole neighbourhood. Captain
+Goldsmith's _house_ is up a lane considerably off the high road; but he
+has a garden _wall_ abutting on the road itself.
+
+2. "The Pic-Nic Papers" were originally sold to Colburn, for the benefit
+of the widow of Mr. Macrone, of St. James's Square, publisher, deceased.
+Two volumes were contributed--of course gratuitously--by writers who had
+had transactions with Macrone. Mr. Colburn, wanting three volumes in all
+for trade purposes, added a third, consisting of an American reprint.
+Of that volume I didn't know, and don't know, anything. The other two I
+edited, gratuitously as aforesaid, and wrote the Lamplighter's story in.
+It was all done many years ago. There was a preface originally,
+delicately setting forth how the book came to be.
+
+3. I suppose ---- to be, as Mr. Samuel Weller expresses it somewhere in
+"Pickwick," "ravin' mad with the consciousness o' willany." Under their
+advertisement in _The Times_ to-day, you will see, without a word of
+comment, the shorthand writer's verbatim report of the judgment.
+
+                                                      Ever faithfully.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. Antonio Panizzi.]
+
+             "ALL THE YEAR ROUND" OFFICE, _Thursday, April 7th, 1859._
+
+MY DEAR PANIZZI,
+
+If you don't know, I think you should know that a number of letters are
+passing through the post-office, purporting to be addressed to the
+charitable by "Italian Exiles in London," asking for aid to raise a fund
+for a tribute to "London's Lord Mayor," in grateful recognition of the
+reception of the Neapolitan exiles. I know this to be the case, and have
+no doubt in my own mind that the whole thing is an imposture and a "do."
+The letters are signed "Gratitudine Italiana."
+
+                                                Ever faithfully yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss White.]
+
+                  TAVISTOCK HOUSE, TAVISTOCK SQUARE, LONDON, W.C.,
+                                           _Monday, April 18th, 1859._
+
+MY DEAR LOTTY,
+
+This is merely a notice to you that I must positively insist on your
+getting well, strong, and into good spirits, with the least possible
+delay. Also, that I look forward to seeing you at Gad's Hill sometime in
+the summer, staying with the girls, and heartlessly putting down the
+Plorn You know that there is no appeal from the Plorn's inimitable
+father. What _he_ says must be done. Therefore I send you my love (which
+please take care of), and my commands (which please obey).
+
+                                               Ever your affectionate.
+
+
+[Sidenote: The Hon. Mrs. Watson.]
+
+                  TAVISTOCK HOUSE, TAVISTOCK SQUARE, LONDON, W.C.,
+                                            _Tuesday, May 31st, 1859._
+
+MY DEAR MRS. WATSON,
+
+You surprise me by supposing that there is ever latent a defiant and
+roused expression in the undersigned lamb! Apart from this singular
+delusion of yours, and wholly unaccountable departure from your usual
+accuracy in all things, your satisfaction with the portrait is a great
+pleasure to me. It has received every conceivable pains at Frith's
+hands, and ought on his account to be good. It is a little too much (to
+my thinking) as if my next-door neighbour were my deadly foe, uninsured,
+and I had just received tidings of his house being afire; otherwise very
+good.
+
+I cannot tell you how delighted we shall be if you would come to Gad's
+Hill. You should see some charming woods and a rare old castle, and you
+should have such a snug room looking over a Kentish prospect, with every
+facility in it for pondering on the beauties of its master's beard! _Do_
+come, but you positively _must not_ come and go on the same day.
+
+We retreat there on Monday, and shall be there all the summer.
+
+My small boy is perfectly happy at Southsea, and likes the school very
+much. I had the finest letter two or three days ago, from another of my
+boys--Frank Jeffrey--at Hamburg. In this wonderful epistle he says:
+"Dear papa, I write to tell you that I have given up all thoughts of
+being a doctor. My conviction that I shall never get over my stammering
+is the cause; all professions are barred against me. The only thing I
+should like to be is a gentleman farmer, either at the Cape, in Canada,
+or Australia. With my passage paid, fifteen pounds, a horse, and a
+rifle, I could go two or three hundred miles up country, sow grain, buy
+cattle, and in time be very comfortable."
+
+Considering the consequences of executing the little commission by the
+next steamer, I perceived that the first consequence of the fifteen
+pounds would be that he would be robbed of it--of the horse, that it
+would throw him--and of the rifle, that it would blow his head off;
+which probabilities I took the liberty of mentioning, as being against
+the scheme. With best love from all,
+
+                  Ever believe me, my dear Mrs. Watson,
+                                       Your faithful and affectionate.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mrs. White.]
+
+                            TAVISTOCK HOUSE, _Sunday, June 5th, 1859._
+
+MY DEAR MRS. WHITE,
+
+I do not write to you this morning because I have anything to say--I
+well know where your consolation is set, and to what beneficent figure
+your thoughts are raised--but simply because you are so much in my mind
+that it is a relief to send you and dear White my love. You are always
+in our hearts and on our lips. May the great God comfort you! You know
+that Mary and Katie are coming on Thursday. They will bring dear Lotty
+what she little needs with you by her side--love; and I hope their
+company will interest and please her. There is nothing that they, or any
+of us, would not do for her. She is a part of us all, and has belonged
+to us, as well as to you, these many years.
+
+                                  Ever your affectionate and faithful.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Dickens.]
+
+                          GAD'S HILL, HIGHAM BY ROCHESTER, KENT,
+                                            _Monday, June 11th, 1859._
+
+MY DEAREST MAMIE,
+
+On Saturday night I found, very much to my surprise and pleasure, the
+photograph on my table at Tavistock House. It is not a very pleasant or
+cheerful presentation of my daughters; but it is wonderfully like for
+all that, and in some details remarkably good. When I came home here
+yesterday I tried it in the large Townshend stereoscope, in which it
+shows to great advantage. It is in the little stereoscope at present on
+the drawing-room table. One of the balustrades of the destroyed old
+Rochester bridge has been (very nicely) presented to me by the
+contractor for the works, and has been duly stonemasoned and set up on
+the lawn behind the house. I have ordered a sun-dial for the top of it,
+and it will be a very good object indeed. The Plorn is highly excited
+to-day by reason of an institution which he tells me (after questioning
+George) is called the "Cobb, or Bodderin," holding a festival at The
+Falstaff. He is possessed of some vague information that they go to
+Higham Church, in pursuance of some old usage, and attend service there,
+and afterwards march round the village. It so far looks probable that
+they certainly started off at eleven very spare in numbers, and came
+back considerably recruited, which looks to me like the difference
+between going to church and coming to dinner. They bore no end of bright
+banners and broad sashes, and had a band with a terrific drum, and are
+now (at half-past two) dining at The Falstaff, partly in the side room
+on the ground-floor, and partly in a tent improvised this morning. The
+drum is hung up to a tree in The Falstaff garden, and looks like a
+tropical sort of gourd. I have presented the band with five shillings,
+which munificence has been highly appreciated. Ices don't seem to be
+provided for the ladies in the gallery--I mean the garden; they are
+prowling about there, endeavouring to peep in at the beef and mutton
+through the holes in the tent, on the whole, in a debased and degraded
+manner.
+
+Turk somehow cut his foot in Cobham Lanes yesterday, and Linda hers.
+They are both lame, and looking at each other. Fancy Mr. Townshend not
+intending to go for another three weeks, and designing to come down here
+for a few days--with Henri and Bully--on Wednesday! I wish you could
+have seen him alone with me on Saturday; he was so extraordinarily
+earnest and affectionate on my belongings and affairs in general, and
+not least of all on you and Katie, that he cried in a most pathetic
+manner, and was so affected that I was obliged to leave him among the
+flowerpots in the long passage at the end of the dining-room. It was a
+very good piece of truthfulness and sincerity, especially in one of his
+years, able to take life so easily.
+
+Mr. and Mrs. Wills are here now (but I daresay you know it from your
+aunt), and return to town with me to-morrow morning. We are now going on
+to the castle. Mrs. Wills was very droll last night, and told me some
+good stories. My dear, I wish particularly to impress upon you and dear
+Katie (to whom I send my other best love) that I hope your stay will not
+be very long. I don't think it very good for either of you, though of
+course I know that Lotty will be, and must be, and should be the first
+consideration with you both. I am very anxious to know how you found her
+and how you are yourself.
+
+Best love to dear Lotty and Mrs. White. The same to Mr. White and Clara.
+We are always talking about you all.
+
+                        Ever, dearest Mamie, your affectionate Father.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Rev. James White.]
+
+                      GAD'S HILL PLACE, HIGHAM BY ROCHESTER, KENT,
+                                           _Thursday, July 7th, 1859._
+
+MY DEAR WHITE,
+
+I send my heartiest and most affectionate love to Mrs. White and you,
+and to Clara. You know all that I could add; you have felt it all; let
+it be unspoken and unwritten--it is expressed within us.
+
+Do you not think that you could all three come here, and stay with us?
+You and Mrs. White should have your own large room and your own ways,
+and should be among us when you felt disposed, and never otherwise. I do
+hope you would find peace here. Can it not be done?
+
+We have talked very much about it among ourselves, and the girls are
+strong upon it. Think of it--do!
+
+                                               Ever your affectionate.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. John Forster.]
+
+                        GAD'S HILL, _Thursday Night, Aug. 25th, 1859._
+
+MY DEAR FORSTER,
+
+Heartily glad to get your letter this morning.
+
+I cannot easily tell you how much interested I am by what you tell me of
+our brave and excellent friend the Chief Baron, in connection with that
+ruffian. I followed the case with so much interest, and have followed
+the miserable knaves and asses who have perverted it since, with so much
+indignation, that I have often had more than half a mind to write and
+thank the upright judge who tried him. I declare to God that I believe
+such a service one of the greatest that a man of intellect and courage
+can render to society. Of course I saw the beast of a prisoner (with my
+mind's eye) delivering his cut-and-dried speech, and read in every word
+of it that no one but the murderer could have delivered or conceived
+it. Of course I have been driving the girls out of their wits here, by
+incessantly proclaiming that there needed no medical evidence either
+way, and that the case was plain without it. Lastly, of course (though a
+merciful man--because a merciful man I mean), I would hang any Home
+Secretary (Whig, Tory, Radical, or otherwise) who should step in between
+that black scoundrel and the gallows. I can_not_ believe--and my belief
+in all wrong as to public matters is enormous--that such a thing will be
+done.
+
+I am reminded of Tennyson, by thinking that King Arthur would have made
+short work of the amiable ----, whom the newspapers strangely delight to
+make a sort of gentleman of. How fine the "Idylls" are! Lord! what a
+blessed thing it is to read a man who can write! I thought nothing could
+be grander than the first poem till I came to the third; but when I had
+read the last, it seemed to be absolutely unapproached and
+unapproachable.
+
+To come to myself. I have written and begged the "All the Year Round"
+publisher to send you directly four weeks' proofs beyond the current
+number, that are in type. I hope you will like them. Nothing but the
+interest of the subject, and the pleasure of striving with the
+difficulty of the forms of treatment, nothing in the mere way of money,
+I mean, could also repay the time and trouble of the incessant
+condensation. But I set myself the little task of making a _picturesque_
+story, rising in every chapter with characters true to nature, but whom
+the story itself should express, more than they should express
+themselves, by dialogue. I mean, in other words, that I fancied a story
+of incident might be written, in place of the bestiality that _is_
+written under that pretence, pounding the characters out in its own
+mortar, and beating their own interests out of them. If you could have
+read the story all at once, I hope you wouldn't have stopped halfway.
+
+As to coming to your retreat, my dear Forster, think how helpless I am.
+I am not well yet. I have an instinctive feeling that nothing but the
+sea will restore me, and I am planning to go and work at Ballard's, at
+Broadstairs, from next Wednesday to Monday. I generally go to town on
+Monday afternoon. All Tuesday I am at the office, on Wednesday I come
+back here, and go to work again. I don't leave off till Monday comes
+round once more. I am fighting to get my story done by the first week in
+October. On the 10th of October I am going away to read for a fortnight
+at Ipswich, Norwich, Oxford, Cambridge, and a few other places. Judge
+what my spare time is just now!
+
+I am very much surprised and very sorry to find from the enclosed that
+Elliotson has been ill. I never heard a word of it.
+
+Georgy sends best love to you and to Mrs. Forster, so do I, so does
+Plorn, so does Frank. The girls are, for five days, with the Whites at
+Ramsgate. It is raining, intensely hot, and stormy. Eighteen creatures,
+like little tortoises, have dashed in at the window and fallen on the
+paper since I began this paragraph [Illustration: ink-blot] (that was
+one!). I am a wretched sort of creature in my way, but it is a way that
+gets on somehow. And all ways have the same fingerpost at the head of
+them, and at every turning in them.
+
+                                                  Ever affectionately.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Dickens and Miss Katie Dickens.]
+
+                       ALBION, BROADSTAIRS, _Friday, Sept. 2nd, 1859._
+
+MY DEAREST MAMIE AND KATIE,
+
+I have been "moved" here, and am now (Ballard having added to the hotel
+a house we lived in three years) in our old dining-room and
+sitting-room, and our old drawing-room as a bedroom. My cold is so bad,
+both in my throat and in my chest, that I can't bathe in the sea; Tom
+Collin dissuaded me--thought it "bad"--but I get a heavy shower-bath at
+Mrs. Crampton's every morning. The baths are still hers and her
+husband's, but they have retired and live in "Nuckells"--are going to
+give a stained-glass window, value three hundred pounds, to St. Peter's
+Church. Tom Collin is of opinion that the Miss Dickenses has growed two
+fine young women--leastwise, asking pardon, ladies. An evangelical
+family of most disagreeable girls prowl about here and trip people up
+with tracts, which they put in the paths with stones upon them to keep
+them from blowing away. Charles Collins and I having seen a bill
+yesterday--about a mesmeric young lady who did feats, one of which was
+set forth in the bill, in a line by itself, as
+
+                            THE RIGID LEGS,
+
+--were overpowered with curiosity, and resolved to go. It came off in
+the Assembly Room, now more exquisitely desolate than words can
+describe. Eighteen shillings was the "take." Behind a screen among the
+company, we heard mysterious gurglings of water before the entertainment
+began, and then a slippery sound which occasioned me to whisper C. C.
+(who laughed in the most ridiculous manner), "Soap." It proved to be the
+young lady washing herself. She must have been wonderfully dirty, for
+she took a world of trouble, and didn't come out clean after all--in a
+wretched dirty muslin frock, with blue ribbons. She was the alleged
+mesmeriser, and a boy who distributed bills the alleged mesmerised. It
+was a most preposterous imposition, but more ludicrous than any poor
+sight I ever saw. The boy is clearly out of pantomime, and when he
+pretended to be in the mesmeric state, made the company back by going
+in among them head over heels, backwards, half-a-dozen times, in a most
+insupportable way. The pianist had struck; and the manner in which the
+lecturer implored "some lady" to play a "polker," and the manner in
+which no lady would; and in which the few ladies who were there sat with
+their hats on, and the elastic under their chins, as if it were going to
+blow, is never to be forgotten. I have been writing all the morning, and
+am going for a walk to Ramsgate. This is a beast of a letter, but I am
+not well, and have been addling my head.
+
+                           Ever, dear Girls, your affectionate Father.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. W. Wilkie Collins.]
+
+                     GAD'S HILL PLACE, HIGHAM BY ROCHESTER, KENT,
+                                     _Friday Night, Sept. 16th, 1859._
+
+MY DEAR WILKIE,
+
+Just a word to say that I have received yours, and that I look forward
+to the reunion on Thursday, when I hope to have the satisfaction of
+recounting to you the plot of a play that has been laid before me for
+commending advice.
+
+Ditto to what you say respecting the _Great Eastern_. I went right up to
+London Bridge by the boat that day, on purpose that I might pass her. I
+thought her the ugliest and most unshiplike thing these eyes ever
+beheld. I wouldn't go to sea in her, shiver my ould timbers and rouse me
+up with a monkey's tail (man-of-war metaphor), not to chuck a biscuit
+into Davy Jones's weather eye, and see double with my own old toplights.
+
+Turk has been so good as to produce from his mouth, for the wholesome
+consternation of the family, eighteen feet of worm. When he had brought
+it up, he seemed to think it might be turned to account in the
+housekeeping and was proud. Pony has kicked a shaft off the cart, and is
+to be sold. Why don't you buy her? she'd never kick with you.
+
+Barber's opinion is, that them fruit-trees, one and all, is touchwood,
+and not fit for burning at any gentleman's fire; also that the stocking
+of this here garden is worth less than nothing, because you wouldn't
+have to grub up nothing, and something takes a man to do it at
+three-and-sixpence a day. Was "left desponding" by your reporter.
+
+I have had immense difficulty to find a man for the stable-yard here.
+Barber having at last engaged one this morning, I enquired if he had a
+decent hat for driving in, to which Barber returned this answer:
+
+"Why, sir, not to deceive you, that man flatly say that he never have
+wore that article since man he was!"
+
+I am consequently fortified into my room, and am afraid to go out to
+look at him. Love from all.
+
+                                                  Ever affectionately.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Monsieur Regnier.]
+
+                    GAD'S HILL PLACE, HIGHAM BY ROCHESTER, KENT,
+                                          _Saturday, Oct. 15th, 1859._
+
+MY DEAR REGNIER,
+
+You will receive by railway parcel the proof-sheets of a story of mine,
+that has been for some time in progress in my weekly journal, and that
+will be published in a complete volume about the middle of November.
+Nobody but Forster has yet seen the latter portions of it, or will see
+them until they are published. I want you to read it for two reasons.
+Firstly, because I hope it is the best story I have written. Secondly,
+because it treats of a very remarkable time in France; and I should very
+much like to know what you think of its being dramatised for a French
+theatre. If you should think it likely to be done, I should be glad to
+take some steps towards having it well done. The story is an
+extraordinary success here, and I think the end of it is certain to make
+a still greater sensation.
+
+Don't trouble yourself to write to me, _mon ami_, until you shall have
+had time to read the proofs. Remember, they are _proofs_, and _private_;
+the latter chapters will not be before the public for five or six weeks
+to come.
+
+With kind regards to Madame Regnier, in which my daughters and their
+aunt unite,
+
+                                    Believe me, ever faithfully yours.
+
+P.S.--The story (I daresay you have not seen any of it yet) is called
+"A Tale of Two Cities."
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. Frank Stone, A.R.A.]
+
+                   PETERBOROUGH, _Wednesday Evening, Oct. 19th, 1859._
+
+MY DEAR STONE,
+
+We had a splendid rush last night--exactly as we supposed, with the
+pressure on the two shillings, of whom we turned a crowd away. They were
+a far finer audience than on the previous night; I think the finest I
+have ever read to. They took every word of the "Dombey" in quite an
+amazing manner, and after the child's death, paused a little, and then
+set up a shout that it did one good to hear. Mrs. Gamp then set in with
+a roar, which lasted until I had done. I think everybody for the time
+forgot everything but the matter in hand. It was as fine an instance of
+thorough absorption in a fiction as any of us are likely to see ever
+again.
+
+---- (in an exquisite red mantle), accompanied by her sister (in another
+exquisite red mantle) and by the deaf lady, (who leaned a black
+head-dress, exactly like an old-fashioned tea-urn without the top,
+against the wall), was charming. HE couldn't get at her on account of
+the pressure. HE tried to peep at her from the side door, but she (ha,
+ha, ha!) was unconscious of his presence. I read to her, and goaded him
+to madness. He is just sane enough to send his kindest regards.
+
+This is a place which--except the cathedral, with the loveliest front I
+ever saw--is like the back door to some other place. It is, I should
+hope, the deadest and most utterly inert little town in the British
+dominions. The magnates have taken places, and the bookseller is of
+opinion that "such is the determination to do honour to Mr. Dickens,
+that the doors _must_ be opened half an hour before the appointed time."
+You will picture to yourself Arthur's quiet indignation at this, and the
+manner in which he remarked to me at dinner, "that he turned away twice
+Peterborough last night."
+
+A very pretty room--though a Corn Exchange--and a room we should have
+been glad of at Cambridge, as it is large, bright, and cheerful, and
+wonderfully well lighted.
+
+The difficulty of getting to Bradford from here to-morrow, at any time
+convenient to us, turned out to be so great, that we are all going in
+for Leeds (only three-quarters of an hour from Bradford) to-night after
+the reading, at a quarter-past eleven. We are due at Leeds a quarter
+before three.
+
+So no more at present from,
+
+                                                 Yours affectionately.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. W. R. Sculthorpe.]
+
+                TAVISTOCK HOUSE, TAVISTOCK SQUARE, LONDON, W.C.,
+                                          _Thursday, Nov. 10th, 1859._
+
+DEAR SIR,
+
+Judgment must go by default. I have not a word to plead against Dodson
+and Fogg. I am without any defence to the action; and therefore, as law
+goes, ought to win it.
+
+Seriously, the date of your hospitable note disturbs my soul. But I have
+been incessantly writing in Kent and reading in all sorts of places, and
+have done nothing in my own personal character these many months; and
+now I come to town and our friend[5] is away! Let me take that
+defaulting miscreant into council when he comes back.
+
+                                                     Faithfully yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Monsieur Regnier.]
+
+               TAVISTOCK HOUSE, TAVISTOCK SQUARE, LONDON, W.C.,
+                                         _Wednesday, Nov. 16th, 1859._
+
+MY DEAR REGNIER,
+
+I send you ten thousand thanks for your kind and explicit letter. What I
+particularly wished to ascertain from you was, whether it is likely the
+Censor would allow such a piece to be played in Paris. In the case of
+its being likely, then I wished to have the piece as well done as
+possible, and would even have proposed to come to Paris to see it
+rehearsed. But I very much doubted whether the general subject would not
+be objectionable to the Government, and what you write with so much
+sagacity and with such care convinces me at once that its representation
+would be prohibited. Therefore I altogether abandon and relinquish the
+idea. But I am just as heartily and cordially obliged to you for your
+interest and friendship, as if the book had been turned into a play five
+hundred times. I again thank you ten thousand times, and am quite sure
+that you are right. I only hope you will forgive my causing you so much
+trouble, after your hard work.
+
+My girls and Georgina send their kindest regards to Madame Regnier and
+to you. My Gad's Hill house (I think I omitted to tell you, in reply to
+your enquiry) is on the very scene of Falstaff's robbery. There is a
+little _cabaret_ at the roadside, still called The Sir John Falstaff.
+And the country, in all its general features, is, at this time, what it
+was in Shakespeare's. I hope you will see the house before long. It is
+really a pretty place, and a good residence for an English writer, is it
+not?
+
+Macready, we are all happy to hear from himself, is going to leave the
+dreary tomb in which he lives, at Sherborne, and to remove to
+Cheltenham, a large and handsome place, about four or five hours'
+railway journey from London, where his poor girls will at least see and
+hear some life. Madame Celeste was with me yesterday, wishing to
+dramatise "A Tale of Two Cities" for the Lyceum, after bringing out the
+Christmas pantomime. I gave her my permission and the book; but I fear
+that her company (troupe) is a very poor one.
+
+This is all the news I have, except (which is no news at all) that I
+feel as if I had not seen you for fifty years, and that
+
+                          I am ever your attached and faithful Friend.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. T. Longman.]
+
+                           TAVISTOCK HOUSE, _Monday, Nov. 28th, 1859._
+
+MY DEAR LONGMAN,
+
+I am very anxious to present to you, with the earnest hope that you will
+hold him in your remembrance, young Mr. Marcus Stone, son of poor Frank
+Stone, who died suddenly but a little week ago. You know, I daresay,
+what a start this young man made in the last exhibition, and what a
+favourable notice his picture attracted. He wishes to make an additional
+opening for himself in the illustration of books. He is an admirable
+draughtsman, has a most dexterous hand, a charming sense of grace and
+beauty, and a capital power of observation. These qualities in him I
+know well of my own knowledge. He is in all things modest, punctual, and
+right; and I would answer for him, if it were needful, with my head.
+
+If you will put anything in his way, you will do it a second time, I am
+certain.
+
+                                              Faithfully yours always.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[5] Mr. Edmund Yates.
+
+
+
+
+1860.
+
+NARRATIVE.
+
+
+This winter was the last spent at Tavistock House. Charles Dickens had
+for some time been inclining to the idea of making his home altogether
+at Gad's Hill, giving up his London house, and taking a furnished house
+for the sake of his daughters for a few months of the London season.
+And, as his daughter Kate was to be married this summer to Mr. Charles
+Collins, this intention was confirmed and carried out. He made
+arrangements for the sale of Tavistock House to Mr. Davis, a Jewish
+gentleman, and he gave up possession of it in September. Up to this time
+Gad's Hill had been furnished merely as a temporary summer
+residence--pictures, library, and all best furniture being left in the
+London house. He now set about beautifying and making Gad's Hill
+thoroughly comfortable and homelike. And there was not a year
+afterwards, up to the year of his death, that he did not make some
+addition or improvement to it. He also furnished, as a private
+residence, a sitting-room and some bedrooms at his office in Wellington
+Street, to be used, when there was no house in London, as occasional
+town quarters by himself, his daughter, and sister-in-law.
+
+He began in this summer his occasional papers for "All the Year Round,"
+which he called "The Uncommercial Traveller," and which were continued
+at intervals in his journal until 1869.
+
+In the autumn of this year he began another story, to be published
+weekly in "All the Year Round." The letter to Mr. Forster, which we
+give, tells him of this beginning and gives him the name of the book.
+The first number of "Great Expectations" appeared on the 1st December.
+The Christmas number, this time, was written jointly by himself and Mr.
+Wilkie Collins. The scene was laid at Clovelly, and they made a journey
+together into Devonshire and Cornwall, for the purpose of this story, in
+November.
+
+The letter to Sir Edward Bulwer Lytton is, unfortunately, the only one
+we have as yet been able to procure. The present Lord Lytton, the
+Viceroy of India, has kindly endeavoured to help us even during his
+absence from England. But it was found to be impossible without his own
+assistance to make the necessary search among his father's papers. And
+he has promised us that, on his return, he will find and lend to us,
+many letters from Charles Dickens, which are certainly in existence, to
+his distinguished fellow-writer and great friend. We hope, therefore, it
+may be possible for us at some future time to be able to publish these
+letters, as well as those addressed to the present Lord Lytton (when he
+was Mr. Robert Lytton, otherwise "Owen Meredith," and frequent
+contributor to "Household Words" and "All the Year Round"). We have the
+same hope with regard to letters addressed to Sir Henry Layard, at
+present Ambassador at Constantinople, which, of course, for the same
+reason, cannot be lent to us at the present time.
+
+We give a letter to Mr. Forster on one of his books on the Commonwealth,
+the "Impeachment of the Five Members;" which, as with other letters
+which we are glad to publish on the subject of Mr. Forster's own works,
+was not used by himself for obvious reasons.
+
+A letter to his daughter Mamie (who, after her sister's marriage, paid a
+visit with her dear friends the White family to Scotland, where she had
+a serious illness) introduces a recent addition to the family, who
+became an important member of it, and one to whom Charles Dickens was
+very tenderly attached--her little white Pomeranian dog "Mrs. Bouncer"
+(so called after the celebrated lady of that name in "Box and Cox"). It
+is quite necessary to make this formal introduction of the little pet
+animal (who lived to be a very old dog and died in 1874), because future
+letters to his daughter contain constant references and messages to
+"Mrs. Bouncer," which would be quite unintelligible without this
+explanation. "Boy," also referred to in this letter, was his daughter's
+horse. The little dog and the horse were gifts to Mamie Dickens from her
+friends Mr. and Mrs. Arthur Smith, and the sister of the latter, Miss
+Craufurd.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. W. C. Macready.]
+
+                            TAVISTOCK HOUSE, _Monday, Jan. 2nd, 1860._
+
+MY DEAREST MACREADY,
+
+A happy New Year to you, and many happy years! I cannot tell you how
+delighted I was to receive your Christmas letter, or with what pleasure
+I have received Forster's emphatic accounts of your health and spirits.
+But when was I ever wrong? And when did I not tell you that you were an
+impostor in pretending to grow older as the rest of us do, and that you
+had a secret of your own for reversing the usual process! It happened
+that I read at Cheltenham a couple of months ago, and that I have rarely
+seen a place that so attracted my fancy. I had never seen it before.
+Also I believe the character of its people to have greatly changed for
+the better. All sorts of long-visaged prophets had told me that they
+were dull, stolid, slow, and I don't know what more that is
+disagreeable. I found them exactly the reverse in all respects; and I
+saw an amount of beauty there--well--that is not to be more specifically
+mentioned to you young fellows.
+
+Katie dined with us yesterday, looking wonderfully well, and singing
+"Excelsior" with a certain dramatic fire in her, whereof I seem to
+remember having seen sparks afore now. Etc. etc. etc.
+
+        With kindest love from all at home to all with you,
+                       Ever, my dear Macready, your most affectionate.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. W. Wilkie Collins.]
+
+                 TAVISTOCK HOUSE, TAVISTOCK SQUARE, LONDON, W.C.,
+                                     _Saturday Night, Jan. 7th, 1860._
+
+MY DEAR WILKIE,
+
+I have read this book with great care and attention. There cannot be a
+doubt that it is a very great advance on all your former writing, and
+most especially in respect of tenderness. In character it is excellent.
+Mr. Fairlie as good as the lawyer, and the lawyer as good as he. Mr.
+Vesey and Miss Halcombe, in their different ways, equally meritorious.
+Sir Percival, also, is most skilfully shown, though I doubt (you see
+what small points I come to) whether any man ever showed uneasiness by
+hand or foot without being forced by nature to show it in his face too.
+The story is very interesting, and the writing of it admirable.
+
+I seem to have noticed, here and there, that the great pains you take
+express themselves a trifle too much, and you know that I always contest
+your disposition to give an audience credit for nothing, which
+necessarily involves the forcing of points on their attention, and which
+I have always observed them to resent when they find it out--as they
+always will and do. But on turning to the book again, I find it
+difficult to take out an instance of this. It rather belongs to your
+habit of thought and manner of going about the work. Perhaps I express
+my meaning best when I say that the three people who write the
+narratives in these proofs have a DISSECTIVE property in common, which
+is essentially not theirs but yours; and that my own effort would be to
+strike more of what is got _that way_ out of them by collision with one
+another, and by the working of the story.
+
+You know what an interest I have felt in your powers from the beginning
+of our friendship, and how very high I rate them? _I_ know that this is
+an admirable book, and that it grips the difficulties of the weekly
+portion and throws them in masterly style. No one else could do it half
+so well. I have stopped in every chapter to notice some instance of
+ingenuity, or some happy turn of writing; and I am absolutely certain
+that you never did half so well yourself.
+
+So go on and prosper, and let me see some more, when you have enough
+(for your own satisfaction) to show me. I think of coming in to back you
+up if I can get an idea for my series of gossiping papers. One of those
+days, please God, we may do a story together; I have very odd
+half-formed notions, in a mist, of something that might be done that
+way.
+
+                                                  Ever affectionately.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. John Forster.]
+
+              11, WELLINGTON STREET, NORTH STRAND, LONDON, W.C.,
+                                           _Wednesday, May 2nd, 1860._
+
+MY DEAR FORSTER,
+
+It did not occur to me in reading your most excellent, interesting, and
+remarkable book, that it could with any reason be called one-sided. If
+Clarendon had never written his "History of the Rebellion," then I can
+understand that it might be. But just as it would be impossible to
+answer an advocate who had misstated the merits of a case for his own
+purpose, without, in the interests of truth, and not of the other side
+merely, re-stating the merits and showing them in their real form, so I
+cannot see the practicability of telling what you had to tell without
+in some sort championing the misrepresented side, and I think that you
+don't do that as an advocate, but as a judge.
+
+The evidence has been suppressed and coloured, and the judge goes
+through it and puts it straight. It is not _his_ fault if it all goes
+one way and tends to one plain conclusion. Nor is it his fault that it
+goes the further when it is laid out straight, or seems to do so,
+because it was so knotted and twisted up before.
+
+I can understand any man's, and particularly Carlyle's, having a
+lingering respect that does not like to be disturbed for those (in the
+best sense of the word) loyal gentlemen of the country who went with the
+king and were so true to him. But I don't think Carlyle sufficiently
+considers that the great mass of those gentlemen _didn't know the
+truth_, that it was a part of their loyalty to believe what they were
+told on the king's behalf, and that it is reasonable to suppose that the
+king was too artful to make known to _them_ (especially after failure)
+what were very acceptable designs to the desperate soldiers of fortune
+about Whitehall. And it was to me a curious point of adventitious
+interest arising out of your book, to reflect on the probability of
+their having been as ignorant of the real scheme in Charles's head, as
+their descendants and followers down to this time, and to think with
+pity and admiration that they believed the cause to be so much better
+than it was. This is a notion I was anxious to have expressed in our
+account of the book in these pages. For I don't suppose Clarendon, or
+any other such man to sit down and tell posterity something that he has
+not "tried on" in his own time. Do you?
+
+In the whole narrative I saw nothing anywhere to which I demurred. I
+admired it all, went with it all, and was proud of my friend's having
+written it all. I felt it to be all square and sound and right, and to
+be of enormous importance in these times. Firstly, to the people who
+(like myself) are so sick of the shortcomings of representative
+government as to have no interest in it. Secondly, to the humbugs at
+Westminster who have come down--a long, long way--from those men, as you
+know. When the great remonstrance came out, I was in the thick of my
+story, and was always busy with it; but I am very glad I didn't read it
+then, as I shall read it now to much better purpose. All the time I was
+at work on the "Two Cities," I read no books but such as had the air of
+the time in them.
+
+To return for a final word to the Five Members. I thought the marginal
+references overdone. Here and there, they had a comical look to me for
+that reason, and reminded me of shows and plays where everything is in
+the bill.
+
+Lastly, I should have written to you--as I had a strong inclination to
+do, and ought to have done, immediately after reading the book--but for
+a weak reason; of all things in the world I have lost heart in one--I
+hope no other--I cannot, times out of calculation, make up my mind to
+write a letter.
+
+                          Ever, my dear Forster, affectionately yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: M. de Cerjat.]
+
+                           TAVISTOCK HOUSE, _Thursday, May 3rd, 1860._
+
+MY DEAR CERJAT,
+
+The date of this letter would make me horribly ashamed of myself, if I
+didn't know that _you_ know how difficult letter-writing is to one whose
+trade it is to write.
+
+You asked me on Christmas Eve about my children. My second daughter is
+going to be married in the course of the summer to Charles Collins, the
+brother of Wilkie Collins, the novelist. The father was one of the most
+famous painters of English green lanes and coast pieces. He was bred an
+artist; is a writer, too, and does "The Eye Witness," in "All the Year
+Round." He is a gentleman, accomplished, and amiable. My eldest daughter
+has not yet started any conveyance on the road to matrimony (that I know
+of); but it is likely enough that she will, as she is very agreeable and
+intelligent. They are both very pretty. My eldest boy, Charley, has been
+in Barings' house for three or four years, and is now going to Hong
+Kong, strongly backed up by Barings, to buy tea on his own account, as a
+means of forming a connection and seeing more of the practical part of a
+merchant's calling, before starting in London for himself. His brother
+Frank (Jeffrey's godson) I have just recalled from France and Germany,
+to come and learn business, and qualify himself to join his brother on
+his return from the Celestial Empire. The next boy, Sydney Smith, is
+designed for the navy, and is in training at Portsmouth, awaiting his
+nomination. He is about three foot high, with the biggest eyes ever
+seen, and is known in the Portsmouth parts as "Young Dickens, who can do
+everything."
+
+Another boy is at school in France; the youngest of all has a private
+tutor at home. I have forgotten the second in order, who is in India. He
+went out as ensign of a non-existent native regiment, got attached to
+the 42nd Highlanders, one of the finest regiments in the Queen's
+service; has remained with them ever since, and got made a lieutenant by
+the chances of the rebellious campaign, before he was eighteen. Miss
+Hogarth, always Miss Hogarth, is the guide, philosopher, and friend of
+all the party, and a very close affection exists between her and the
+girls. I doubt if she will ever marry. I don't know whether to be glad
+of it or sorry for it.
+
+I have laid down my pen and taken a long breath after writing this
+family history. I have also considered whether there are any more
+children, and I don't think there are. If I should remember two or three
+others presently, I will mention them in a postscript.
+
+We think Townshend looking a little the worse for the winter, and we
+perceive Bully to be decidedly old upon his legs, and of a most
+diabolical turn of mind. When they first arrived the weather was very
+dark and cold, and kept them indoors. It has since turned very warm and
+bright, but with a dusty and sharp east wind. They are still kept
+indoors by this change, and I begin to wonder what change will let them
+out. Townshend dines with us every Sunday. You may be sure that we
+always talk of you and yours, and drink to you heartily.
+
+Public matters here are thought to be rather improving; the deep
+mistrust of the gentleman in Paris being counteracted by the vigorous
+state of preparation into which the nation is getting. You will have
+observed, of course, that we establish a new defaulter in respect of
+some great trust, about once a quarter. The last one, the cashier of a
+City bank, is considered to have distinguished himself greatly, a
+quarter of a million of money being high game.
+
+No, my friend, I have not shouldered my rifle yet, but I should do so on
+more pressing occasion. Every other man in the row of men I know--if
+they were all put in a row--is a volunteer though. There is a tendency
+rather to overdo the wearing of the uniform, but that is natural enough
+in the case of the youngest men. The turn-out is generally very
+creditable indeed. At the ball they had (in a perfectly unventilated
+building), their new leather belts and pouches smelt so fearfully that
+it was, as my eldest daughter said, like shoemaking in a great prison.
+She, consequently, distinguished herself by fainting away in the most
+inaccessible place in the whole structure, and being brought out
+(horizontally) by a file of volunteers, like some slain daughter of
+Albion whom they were carrying into the street to rouse the indignant
+valour of the populace.
+
+Lord, my dear Cerjat, when I turn to that page of your letter where you
+write like an ancient sage in whom the fire has paled into a meek-eyed
+state of coolness and virtue, I half laugh and half cry! _You_ old!
+_You_ a sort of hermit? Boh! Get out.
+
+With this comes my love and all our loves, to you and Mrs. Cerjat, and
+your daughter. I add my special and particular to the sweet "singing
+cousin." When shall you and I meet, and where? Must I come to see
+Townshend? I begin to think so.
+
+                 Ever, my dear Cerjat, your affectionate and faithful.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Sir Edward Bulwer Lytton.]
+
+                                GAD'S HILL, _Tuesday, June 5th, 1860._
+
+MY DEAR BULWER LYTTON,
+
+I am very much interested and gratified by your letter concerning "A
+Tale of Two Cities." I do not quite agree with you on two points, but
+that is no deduction from my pleasure.
+
+In the first place, although the surrender of the feudal privileges (on
+a motion seconded by a nobleman of great rank) was the occasion of a
+sentimental scene, I see no reason to doubt, but on the contrary, many
+reasons to believe, that some of these privileges had been used to the
+frightful oppression of the peasant, quite as near to the time of the
+Revolution as the doctor's narrative, which, you will remember, dates
+long before the Terror. And surely when the new philosophy was the talk
+of the salons and the slang of the hour, it is not unreasonable or
+unallowable to suppose a nobleman wedded to the old cruel ideas, and
+representing the time going out, as his nephew represents the time
+coming in; as to the condition of the peasant in France generally at
+that day, I take it that if anything be certain on earth it is certain
+that it was intolerable. No _ex post facto_ enquiries and provings by
+figures will hold water, surely, against the tremendous testimony of men
+living at the time.
+
+There is a curious book printed at Amsterdam, written to make out no
+case whatever, and tiresome enough in its literal dictionary-like
+minuteness, scattered up and down the pages of which is full authority
+for my marquis. This is "Mercier's Tableau de Paris." Rousseau is the
+authority for the peasant's shutting up his house when he had a bit of
+meat. The tax-taker was the authority for the wretched creature's
+impoverishment.
+
+I am not clear, and I never have been clear, respecting that canon of
+fiction which forbids the interposition of accident in such a case as
+Madame Defarge's death. Where the accident is inseparable from the
+passion and emotion of the character, where it is strictly consistent
+with the whole design, and arises out of some culminating proceeding on
+the part of the character which the whole story has led up to, it seems
+to me to become, as it were, an act of divine justice. And when I use
+Miss Pross (though this is quite another question) to bring about that
+catastrophe, I have the positive intention of making that half-comic
+intervention a part of the desperate woman's failure, and of opposing
+that mean death--instead of a desperate one in the streets, which she
+wouldn't have minded--to the dignity of Carton's wrong or right; this
+_was_ the design, and seemed to be in the fitness of things.
+
+Now, as to the reading. I am sorry to say that it is out of the question
+this season. I have had an attack of rheumatism--quite a stranger to
+me--which remains hovering about my left side, after having doubled me
+up in the back, and which would disable me from standing for two hours.
+I have given up all dinners and town engagements, and come to my little
+Falstaff House here, sensible of the necessity of country training all
+through the summer. Smith would have proposed any appointment to see you
+on the subject, but he has been dreadfully ill with tic. Whenever I read
+in London, I will gladly put a night aside for your purpose, and we will
+plot to connect your name with it, and give it some speciality. But this
+could not be before Christmas time, as I should not be able to read
+sooner, for in the hot weather it would be useless. Let me hear from you
+about this when you have considered it. It would greatly diminish the
+expenses, remember.
+
+                                   Ever affectionately and faithfully.
+
+
+[Sidenote: The Lord John Russell.]
+
+                    GAD'S HILL PLACE, HIGHAM BY ROCHESTER, KENT,
+                                            _Sunday, June 17th, 1860._
+
+MY DEAR LORD JOHN RUSSELL,
+
+I cannot thank you enough for your kind note and its most welcome
+enclosure. My sailor-boy comes home from Portsmouth to-morrow, and will
+be overjoyed. His masters have been as anxious for getting his
+nomination as though it were some distinction for themselves.
+
+                                       Ever your faithful and obliged.
+
+
+[Sidenote: The Earl of Carlisle.]
+
+                    GAD'S HILL PLACE, HIGHAM BY ROCHESTER, KENT,
+                                          _Wednesday, Aug. 8th, 1860._
+
+MY DEAR LORD CARLISLE,
+
+Coming back here after an absence of three days in town, I find your
+kind and cordial letter lying on my table. I heartily thank you for it,
+and highly esteem it. I understand that the article on the spirits to
+which you refer was written by ---- (he played an Irish porter in one
+scene of Bulwer's comedy at Devonshire House). Between ourselves, I
+think it must be taken with a few grains of salt, imperial measure. The
+experiences referred to "came off" at ----, where the spirit of ----
+(among an extensive and miscellaneous bodiless circle) _dines_
+sometimes! Mr. ----, the high priest of the mysteries, I have some
+considerable reason--derived from two honourable men--for mistrusting.
+And that some of the disciples are very easy of belief I know.
+
+This is Falstaff's own Gad's Hill, and I live on the top of it. All goes
+well with me, thank God! I should be thoroughly delighted to see you
+again, and to show you where the robbery was done. My eldest daughter
+keeps my house, and it is one I was extraordinarily fond of when a
+child.
+
+                     My dear Lord Carlisle, ever affectionately yours.
+
+P.S.--I am prowling about, meditating a new book.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. W. H. Wills.]
+
+                                  OFFICE OF "ALL THE YEAR ROUND,"
+                                           _Tuesday, Sept. 4th, 1860._
+
+MY DEAR WILLS,
+
+Your description of your sea-castle makes your room here look uncommonly
+dusty. Likewise the costermongers in the street outside, and the one
+customer (drunk, with his head on the table) in the Crown Coffee House
+over the way, in York Street, have an earthy, and, as I may say, a
+land-lubberly aspect. Cape Horn, to the best of _my_ belief, is a
+tremendous way off, and there are more bricks and cabbage-leaves between
+this office and that dismal point of land than _you_ can possibly
+imagine.
+
+Coming here from the station this morning, I met, coming from the
+execution of the Wentworth murderer, such a tide of ruffians as never
+could have flowed from any point but the gallows. Without any figure of
+speech it turned one white and sick to behold them.
+
+Tavistock House is cleared to-day, and possession delivered up. I must
+say that in all things the purchaser has behaved thoroughly well, and
+that I cannot call to mind any occasion when I have had money dealings
+with a Christian that have been so satisfactory, considerate, and
+trusting.
+
+I am ornamented at present with one of my most intensely preposterous
+and utterly indescribable colds. If you were to make a voyage from Cape
+Horn to Wellington Street, you would scarcely recognise in the bowed
+form, weeping eyes, rasped nose, and snivelling wretch whom you would
+encounter here, the once gay and sparkling, etc. etc.
+
+Everything else here is as quiet as possible. Business reports you
+receive from Holsworth. Wilkie looked in to-day, going to
+Gloucestershire for a week. The office is full of discarded curtains and
+coverings from Tavistock House, which Georgina is coming up this evening
+to select from and banish. Mary is in raptures with the beauties of
+Dunkeld, but is not very well in health. The Admiral (Sydney) goes up
+for his examination to-morrow. If he fails to pass with credit, I will
+never believe in anybody again, so in that case look out for your own
+reputation with me.
+
+This is really all the news I have, except that I am lazy, and that
+Wilkie dines here next Tuesday, in order that we may have a talk about
+the Christmas number.
+
+I beg to send my kind regard to Mrs. Wills, and to enquire how she likes
+wearing a hat, which of course she does. I also want to know from her
+in confidence whether _Crwllm festidiniog llymthll y wodd_?
+
+Yesterday I burnt, in the field at Gad's Hill, the accumulated letters
+and papers of twenty years. They sent up a smoke like the genie when he
+got out of the casket on the seashore; and as it was an exquisite day
+when I began, and rained very heavily when I finished, I suspect my
+correspondence of having overcast the face of the heavens.
+
+                                                      Ever faithfully.
+
+P.S.--Kind regard to Mr. and Mrs. Novelli.[6]
+
+I have just sent out for _The Globe_. No news.
+
+Hullah's daughter (an artist) tells me that certain female students have
+addressed the Royal Academy, entreating them to find a place for their
+education. I think it a capital move, for which I can do something
+popular and telling in _The Register_. Adelaide Procter is active in the
+business, and has a copy of their letter. Will you write to her for
+that, and anything else she may have about it, telling her that I
+strongly approve, and want to help them myself?
+
+
+[Sidenote: The Hon. Mrs. Watson.]
+
+                    GAD'S HILL PLACE, HIGHAM BY ROCHESTER, KENT,
+                                     _Friday Night, Sept. 14th, 1860._
+
+MY DEAR MRS. WATSON,
+
+I lose no time in answering your letter; and first as to business, the
+school in the High Town at Boulogne was excellent. The boys all English,
+the two proprietors an old Eton master and one of the Protestant
+clergymen of the town. The teaching unusually sound and good. The manner
+and conduct developed in the boys quite admirable. But I have never
+seen a gentleman so perfectly acquainted with boy-nature as the Eton
+master. There was a perfect understanding between him and his charges;
+nothing pedantic on his part, nothing slavish on their parts. The result
+was, that either with him or away from him, the boys combined an ease
+and frankness with a modesty and sense of responsibility that was really
+above all praise. Alfred went from there to a great school at Wimbledon,
+where they train for India and the artillery and engineers. Sydney went
+from there to Mr. Barrow, at Southsea. In both instances the new masters
+wrote to me of their own accord, bearing quite unsolicited testimony to
+the merits of the old, and expressing their high recognition of what
+they had done. These things speak for themselves.
+
+Sydney has just passed his examination as a naval cadet and come home,
+all eyes and gold buttons. He has twelve days' leave before going on
+board the training-ship. Katie and her husband are in France, and seem
+likely to remain there for an indefinite period. Mary is on a month's
+visit in Scotland; Georgina, Frank, and Plorn are at home here; and we
+all want Mary and her little dog back again. I have sold Tavistock
+House, am making this rather complete in its way, and am on the restless
+eve of beginning a new big book; but mean to have a furnished house in
+town (in some accessible quarter) from February or so to June. May we
+meet there.
+
+Your handwriting is always so full of pleasant memories to me, that when
+I took it out of the post-office at Rochester this afternoon it quite
+stirred my heart. But we must not think of old times as sad times, or
+regard them as anything but the fathers and mothers of the present. We
+must all climb steadily up the mountain after the talking bird, the
+singing tree, and the yellow water, and must all bear in mind that the
+previous climbers who were scared into looking back got turned into
+black stone.
+
+Mary Boyle was here a little while ago, as affectionate at heart as
+ever, as young, and as pleasant. Of course we talked often of you. So
+let me know when you are established in Halfmoon Street, and I shall be
+truly delighted to come and see you.
+
+For my attachments are strong attachments and never weaken. In right of
+bygones, I feel as if "all Northamptonshire" belonged to me, as all
+Northumberland did to Lord Bateman in the ballad. In memory of your
+warming your feet at the fire in that waste of a waiting-room when I
+read at Brighton, I have ever since taken that watering-place to my
+bosom as I never did before. And you and Switzerland are always one to
+me, and always inseparable.
+
+Charley was heard of yesterday, from Shanghai, going to Japan, intending
+to meet his brother Walter at Calcutta, and having an idea of beguiling
+the time between whiles by asking to be taken as an amateur with the
+English Chinese forces. Everybody caressed him and asked him everywhere,
+and he seemed to go. With kind regards, my dear Mrs. Watson,
+
+                                            Ever affectionately yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. Edmund Yates.]
+
+                    GAD'S HILL PLACE, HIGHAM BY ROCHESTER, KENT,
+                                           _Sunday, Sept. 23rd, 1860._
+
+                       ON THE DEATH OF HIS MOTHER.
+
+MY DEAR E. Y.,
+
+I did not write to you in your bereavement, because I knew that the
+girls had written to you, and because I instinctively shrunk from making
+a form of what was so real. _You_ knew what a loving and faithful
+remembrance I always had of your mother as a part of my youth--no more
+capable of restoration than my youth itself. All the womanly goodness,
+grace, and beauty of my drama went out with her. To the last I never
+could hear her voice without emotion. I think of her as of a beautiful
+part of my own youth, and this dream that we are all dreaming seems to
+darken.
+
+But it is not to say this that I write now. It comes to the point of my
+pen in spite of me.
+
+"Holding up the Mirror" is in next week's number. I have taken out all
+this funeral part of it. Not because I disliked it (for, indeed, I
+thought it the best part of the paper), but because it rather grated on
+me, going over the proof at that time, as a remembrance that would be
+better reserved a little while. Also because it made rather a mixture of
+yourself as an individual, with something that does not belong or attach
+to you as an individual. You can have the MS.; and as a part of a paper
+describing your own juvenile remembrances of a theatre, there it is,
+needing no change or adaption.
+
+                                                      Ever faithfully.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Dickens.]
+
+                    GAD'S HILL PLACE, HIGHAM BY ROCHESTER, KENT,
+                                           _Sunday, Sept. 23rd, 1860._
+
+MY DEAREST MAMIE,
+
+If you had been away from us and ill with anybody in the world but our
+dear Mrs. White, I should have been in a state of the greatest anxiety
+and uneasiness about you. But as I know it to be impossible that you
+could be in kinder or better hands, I was not in the least restless
+about you, otherwise than as it grieved me to hear of my poor dear
+girl's suffering such pain. I hope it is over now for many a long day,
+and that you will come back to us a thousand times better in health than
+you left us.
+
+Don't come back too soon. Take time and get well restored. There is no
+hurry, the house is not near to-rights yet, and though we all want you,
+and though Boy wants you, we all (including Boy) deprecate a fatiguing
+journey being taken too soon.
+
+As to the carpenters, they are absolutely maddening. They are always at
+work, yet never seem to do anything. Lillie was down on Friday, and said
+(his eye fixed on Maidstone, and rubbing his hand to conciliate his
+moody employer) that "he didn't think there would be very much left to
+do after Saturday, the 29th."
+
+I didn't throw him out of the window. Your aunt tells you all the news,
+and leaves me no chance of distinguishing myself, I know. You have been
+told all about my brackets in the drawing-room, all about the glass
+rescued from the famous stage-wreck of Tavistock House, all about
+everything here and at the office. The office is really a success. As
+comfortable, cheerful, and private as anything of the kind can possibly
+be.
+
+I took the Admiral (but this you know too, no doubt) to Dollond's, the
+mathematical instrument maker's, last Monday, to buy that part of his
+outfit. His sextant (which is about the size and shape of a cocked hat),
+on being applied to his eye, entirely concealed him. Not the faintest
+vestige of the distinguished officer behind it was perceptible to the
+human vision. All through the City, people turned round and stared at
+him with the sort of pleasure people take in a little model. We went on
+to Chatham this day week, in search of some big man-of-war's-man who
+should be under obligation to salute him--unfortunately found none. But
+this no doubt you know too, and all my news falls flat.
+
+I am driven out of my room by paint, and am writing in the best spare
+room. The whole prospect is excessively wet; it does not rain now, but
+yesterday it did tremendously, and it rained very heavily in the night.
+We are even muddy; and that is saying a great deal in this dry country
+of chalk and sand. Everywhere the corn is lying out and saturated with
+wet. The hops (nearly everywhere) look as if they had been burnt.
+
+In my mind's eye I behold Mrs. Bouncer, still with some traces of her
+late anxiety on her faithful countenance, balancing herself a little
+unequally on her bow fore-legs, pricking up her ears, with her head on
+one side, and slightly opening her intellectual nostrils. I send my
+loving and respectful duty to her.
+
+To dear Mrs. White, and to White, and to Clara, say anything from me
+that is loving and grateful.
+
+                    My dearest Mamie,
+                          Ever and ever your most affectionate Father.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Hogarth.]
+
+                                  OFFICE OF "ALL THE YEAR ROUND,"
+                                     _Monday Night, Sept. 24th, 1860._
+
+MY DEAREST GEORGY,
+
+At the Waterloo station we were saluted with "Hallo! here's Dickens!"
+from divers naval cadets, and Sir Richard Bromley introduced himself to
+me, who had his cadet son with him, a friend of Sydney's. We went down
+together, and the boys were in the closest alliance. Bromley being
+Accountant-General of the Navy, and having influence on board, got their
+hammocks changed so that they would be serving side by side, at which
+they were greatly pleased. The moment we stepped on board, the "Hul-lo!
+here's Dickens!" was repeated on all sides, and the Admiral (evidently
+highly popular) shook hands with about fifty of his messmates. Taking
+Bromley for my model (with whom I fraternised in the most pathetic
+manner), I gave Sydney a sovereign before stepping over the side. He was
+as little overcome as it was possible for a boy to be, and stood waving
+the gold-banded cap as we came ashore in a boat.
+
+There is no denying that he looks very small aboard a great ship, and
+that a boy must have a strong and decided speciality for the sea to take
+to such a life. Captain Harris was not on board, but the other chief
+officers were, and were highly obliging. We went over the ship. I should
+say that there can be little or no individuality of address to any
+particular boy, but that they all tumble through their education in a
+crowded way. The Admiral's servant (I mean our Admiral's) had an idiotic
+appearance, but perhaps it did him injustice (a mahogany-faced marine by
+station). The Admiral's washing apparatus is about the size of a
+muffin-plate, and he could easily live in his chest. The meeting with
+Bromley was a piece of great good fortune, and the dear old chap could
+not have been left more happily.
+
+                      Ever, my dearest Georgy, your most affectionate.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Power.]
+
+                                  OFFICE OF "ALL THE YEAR ROUND,"
+                                          _Tuesday, Sept. 25th, 1860._
+
+MY DEAR MARGUERITE,
+
+I like the article exceedingly, and think the translations
+_admirable_--spirited, fresh, bold, and evidently faithful. I will get
+the paper into the next number I make up, No. 78. I will send a proof to
+you for your correction, either next Monday or this day week. Or would
+you like to come here next Monday and dine with us at five, and go over
+to Madame Celeste's opening? Then you could correct your paper on the
+premises, as they drink their beer at the beer-shops.
+
+Some of the introductory remarks on French literature I propose to
+strike out, as a little too essayical for this purpose, and likely to
+throw out a large portion of the large audience at starting, as
+suggesting some very different kind of article. My daring pen shall have
+imbued its murderous heart with ink before you see the proof.
+
+                                    With kind regards,
+                                                  Ever affectionately.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. John Forster.]
+
+                    GAD'S HILL PLACE, HIGHAM BY ROCHESTER, KENT,
+                                           _Thursday, Oct. 4th, 1860._
+
+MY DEAR FORSTER,
+
+It would be a great pleasure to me to come to you, an immense pleasure,
+and to sniff the sea I love (from the shore); but I fear I must come
+down one morning and come back at night. I will tell you why.
+
+Last week, I got to work on a new story. I called a council of war at
+the office on Tuesday. It was perfectly clear that the one thing to be
+done was, for me to strike in. I have therefore decided to begin a
+story, the length of the "Tale of Two Cities," on the 1st of
+December--begin publishing, that is. I must make the most I can out of
+the book. When I come down, I will bring you the first two or three
+weekly parts. The name is, "GREAT EXPECTATIONS." I think a good name?
+
+Now the preparations to get ahead, combined with the absolute necessity
+of my giving a good deal of time to the Christmas number, will tie me to
+the grindstone pretty tightly. It will be just as much as I can hope to
+do. Therefore, what I had hoped would be a few days at Eastbourne
+diminish to a few hours.
+
+I took the Admiral down to Portsmouth. Every maritime person in the town
+knew him. He seemed to know every boy on board the _Britannia_, and was
+a tremendous favourite evidently. It was very characteristic of him that
+they good-naturedly helped him, he being so very small, into his hammock
+at night. But he couldn't rest in it on these terms, and got out again
+to learn the right way of getting in independently. Official report
+stated that "after a few spills, he succeeded perfectly, and went to
+sleep." He is perfectly happy on board, takes tea with the captain,
+leads choruses on Saturday nights, and has an immense marine for a
+servant.
+
+I saw Edmund Yates at the office, and he told me that during all his
+mother's wanderings of mind, which were almost incessant at last, she
+never once went back to the old Adelphi days until she was just dying,
+when he heard her say, in great perplexity: "I can _not_ get the words."
+
+Best love to Mrs. Forster.
+
+                                Ever, my dear Forster, affectionately.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. W. Wilkie Collins.]
+
+                                  OFFICE OF "ALL THE YEAR ROUND,"
+                                         _Wednesday, Oct. 24th, 1860._
+
+MY DEAR WILKIE,
+
+I have been down to Brighton to see Forster, and found your letter there
+on arriving by express this morning. I also found a letter from
+Georgina, describing that Mary's horse went down suddenly on a stone,
+and how Mary was thrown, and had her riding-habit torn to pieces, and
+has a deep cut just above the knee--fortunately not in the knee itself,
+which is doing exceedingly well, but which will probably incapacitate
+her from walking for days and days to come. It is well it was no worse.
+The accident occurred at Milton, near Gravesend, and they found Mary in
+a public-house there, wonderfully taken care of and looked after.
+
+I propose that we start on Thursday morning, the 1st of November. The
+train for Penzance leaves the Great Western terminus at a quarter-past
+nine in the morning. It is a twelve hours' journey. Shall we meet at the
+terminus at nine? I shall be here all the previous day, and shall dine
+here.
+
+Your account of your passage goes to my heart through my stomach. What a
+pity I was not there on board to present that green-visaged, but
+sweet-tempered and uncomplaining spectacle of imbecility, at which I am
+so expert under stormy circumstances, in the poet's phrase:
+
+        As I sweep
+        Through the deep,
+        When the stormy winds do blow.
+
+What a pity I am not there, at Meurice's, to sleep the sleep of infancy
+through the long plays where the gentlemen stand with their backs to the
+mantelpieces. What a pity I am not with you to make a third at the Trois
+Freres, and drink no end of bottles of Bordeaux, without ever getting a
+touch of redness in my (poet's phrase again) "innocent nose." But I must
+go down to Gad's to-night, and get to work again. Four weekly numbers
+have been ground off the wheel, and at least another must be turned
+before we meet. They shall be yours in the slumberous railway-carriage.
+
+I don't think Forster is at all in good health. He was tremendously
+hospitable and hearty. I walked six hours and a half on the downs
+yesterday, and never stopped or sat. Early in the morning, before
+breakfast, I went to the nearest baths to get a shower-bath. They kept
+me waiting longer than I thought reasonable, and seeing a man in a cap
+in the passage, I went to him and said: "I really must request that
+you'll be good enough to see about this shower-bath;" and it was Hullah!
+waiting for another bath.
+
+Rumours were brought into the house on Saturday night, that there was a
+"ghost" up at Larkins's monument. Plorn was frightened to death, and I
+was apprehensive of the ghost's spreading and coming there, and causing
+"warning" and desertion among the servants. Frank was at home, and
+Andrew Gordon was with us. Time, nine o'clock. Village talk and
+credulity, amazing. I armed the two boys with a short stick apiece, and
+shouldered my double-barrelled gun, well loaded with shot. "Now
+observe," says I to the domestics, "if anybody is playing tricks and has
+got a head, I'll blow it off." Immense impression. New groom evidently
+convinced that he has entered the service of a bloodthirsty demon. We
+ascend to the monument. Stop at the gate. Moon is rising. Heavy shadows.
+"Now, look out!" (from the bloodthirsty demon, in a loud, distinct
+voice). "If the ghost is here and I see him, so help me God I'll fire at
+him!" Suddenly, as we enter the field, a most extraordinary noise
+responds--terrific noise--human noise--and yet superhuman noise. B. T.
+D. brings piece to shoulder. "Did you hear that, pa?" says Frank. "I
+did," says I. Noise repeated--portentous, derisive, dull, dismal,
+damnable. We advance towards the sound. Something white comes lumbering
+through the darkness. An asthmatic sheep! Dead, as I judge, by this
+time. Leaving Frank to guard him, I took Andrew with me, and went all
+round the monument, and down into the ditch, and examined the field
+well, thinking it likely that somebody might be taking advantage of the
+sheep to frighten the village. Drama ends with discovery of no one, and
+triumphant return to rum-and-water.
+
+                                                  Ever affectionately.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Hogarth.]
+
+              BIDEFORD, NORTH DEVON, _Thursday Night, Nov. 1st, 1860._
+
+MY DEAREST GEORGY,
+
+I write (with the most impracticable iron pen on earth) to report our
+safe arrival here, in a beastly hotel. We start to-morrow morning at
+nine on a two days' posting between this and Liskeard in Cornwall. We
+are due in Liskeard (but nobody seems to know anything about the roads)
+on Saturday afternoon, and we purpose making an excursion in that
+neighbourhood on Sunday, and coming up from Liskeard on Monday by Great
+Western fast train, which will get us to London, please God, in good
+time on Monday evening. There I shall hear from you, and know whether
+dear Mamie will move to London too.
+
+We had a pleasant journey down here, and a beautiful day. No adventures
+whatever. Nothing has happened to Wilkie, and he sends love.
+
+We had stinking fish for dinner, and have been able to drink nothing,
+though we have ordered wine, beer, and brandy-and-water. There is
+nothing in the house but two tarts and a pair of snuffers. The landlady
+is playing cribbage with the landlord in the next room (behind a thin
+partition), and they seem quite comfortable.
+
+                      Ever, my dearest Georgy, your most affectionate.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Mary Boyle.]
+
+                                  OFFICE OF "ALL THE YEAR ROUND,"
+                                            _Friday, Dec. 28th, 1860._
+
+MY DEAR MARY,
+
+I cannot tell you how much I thank you for the beautiful cigar-case, and
+how seasonable, and friendly, and good, and warm-hearted it looked when
+I opened it at Gad's Hill. Besides which, it is a cigar-case, and will
+hold cigars; two crowning merits that I never yet knew to be possessed
+by any article claiming the same name. For all of these reasons, but
+more than all because it comes from you, I love it, and send you
+eighteen hundred and sixty kisses, with one in for the new year.
+
+Both excellent stories and perfectly new. Your Joe swears that he never
+heard either--never a word or syllable of either--after he laughed at
+'em this blessed day.
+
+I have no news, except that I am not quite well, and am being doctored.
+Pray read "Great Expectations." I think it is very droll. It is a very
+great success, and seems universally liked. I suppose because it opens
+funnily, and with an interest too.
+
+I pass my time here (I am staying here alone) in working, taking physic,
+and taking a stall at a theatre every night. On Boxing Night I was at
+Covent Garden. A dull pantomime was "worked" (as we say) better than I
+ever saw a heavy piece worked on a first night, until suddenly and
+without a moment's warning, every scene on that immense stage fell over
+on its face, and disclosed chaos by gaslight behind! There never was
+such a business; about sixty people who were on the stage being
+extinguished in the most remarkable manner. Not a soul was hurt. In the
+uproar, some moon-calf rescued a porter pot, six feet high (out of which
+the clown had been drinking when the accident happened), and stood it on
+the cushion of the lowest proscenium box, P.S., beside a lady and
+gentleman, who were dreadfully ashamed of it. The moment the house knew
+that nobody was injured, they directed their whole attention to this
+gigantic porter pot in its genteel position (the lady and gentleman
+trying to hide behind it), and roared with laughter. When a modest
+footman came from behind the curtain to clear it, and took it up in his
+arms like a Brobdingnagian baby, we all laughed more than ever we had
+laughed in our lives. I don't know why.
+
+We have had a fire here, but our people put it out before the
+parish-engine arrived, like a drivelling perambulator, with _the beadle
+in it_, like an imbecile baby. Popular opinion, disappointed in the fire
+having been put out, snowballed the beadle. God bless it!
+
+Over the way at the Lyceum, there is a very fair Christmas piece, with
+one or two uncommonly well-done nigger songs--one remarkably gay and
+mad, done in the finale to a scene. Also a very nice transformation,
+though I don't know what it means.
+
+The poor actors waylay me in Bow Street, to represent their necessities;
+and I often see one cut down a court when he beholds me coming, cut
+round Drury Lane to face me, and come up towards me near this door in
+the freshest and most accidental way, as if I was the last person he
+expected to see on the surface of this globe. The other day, there thus
+appeared before me (simultaneously with a scent of rum in the air) one
+aged and greasy man, with a pair of pumps under his arm. He said he
+thought if he could get down to somewhere (I think it was Newcastle), he
+would get "taken on" as Pantaloon, the existing Pantaloon being "a
+stick, sir--a mere muff." I observed that I was sorry times were so bad
+with him. "Mr. Dickens, you know our profession, sir--no one knows it
+better, sir--there is no right feeling in it. I was Harlequin on your
+own circuit, sir, for five-and-thirty years, and was displaced by a boy,
+sir!--a boy!"
+
+So no more at present, except love to Mrs. Watson and Bedgey Prig and
+all, from my dear Mary.
+
+                                              Your ever affectionate
+                                                                  JOE.
+
+P.S.--DON'T I pine neither?
+
+P.P.S.--I did my best to arouse Forster's worst feelings; but he had got
+into a Christmas habit of mind, and wouldn't respond.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[6] With whom Mr. and Mrs. Wills were staying at Aberystwith.
+
+
+
+
+NARRATIVE.
+
+1861.
+
+
+This, as far as his movements were concerned, was again a very unsettled
+year with Charles Dickens. He hired a furnished house in the Regent's
+Park, which he, with his household, occupied for some months. During the
+season he gave several readings at St. James's Hall. After a short
+summer holiday at Gad's Hill, he started, in the autumn, on a reading
+tour in the English provinces. Mr. Arthur Smith, being seriously ill,
+could not accompany him in this tour; and Mr. Headland, who was formerly
+in office at the St. Martin's Hall, was engaged as business-manager of
+these readings. Mr. Arthur Smith died in October, and Charles Dickens's
+distress at the loss of this loved friend and companion is touchingly
+expressed in many of his letters of this year.
+
+There are also sorrowful allusions to the death of his brother-in-law,
+Mr. Henry Austin, which sad event likewise happened in October. And the
+letter we give to Mrs. Austin ("Letitia") has reference to her sad
+affliction.
+
+In June of this year he paid a short visit to Sir E. B. Lytton at
+Knebworth, accompanied by his daughter and sister-in-law, who also
+during his autumn tour joined him in Edinburgh. But this course of
+readings was brought rather suddenly to an end on account of the death
+of the Prince Consort.
+
+Besides being constantly occupied with the business of these readings,
+Charles Dickens was still at work on his story of "Great Expectations,"
+which was appearing weekly in "All the Year Round." The story closed on
+the 3rd of August, when it was published as a whole in three volumes,
+and inscribed to Mr. Chauncey Hare Townshend. The Christmas number of
+"All the Year Round" was called "Tom Tiddler's Ground," to which Charles
+Dickens contributed three stories.
+
+Our second letter in this year is given more as a specimen of the claims
+which were constantly being made upon Charles Dickens's time and
+patience, than because we consider the letter itself to contain much
+public interest; excepting, indeed, as showing his always considerate
+and courteous replies to such constant applications.
+
+"The fire" mentioned in the letter to Mr. Forster was the great fire in
+Tooley Street. The "Morgan" was an American sea-captain, well known in
+those days, and greatly liked and respected. It may interest our readers
+to know that the character of Captain Jorgan, in the Christmas number of
+the previous year, was suggested by this pleasant sailor, for whom
+Charles Dickens had a hearty liking. Young Mr. Morgan was, during the
+years he passed in England, a constant visitor at Gad's Hill. The
+"Elwin" mentioned in the letter written from Bury St. Edmunds, was the
+Rev. Whitwell Elwin, a Norfolk gentleman, well known in the literary
+world, and who was for many years editor of "The Quarterly Review."
+
+The explanation of the letter to Mr. John Agate, of Dover, we give in
+that gentleman's own words:
+
+"There are few public men with the strain upon their time and energies
+which he had particularly (and which I know better now that I have read
+his life), who would have spared the time to have written such a long
+courteous letter.
+
+"I wrote to him rather in anger, and left the letter myself at The Lord
+Warden, as I and my family were very much disappointed, after having
+purchased our tickets so long before, to find we could not got into the
+room, as money was being received, but his kind letter explained all."
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Hogarth.]
+
+                                  OFFICE OF "ALL THE YEAR ROUND,"
+                                          _Wednesday, Jan. 9th, 1861._
+
+MY DEAREST GEORGY,
+
+"We" are in the full swing of stopping managers from playing "A Message
+from the Sea." I privately doubt the strength of our position in the
+Court of Chancery, if we try it; but it is worth trying.
+
+I am aware that Mr. Lane of the Britannia sent an emissary to Gad's Hill
+yesterday. It unfortunately happens that the first man "we" have to
+assert the principle against is a very good man, whom I really respect.
+
+I have no news, except that I really hope and believe I am gradually
+getting well. If I have no check, I hope to be soon discharged by the
+medico.
+
+                                                  Ever affectionately.
+
+P.S.--Best love to Mamie, also to the boys and Miss Craufurd.
+
+
+    OFFICE OF "ALL THE YEAR ROUND," 26, WELLINGTON STREET, W.C.,
+                                    _Tuesday Evening, Jan. 9th, 1861._
+
+DEAR SIR,
+
+I feel it quite hopeless to endeavour to present my position before you,
+in reference to such a letter as yours, in its plain and true light.
+When you suppose it would have cost Mr. Thackeray "but a word" to use
+his influence to obtain you some curatorship or the like, you fill me
+with the sense of impossibility of leading you to a more charitable
+judgment of Mr. Dickens.
+
+Nevertheless, I will put the truth before you. Scarcely a day of my life
+passes, or has passed for many years, without bringing me some letters
+similar to yours. Often they will come by dozens--scores--hundreds. My
+time and attention would be pretty well occupied without them, and the
+claims upon me (some very near home), for all the influence and means of
+help that I do and do not possess, are not commonly heavy. I have no
+power to aid you towards the attainment of your object. It is the simple
+exact truth, and nothing can alter it. So great is the disquietude I
+constantly undergo from having to write to some new correspondent in
+this strain, that, God knows, I would resort to another relief if I
+could.
+
+Your studies from nature appear to me to express an excellent
+observation of nature, in a loving and healthy spirit. But what then?
+The dealers and dealers' prices of which you complain will not be
+influenced by that honest opinion. Nor will it have the least effect
+upon the President of the Royal Academy, or the Directors of the School
+of Design. Assuming your supposition to be correct that these
+authorities are adverse to you, I have no more power than you have to
+render them favourable. And assuming them to be quite disinterested and
+dispassionate towards you, I have no voice or weight in any appointment
+that any of them make.
+
+I will retain your packet over to-morrow, and will then cause it to be
+sent to your house. I write under the pressure of occupation and
+business, and therefore write briefly.
+
+                                                     Faithfully yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: M. de Cerjat.]
+
+             OFFICE OF "ALL THE YEAR ROUND," _Friday, Feb. 1st, 1861._
+
+MY DEAR CERJAT,
+
+You have read in the papers of our heavy English frost. At Gad's Hill it
+was so intensely cold, that in our warm dining-room on Christmas Day we
+could hardly sit at the table. In my study on that morning, long after a
+great fire of coal and wood had been lighted, the thermometer was I
+don't know where below freezing. The bath froze, and all the pipes
+froze, and remained in a stony state for five or six weeks. The water in
+the bedroom-jugs froze, and blew up the crockery. The snow on the top of
+the house froze, and was imperfectly removed with axes. My beard froze
+as I walked about, and I couldn't detach my cravat and coat from it
+until I was thawed at the fire. My boys and half the officers stationed
+at Chatham skated away without a check to Gravesend--five miles off--and
+repeated the performance for three or four weeks. At last the thaw came,
+and then everything split, blew up, dripped, poured, perspired, and got
+spoilt. Since then we have had a small visitation of the plague of
+servants; the cook (in a riding-habit) and the groom (in a dress-coat
+and jewels) having mounted Mary's horse and mine, in our absence, and
+scoured the neighbouring country at a rattling pace. And when I went
+home last Saturday, I innocently wondered how the horses came to be out
+of condition, and gravely consulted the said groom on the subject, who
+gave it as his opinion "which they wanted reg'lar work." We are now
+coming to town until midsummer. Having sold my own house, to be more
+free and independent, I have taken a very pretty furnished house, No. 3,
+Hanover Terrace, Regent's Park. This, of course, on my daughter's
+account. For I have very good and cheerful bachelor rooms here, with an
+old servant in charge, who is the cleverest man of his kind in the
+world, and can do anything, from excellent carpentery to excellent
+cookery, and has been with me three-and-twenty years.
+
+The American business is the greatest English sensation at present. I
+venture to predict that the struggle of violence will be a very short
+one, and will be soon succeeded by some new compact between the Northern
+and Southern States. Meantime the Lancashire mill-owners are getting
+very uneasy.
+
+The Italian state of things is not regarded as looking very cheerful.
+What from one's natural sympathies with a people so oppressed as the
+Italians, and one's natural antagonism to a pope and a Bourbon (both of
+which superstitions I do suppose the world to have had more than enough
+of), I agree with you concerning Victor Emmanuel, and greatly fear that
+the Southern Italians are much degraded. Still, an united Italy would be
+of vast importance to the peace of the world, and would be a rock in
+Louis Napoleon's way, as he very well knows. Therefore the idea must be
+championed, however much against hope.
+
+My eldest boy, just home from China, was descried by Townshend's Henri
+the moment he landed at Marseilles, and was by him borne in triumph to
+Townshend's rooms. The weather was snowy, slushy, beastly; and
+Marseilles was, as it usually is to my thinking, well-nigh intolerable.
+My boy could not stay with Townshend, as he was coming on by express
+train; but he says: "I sat with him and saw him dine. He had a leg of
+lamb, and a tremendous cold." That is the whole description I have been
+able to extract from him.
+
+This journal is doing gloriously, and "Great Expectations" is a great
+success. I have taken my third boy, Frank (Jeffrey's godson), into this
+office. If I am not mistaken, he has a natural literary taste and
+capacity, and may do very well with a chance so congenial to his mind,
+and being also entered at the Bar.
+
+Dear me, when I have to show you about London, and we dine _en garcon_
+at odd places, I shall scarcely know where to begin. Only yesterday I
+walked out from here in the afternoon, and thought I would go down by
+the Houses of Parliament. When I got there, the day was so beautifully
+bright and warm, that I thought I would walk on by Millbank, to see the
+river. I walked straight on _for three miles_ on a splendid broad
+esplanade overhanging the Thames, with immense factories, railway works,
+and what-not erected on it, and with the strangest beginnings and ends
+of wealthy streets pushing themselves into the very Thames. When I was a
+rower on that river, it was all broken ground and ditch, with here and
+there a public-house or two, an old mill, and a tall chimney. I had
+never seen it in any state of transition, though I suppose myself to
+know this rather large city as well as anyone in it.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. E. M. Ward, R.A.]
+
+                              3, HANOVER TERRACE, REGENT'S PARK,
+                                    _Saturday Night, March 9th, 1861._
+
+MY DEAR WARD,
+
+I cannot tell you how gratified I have been by your letter, and what a
+splendid recompense it is for any pleasure I am giving you. Such
+generous and earnest sympathy from such a brother-artist gives me true
+delight. I am proud of it, believe me, and moved by it to do all the
+better.
+
+                                                Ever faithfully yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. W. C. Macready.]
+
+              "ALL THE YEAR ROUND" OFFICE, _Tuesday, June 11th, 1861._
+
+MY DEAREST MACREADY,
+
+There is little doubt, I think, of my reading at Cheltenham somewhere
+about November. I submit myself so entirely to Arthur Smith's
+arrangements for me, that I express my sentiments on this head with
+modesty. But I think there is scarcely a doubt of my seeing you then.
+
+I have just finished my book of "Great Expectations," and am the worse
+for wear. Neuralgic pains in the face have troubled me a good deal, and
+the work has been pretty close. But I hope that the book is a good book,
+and I have no doubt of very soon throwing off the little damage it has
+done me.
+
+What with Blondin at the Crystal Palace and Leotard at Leicester Square,
+we seem to be going back to barbaric excitements. I have not seen, and
+don't intend to see, the Hero of Niagara (as the posters call him), but
+I have been beguiled into seeing Leotard, and it is at once the most
+fearful and most graceful thing I have ever seen done.
+
+Clara White (grown pretty) has been staying with us.
+
+I am sore afraid that _The Times_, by playing fast and loose with the
+American question, has very seriously compromised this country. The
+Americans northward are perfectly furious on the subject; and Motley the
+historian (a very sensible man, strongly English in his sympathies)
+assured me the other day that he thought the harm done very serious
+indeed, and the dangerous nature of the daily widening breach scarcely
+calculable.
+
+Kindest and best love to all. Wilkie Collins has just come in, and sends
+best regard.
+
+                        Ever most affectionately, my dearest Macready.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. John Forster.]
+
+                                 GAD'S HILL, _Monday, July 1st, 1861._
+
+MY DEAR FORSTER,
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+You will be surprised to hear that I have changed the end of "Great
+Expectations" from and after Pip's return to Joe's, and finding his
+little likeness there.
+
+Bulwer (who has been, as I think I told you, extraordinarily taken by
+the book), so strongly urged it upon me, after reading the proofs, and
+supported his views with such good reasons, that I resolved to make the
+change. You shall have it when you come back to town. I have put in a
+very pretty piece of writing, and I have no doubt the story will be more
+acceptable through the alteration.
+
+I have not seen Bulwer's changed story. I brought back the first month
+with me, and I know the nature of his changes throughout; but I have not
+yet had the revised proofs. He was in a better state at Knebworth than I
+have ever seen him in all these years, a little weird occasionally
+regarding magic and spirits, but perfectly fair and frank under
+opposition. He was talkative, anecdotical, and droll; looked young and
+well, laughed heartily, and enjoyed some games we played with great
+zest. In his artist character and talk he was full of interest and
+matter, but that he always is. Socially, he seemed to me almost a new
+man. I thoroughly enjoyed myself, and so did Georgina and Mary.
+
+The fire I did not see until the Monday morning, but it was blazing
+fiercely then, and was blazing hardly less furiously when I came down
+here again last Friday. I was here on the night of its breaking out. If
+I had been in London I should have been on the scene, pretty surely.
+
+You will be perhaps surprised to hear that it is Morgan's conviction
+(his son was here yesterday), that the North will put down the South,
+and that speedily. In his management of his large business, he is
+proceeding steadily on that conviction. He says that the South has no
+money and no credit, and that it is impossible for it to make a
+successful stand. He may be all wrong, but he is certainly a very shrewd
+man, and he has never been, as to the United States, an enthusiast of
+any class.
+
+Poor Lord Campbell's seems to me as easy and good a death as one could
+desire. There must be a sweep of these men very soon, and one feels as
+if it must fall out like the breaking of an arch--one stone goes from a
+prominent place, and then the rest begin to drop. So one looks towards
+Brougham, and Lyndhurst, and Pollock.
+
+I will add no more to this, or I know I shall not send it; for I am in
+the first desperate laziness of having done my book, and think of
+offering myself to the village school as a live example of that vice for
+the edification of youth.
+
+                                Ever, my dear Forster, affectionately.
+
+
+[Sidenote: The Hon. Mrs. Watson.]
+
+                    GAD'S HILL PLACE, HIGHAM BY ROCHESTER, KENT,
+                                             _Monday, July 8th, 1861._
+
+MY DEAR MRS. WATSON,
+
+I have owed you a letter for so long a time that I fear you may
+sometimes have misconstrued my silence. But I hope that the sight of the
+handwriting of your old friend will undeceive you, if you have, and will
+put that right.
+
+During the progress of my last story, I have been working so hard that
+very, very little correspondence--except enforced correspondence on
+business--has passed this pen. And now that I am free again, I devote a
+few of my first leisure moments to this note.
+
+You seemed in your last to think that I had forgotten you in respect of
+the Christmas number. Not so at all. I discussed with them here where
+you were, how you were to be addressed, and the like; finally left the
+number in a blank envelope, and did not add the address to it until it
+would have been absurd to send you such stale bread. This was my fault,
+but this was all. And I should be so pained at heart if you supposed me
+capable of failing in my truth and cordiality, or in the warm
+remembrance of the time we have passed together, that perhaps I make
+more of it than you meant to do.
+
+My sailor-boy is at home--I was going to write, for the holidays, but I
+suppose I must substitute "on leave." Under the new regulations, he must
+not pass out of the _Britannia_ before December. The younger boys are
+all at school, and coming home this week for the holidays. Mary keeps
+house, of course, and Katie and her husband surprised us yesterday, and
+are here now. Charley is holiday-making at Guernsey and Jersey. He has
+been for some time seeking a partnership in business, and has not yet
+found one. The matter is in the hands of Mr. Bates, the managing partner
+in Barings' house, and seems as slow a matter to adjust itself as ever I
+looked on at. Georgina is, as usual, the general friend and confidante
+and factotum of the whole party.
+
+Your present correspondent read at St. James's Hall in the beginning of
+the season, to perfectly astounding audiences; but finding that fatigue
+and excitement very difficult to manage in conjunction with a story,
+deemed it prudent to leave off reading in high tide and mid-career, the
+rather by reason of something like neuralgia in the face. At the end of
+October I begin again; and if you are at Brighton in November, I shall
+try to see you there. I deliver myself up to Mr. Arthur Smith, and I
+know it is one of the places for which he has put me down.
+
+This is all about me and mine, and next I want to know why you never
+come to Gad's Hill, and whether you are never coming. The stress I lay
+on these questions you will infer from the size of the following note of
+interrogation[HW: =?=]
+
+I am in the constant receipt of news from Lausanne. Of Mary Boyle, I
+daresay you have seen and heard more than I have lately. Rumours
+occasionally reach me of her acting in every English shire incessantly,
+and getting in a harvest of laurels all the year round. Cavendish I have
+not seen for a long time, but when I did see him last, it was at
+Tavistock House, and we dined together jovially. Mention of that
+locality reminds me that when you DO come here, you will see the
+pictures looking wonderfully better, and more precious than they ever
+did in town. Brought together in country light and air, they really are
+quite a baby collection and very pretty.
+
+I direct this to Rockingham, supposing you to be there in this summer
+time. If you are as leafy in Northamptonshire as we are in Kent, you are
+greener than you have been for some years. I hope you may have seen a
+large-headed photograph with little legs, representing the undersigned,
+pen in hand, tapping his forehead to knock an idea out. It has just
+sprung up so abundantly in all the shops, that I am ashamed to go about
+town looking in at the picture-windows, which is my delight. It seems to
+me extraordinarily ludicrous, and much more like than the grave portrait
+done in earnest. It made me laugh when I first came upon it, until I
+shook again, in open sunlighted Piccadilly.
+
+Pray be a good Christian to me, and don't be retributive in measuring
+out the time that shall pass before you write to me. And believe me
+ever,
+
+                                       Your affectionate and faithful.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. W. Wilkie Collins.]
+
+                                  OFFICE OF "ALL THE YEAR ROUND,"
+                                         _Wednesday, Aug. 28th, 1861._
+
+MY DEAR WILKIE,
+
+I have been going to write to you ever since I received your letter from
+Whitby, and now I hear from Charley that you are coming home, and must
+be addressed in the Rue Harley. Let me know whether you will dine here
+this day week at the usual five. I am at present so addle-headed (having
+hard Wednesday work in Wills's absence) that I can't write much.
+
+I have got the "Copperfield" reading ready for delivery, and am now
+going to blaze away at "Nickleby," which I don't like half as well.
+Every morning I "go in" at these marks for two or three hours, and then
+collapse and do nothing whatever (counting as nothing much cricket and
+rounders).
+
+In my time that curious railroad by the Whitby Moor was so much the more
+curious, that you were balanced against a counter-weight of water, and
+that you did it like Blondin. But in these remote days the one inn of
+Whitby was up a back-yard, and oyster-shell grottoes were the only view
+from the best private room. Likewise, sir, I have posted to Whitby.
+"Pity the sorrows of a poor old man."
+
+The sun is glaring in at these windows with an amount of ferocity
+insupportable by one of the landed interest, who lies upon his back with
+an imbecile hold on grass, from lunch to dinner. Feebleness of mind and
+head are the result.
+
+                                                  Ever affectionately.
+
+P.S.--The boys have multiplied themselves by fifty daily, and have
+seemed to appear in hosts (especially in the hottest days) round all the
+corners at Gad's Hill. I call them the prowlers, and each has a
+distinguishing name attached, derived from his style of prowling.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. Arthur Smith.]
+
+                    GAD'S HILL PLACE, HIGHAM BY ROCHESTER, KENT,
+                                           _Tuesday, Sept. 3rd, 1861._
+
+MY DEAR ARTHUR,
+
+I cannot tell you how sorry I am to receive your bad account of your
+health, or how anxious I shall be to receive a better one as soon as you
+can possibly give it.
+
+If you go away, don't you think in the main you would be better here
+than anywhere? You know how well you would be nursed, what care we
+should take of you, and how perfectly quiet and at home you would be,
+until you become strong enough to take to the Medway. Moreover, I think
+you would be less anxious about the tour, here, than away from such
+association. I would come to Worthing to fetch you, I needn't say, and
+would take the most careful charge of you. I will write no more about
+this, because I wish to avoid giving you more to read than can be
+helped; but I do sincerely believe it would be at once your wisest and
+least anxious course. As to a long journey into Wales, or any long
+journey, it would never do. Nice is not to be thought of. Its dust, and
+its sharp winds (I know it well), towards October are very bad indeed.
+
+I send you the enclosed letters, firstly, because I have no circular to
+answer them with, and, secondly, because I fear I might confuse your
+arrangements by interfering with the correspondence. I shall hope to
+have a word from you very soon. I am at work for the tour every day,
+except my town Wednesdays.
+
+                                                      Ever faithfully.
+
+P.S.--Kindest regards from all.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. John Watkins.]
+
+                    GAD'S HILL PLACE, HIGHAM BY ROCHESTER, KENT,
+                                   _Saturday Night, Sept. 28th, 1861._
+
+DEAR MR. WATKINS,
+
+In reply to your kind letter I must explain that I have not yet brought
+down any of your large photographs of myself, and therefore cannot
+report upon their effect here. I think the "cartes" are all liked.
+
+A general howl of horror greeted the appearance of No. 18, and a riotous
+attempt was made to throw it out of window. I calmed the popular fury
+by promising that it should never again be beheld within these walls. I
+think I mentioned to you when you showed it to me, that I felt persuaded
+it would not be liked. It has a grim and wasted aspect, and perhaps
+might be made useful as a portrait of the Ancient Mariner.
+
+I feel that I owe you an apology for being (innocently) a difficult
+subject. When I once excused myself to Ary Scheffer while sitting to
+him, he received the apology as strictly his due, and said with a vexed
+air: "At this moment, _mon cher_ Dickens, you look more like an
+energetic Dutch admiral than anything else;" for which I apologised
+again.
+
+In the hope that the pains you have bestowed upon me will not be thrown
+away, but that your success will prove of some use to you, believe me,
+
+                                                     Faithfully yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. Edmund Yates.]
+
+                    GAD'S HILL PLACE, HIGHAM BY ROCHESTER, KENT,
+                                             _Sunday, Oct. 6th, 1861._
+
+              AFTER THE DEATH OF MR. ARTHUR SMITH.
+
+MY DEAR EDMUND,
+
+Coming back here to-day, I find your letter.
+
+I was so very much distressed last night in thinking of it all, and I
+find it so very difficult to preserve my composure when I dwell in my
+mind on the many times fast approaching when I shall sorely miss the
+familiar face, that I am hardly steady enough yet to refer to the
+readings like a man. But your kind reference to them makes me desirous
+to tell you that I took Headland (formerly of St. Martin's Hall, who has
+always been with us in London) to conduct the business, when I knew that
+our poor dear fellow could never do it, even if he had recovered
+strength to go; and that I consulted with himself about it when I saw
+him for the last time on earth, and that it seemed to please him, and he
+said: "We couldn't do better."
+
+Write to me before you come; and remember that I go to town Wednesday
+mornings.
+
+                                                      Ever faithfully.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Dickens.]
+
+                             OFFICE OF "ALL THE YEAR ROUND,"
+                                          _Thursday, Oct. 10th, 1861._
+
+MY DEAREST MAMIE,
+
+I received your affectionate little letter here this morning, and was
+very glad to get it. Poor dear Arthur is a sad loss to me, and indeed I
+was very fond of him. But the readings must be fought out, like all the
+rest of life.
+
+                                               Ever your affectionate.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. W. C. Macready.]
+
+                    GAD'S HILL PLACE, HIGHAM BY ROCHESTER, KENT,
+                                            _Sunday, Oct. 13th, 1861._
+
+MY DEAREST MACREADY,
+
+This is a short note. But the moment I know for certain what is designed
+for me at Cheltenham, I write to you in order that you may know it from
+me and not by chance from anyone else.
+
+I am to read there on the evening of Friday, the 3rd of January, and on
+the morning of Saturday, the 4th; as I have nothing to do on Thursday,
+the 2nd, but come from Leamington, I shall come to you, please God, for
+a quiet dinner that day.
+
+The death of Arthur Smith has caused me great distress and anxiety. I
+had a great regard for him, and he made the reading part of my life as
+light and pleasant as it _could_ be made. I had hoped to bring him to
+see you, and had pictured to myself how amused and interested you would
+have been with his wonderful tact and consummate mastery of arrangement.
+But it's all over.
+
+I begin at Norwich on the 28th, and am going north in the middle of
+November. I am going to do "Copperfield," and shall be curious to test
+its effect on the Edinburgh people. It has been quite a job so to piece
+portions of the long book together as to make something continuous out
+of it; but I hope I have got something varied and dramatic. I am also
+(not to slight _your_ book) going to do "Nickleby at Mr. Squeers's." It
+is clear that both must be trotted out at Cheltenham.
+
+With kindest love and regard to all your house,
+
+                    Ever, my dearest Macready, your most affectionate.
+
+P.S.--Fourth edition of "Great Expectations" almost gone!
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Hogarth.]
+
+                                  ANGEL HOTEL, BURY ST. EDMUNDS,
+                                         _Wednesday, Oct. 13th, 1861._
+
+MY DEAREST GEORGY,
+
+I have just now received your welcome letter, and I hasten to report
+(having very little time) that we had a splendid hall last night, and
+that I think "Nickleby" tops all the readings. Somehow it seems to have
+got in it, by accident, exactly the qualities best suited to the
+purpose, and it went last night not only with roars, but with a general
+hilarity and pleasure that I have never seen surpassed.
+
+We are full here for to-night.
+
+Fancy this: last night at about six, who should walk in but Elwin! He
+was exactly in his usual state, only more demonstrative than ever, and
+had been driven in by some neighbours who were coming to the reading. I
+had tea up for him, and he went down at seven with me to the dismal den
+where I dressed, and sat by the fire while I dressed, and was childishly
+happy in that great privilege! During the reading he sat on a corner of
+the platform and roared incessantly. He brought in a lady and gentleman
+to introduce while I was undressing, and went away in a perfect and
+absolute rapture.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Hogarth.]
+
+                     ROYAL HOTEL, NORWICH, _Tuesday, Oct. 29th, 1861._
+
+I cannot say that we began well last night. We had not a good hall, and
+they were a very lumpish audience indeed. This did not tend to cheer the
+strangeness I felt in being without Arthur, and I was not at all myself.
+We have a large let for to-night, I think two hundred and fifty stalls,
+which is very large, and I hope that both they and I will go better. I
+could have done perfectly last night, if the audience had been bright,
+but they were an intent and staring audience. They laughed though very
+well, and the storm made them shake themselves again. But they were not
+magnetic, and the great big place was out of sorts somehow.
+
+To-morrow I will write you another short note, however short. It is
+"Nickleby" and the "Trial" to-night; "Copperfield" again to-morrow. A
+wet day here, with glimpses of blue. I shall not forget Katey's health
+at dinner. A pleasant journey down.
+
+                      Ever, my dearest Georgy, your most affectionate.
+
+
+[Sidenote: The same.]
+
+             THE GREAT WHITE HORSE, IPSWICH, _Friday, Nov. 1st, 1861._
+
+I cannot quite remember in the whirl of travelling and reading, whether
+or no I wrote you a line from Bury St. Edmunds. But I think (and hope)
+I did. We had a fine room there, and "Copperfield" made a great
+impression. At mid-day we go on to Colchester, where I shall expect the
+young Morgans. I sent a telegram on yesterday, after receiving your
+note, to secure places for them. The answer returned by telegraph was:
+"No box-seats left but on the fourth row." If they prefer to sit on the
+stage (for I read in the theatre, there being no other large public
+room), they shall. Meantime I have told John, who went forward this
+morning with the other men, to let the people at the inn know that if
+three travellers answering that description appear before my
+dinner-time, they are to dine with me.
+
+Plorn's admission that he likes the school very much indeed, is the
+great social triumph of modern times.
+
+I am looking forward to Sunday's rest at Gad's, and shall be down by the
+ten o'clock train from town. I miss poor Arthur dreadfully. It is
+scarcely possible to imagine how much. It is not only that his loss to
+me socially is quite irreparable, but that the sense I used to have of
+compactness and comfort about me while I was reading is quite gone. And
+when I come out for the ten minutes, when I used to find him always
+ready for me with something cheerful to say, it is forlorn. I cannot but
+fancy, too, that the audience must miss the old speciality of a
+pervading gentleman.
+
+Nobody I know has turned up yet except Elwin. I have had many
+invitations to all sorts of houses in all sorts of places, and have of
+course accepted them every one.
+
+Love to Mamie, if she has come home, and to Bouncer, if _she_ has come;
+also Marguerite, who I hope is by this time much better.
+
+                         Ever, my dear Georgy, your most affectionate.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mrs. Henry Austin.]
+
+                                 GAD'S HILL, _Sunday, Nov. 3rd, 1861._
+
+EXTRACT.
+
+I am heartily glad to hear that you have been out in the air, and I hope
+you will go again very soon and make a point of continuing to go. There
+is a soothing influence in the sight of the earth and sky, which God put
+into them for our relief when He made the world in which we are all to
+suffer, and strive, and die.
+
+I will not fail to write to you from many points of my tour, and if you
+ever want to write to me you may be sure of a quick response, and may be
+certain that I am sympathetic and true.
+
+                                                  Ever affectionately.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Dickens.]
+
+            FOUNTAIN HOTEL, CANTERBURY, _Windy Night, Nov. 4th, 1861._
+
+MY DEAREST MAMIE,
+
+A word of report before I go to bed. An excellent house to-night, and an
+audience positively perfect. The greatest part of it stalls, and an
+intelligent and delightful response in them, like the touch of a
+beautiful instrument. "Copperfield" wound up in a real burst of feeling
+and delight.
+
+                                                  Ever affectionately.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. John Agate.]
+
+                LORD WARDEN HOTEL, DOVER, _Wednesday, Nov. 6th, 1861._
+
+SIR,
+
+I am exceedingly sorry to find, from the letter you have addressed to
+me, that you had just cause of complaint in being excluded from my
+reading here last night. It will now and then unfortunately happen when
+the place of reading is small (as in this case), that some confusion
+and inconvenience arise from the local agents over-estimating, in
+perfect good faith and sincerity, the capacity of the room. Such a
+mistake, I am assured, was made last night; and thus all the available
+space was filled before the people in charge were at all prepared for
+that circumstance.
+
+You may readily suppose that I can have no personal knowledge of the
+proceedings of the people in my employment at such a time. But I wish to
+assure you very earnestly, that they are all old servants, well
+acquainted with my principles and wishes, and that they are under the
+strongest injunction to avoid any approach to mercenary dealing; and to
+behave to all comers equally with as much consideration and politeness
+as they know I should myself display. The recent death of a
+much-regretted friend of mine, who managed this business for me, and on
+whom these men were accustomed to rely in any little difficulty, caused
+them (I have no doubt) to feel rather at a loss in your case. Do me the
+favour to understand that under any other circumstances you would, as a
+matter of course, have been provided with any places whatever that could
+be found, without the smallest reference to what you had originally
+paid. This is scanty satisfaction to you, but it is so strictly the
+truth, that yours is the first complaint of the kind I have ever
+received.
+
+I hope to read in Dover again, but it is quite impossible that I can
+make any present arrangement for that purpose. Whenever I may return
+here, you may be sure I shall not fail to remember that I owe you a
+recompense for a disappointment. In the meanwhile I very sincerely
+regret it.
+
+                                                     Faithfully yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Hogarth.]
+
+                  BEDFORD HOTEL, BRIGHTON, _Thursday, Nov. 7th, 1861._
+
+MY DEAR GEORGY,
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The Duchess of Cambridge comes to-night to "Copperfield." The bad
+weather has not in the least touched us, and beyond all doubt a great
+deal of money has been left untaken at each place.
+
+The storm was most magnificent at Dover. All the great side of The Lord
+Warden next the sea had to be emptied, the break of the sea was so
+prodigious, and the noise was so utterly confounding. The sea came in
+like a great sky of immense clouds, for ever breaking suddenly into
+furious rain. All kinds of wreck were washed in. Miss Birmingham and I
+saw, among other things, a very pretty brass-bound chest being thrown
+about like a feather. On Tuesday night, the unhappy Ostend packet could
+not get in, neither could she go back, and she beat about the Channel
+until noon yesterday. I saw her come in then, _with five men at the
+wheel_; such a picture of misery, as to the crew (of passengers there
+were no signs), as you can scarcely imagine.
+
+Tho effect at Hastings and at Dover really seems to have outdone the
+best usual impression, and at Dover they wouldn't go, but sat applauding
+like mad. The most delicate audience I have seen in any provincial place
+is Canterbury. The audience with the greatest sense of humour certainly
+is Dover. The people in the stalls set the example of laughing, in the
+most curiously unreserved way; and they really laughed when Squeers read
+the boys' letters, with such cordial enjoyment, that the contagion
+extended to me, for one couldn't hear them without laughing too.
+
+So, thank God, all goes well, and the recompense for the trouble is in
+every way great. There is rather an alarming breakdown at Newcastle, in
+respect of all the bills having been, in some inscrutable way, lost on
+the road. I have resolved to send Berry there, with full powers to do
+all manner of things, early next week.
+
+The amended route-list is not printed yet, because I am trying to get
+off Manchester and Liverpool; both of which I strongly doubt, in the
+present state of American affairs. Therefore I can't send it for
+Marguerite; but I can, and do, send her my love and God-speed. This is
+addressed to the office because I suppose you will be there to-morrow.
+
+                                                  Ever affectionately.
+
+
+[Sidenote: The Earl of Carlisle.]
+
+                    GAD'S HILL PLACE, HIGHAM BY ROCHESTER, KENT,
+                                                _November 15th, 1861._
+
+MY DEAR LORD CARLISLE,
+
+You know poor Austin, and what his work was, and how he did it. If you
+have no private objection to signing the enclosed memorial (which will
+receive the right signatures before being presented), I think you will
+have no public objection. I shall be heartily glad if you can put your
+name to it, and shall esteem your doing so as a very kind service. Will
+you return the memorial under cover to Mr. Tom Taylor, at the Local
+Government Act Office, Whitehall? He is generously exerting himself in
+furtherance of it, and so delay will be avoided.
+
+                       My dear Lord Carlisle, faithfully yours always.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Mary Boyle.]
+
+                    GAD'S HILL PLACE, HIGHAM BY ROCHESTER, KENT,
+                                            _Sunday, Nov. 17th, 1861._
+
+MY DEAR MARY,
+
+I am perfectly enraptured with the quilt. It is one of the most
+tasteful, lively, elegant things I have ever seen; and I need not tell
+you that while it is valuable to me for its own ornamental sake, it is
+precious to me as a rainbow-hint of your friendship and affectionate
+remembrance.
+
+Please God you shall see it next summer occupying its allotted place of
+state in my brand-new bedroom here. You shall behold it then, with all
+cheerful surroundings, the envy of mankind.
+
+My readings have been doing absolute wonders. Your Duchess and Princess
+came to hear first "Nickleby" and the "Pickwick Trial," then
+"Copperfield," at Brighton. I think they were pleased with me, and I am
+sure I was with them; for they are the very best audience one could
+possibly desire. I shall always have a pleasant remembrance of them.
+
+On Wednesday I am away again for the longest part of my trip.
+
+Yes, Mary dear, I must say that I like my Carton, and I have a faint
+idea sometimes that if I had acted him, I could have done something with
+his life and death.
+
+                    Believe me, ever your affectionate and faithful
+                                                                  JOE.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Hogarth.]
+
+                   QUEEN'S HEAD, NEWCASTLE, _Friday, Nov. 22nd, 1861._
+
+I received your letter this morning, and grieve to report that the
+unlucky Headland has broken down most awfully!
+
+First, as perhaps you remember, this is the place where the bills were
+"lost" for a week or two. The consequence has been that the agent could
+not announce all through the "Jenny Lind" time (the most important for
+announcing), and could but stand still and stare when people came to ask
+what I was going to read. Last night I read "Copperfield" to the most
+enthusiastic and appreciative audience imaginable, but in numbers about
+half what they might have been. To-night we shall have a famous house;
+but we might have had it last night too. To-morrow (knowing by this time
+what can, of a certainty, be done with "Copperfield"), I had, of course,
+given out "Copperfield" to be read again. Conceive my amazement and
+dismay when I find the printer to have announced "Little Dombey"!!!
+This, I declare, I had no more intention of reading than I had of
+reading an account of the solar system. And this, after a sensation last
+night, of a really extraordinary nature in its intensity and delight!
+
+Says the unlucky Headland to this first head of misery: "Johnson's
+mistake" (Johnson being the printer).
+
+Second, I read at Edinburgh for the first time--observe the day--_next
+Wednesday_. Jenny Lind's concert at Edinburgh is to-night. This morning
+comes a frantic letter from the Edinburgh agent. "I have no bills, no
+tickets; I lose all the announcement I would have made to hundreds upon
+hundreds of people to-night, all of the most desirable class to be well
+informed beforehand. I can't announce what Mr. Dickens is going to read;
+I can answer no question; I have, upon my responsibility, put a dreary
+advertisement into the papers announcing that he _is_ going to read so
+many times, and that particulars will shortly be ready; and I stand
+bound hand and foot." "Johnson's mistake," says the unlucky Headland.
+
+Of course, I know that the man who never made a mistake in poor Arthur's
+time is not likely to be always making mistakes now. But I have written
+by this post to Wills, to go to him and investigate. I have also
+detached Berry from here, and have sent him on by train at a few
+minutes' notice to Edinburgh, and then to Glasgow (where I have no doubt
+everything is wrong too). Glasgow we may save; Edinburgh I hold to be
+irretrievably damaged. If it can be picked up at all, it can only be at
+the loss of the two first nights, and by the expenditure of no end of
+spirits and force. And this is the harder, because it is impossible not
+to see that the last readings polished and prepared the audiences in
+general, and that I have not to work them up in any place where I have
+been before, but that they start with a London intelligence, and with a
+respect and preparation for what they are going to hear.
+
+I hope by the time you and Mamie come to me, we shall have got into some
+good method. I must take the thing more into my own hands and look after
+it from hour to hour. If such a thing as this Edinburgh business could
+have happened under poor Arthur, I really believe he would have fallen
+into a fit, or gone distracted. No one can ever know what he was but I
+who have been with him and without him. Headland is so anxious and so
+good-tempered that I cannot be very stormy with him; but it is the
+simple fact that he has no notion of the requirements of such work as
+this. Without him, and with a larger salary to Berry (though there are
+objections to the latter as _first_ man), I could have done a hundred
+times better.
+
+As Forster will have a strong interest in knowing all about the
+proceedings, perhaps you will send him this letter to read. There is no
+very tremendous harm, indeed, done as yet. At Edinburgh I KNOW what I
+can do with "Copperfield." I think it is not too much to say that for
+every one who does come to hear it on the first night, I can get back
+fifty on the second. And whatever can be worked up there will tell on
+Glasgow. Berry I shall continue to send on ahead, and I shall take
+nothing on trust and more as being done.
+
+On Sunday morning at six, I have to start for Berwick. From Berwick, in
+the course of that day, I will write again; to Mamie next time.
+
+With best love to her and Mrs. B.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Dickens.]
+
+                                QUEEN'S HEAD, NEWCASTLE-ON-TYNE,
+                                          _Saturday, Nov. 23rd, 1861._
+
+A most tremendous hall here last night; something almost terrible in the
+cram. A fearful thing might have happened. Suddenly, when they were all
+very still over Smike, my gas batten came down, and it looked as if the
+room was falling. There were three great galleries crammed to the roof,
+and a high steep flight of stairs, and a panic must have destroyed
+numbers of people. A lady in the front row of stalls screamed, and ran
+out wildly towards me, and for one instant there was a terrible wave in
+the crowd. I addressed that lady laughing (for I knew she was in sight
+of everybody there), and called out as if it happened every night,
+"There's nothing the matter, I assure you; don't be alarmed; pray sit
+down;" and she sat down directly, and there was a thunder of applause.
+It took some few minutes to mend, and I looked on with my hands in my
+pockets; for I think if I had turned my back for a moment there might
+still have been a move. My people were dreadfully alarmed, Boylett in
+particular, who I suppose had some notion that the whole place might
+have taken fire.
+
+"But there stood the master," he did me the honour to say afterwards, in
+addressing the rest, "as cool as ever I see him a-lounging at a railway
+station."
+
+A telegram from Berry at Edinburgh yesterday evening, to say that he
+had got the bills, and that they would all be up and dispersed yesterday
+evening under his own eyes. So no time was lost in setting things as
+right as they can be set. He has now gone on to Glasgow.
+
+P.S.--Duty to Mrs. Bouncer.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Hogarth.]
+
+                          BERWICK-ON-TWEED, _Monday, Nov. 25th, 1861._
+
+I write (in a gale of wind, with a high sea running), to let you know
+that we go on to Edinburgh at half-past eight to-morrow morning.
+
+A most ridiculous room was designed for me in this odd out-of-the-way
+place. An immense Corn Exchange made of glass and iron, round,
+dome-topped, lofty, utterly absurd for any such purpose, and full of
+thundering echoes, with a little lofty crow's-nest of a stone gallery
+breast high, deep in the wall, into which it was designed to put _me_! I
+instantly struck, of course, and said I would either read in a room
+attached to this house (a very snug one, capable of holding five hundred
+people) or not at all. Terrified local agents glowered, but fell
+prostrate.
+
+Berry has this moment come back from Edinburgh and Glasgow with hopeful
+accounts. He seems to have done the business extremely well, and he says
+that it was quite curious and cheering to see how the Glasgow people
+assembled round the bills the instant they were posted, and evidently
+with a great interest in them.
+
+We left Newcastle yesterday morning in the dark, when it was intensely
+cold and froze very hard. So it did here. But towards night the wind
+went round to the S.W., and all night it has been blowing very hard
+indeed. So it is now.
+
+Tell Mamie that I have the same sitting-room as we had when we came here
+with poor Arthur, and that my bedroom is the room out of it which she
+and Katie had. Surely it is the oddest town to read in! But it is taken
+on poor Arthur's principle that a place in the way pays the expenses of
+a through journey; and the people would seem to be coming up to the
+scratch gallantly. It was a dull Sunday, though; O it _was_ a dull
+Sunday, without a book! For I had forgotten to buy one at Newcastle,
+until it was too late. So after dark I made a jug of whisky-punch, and
+drowned the unlucky Headland's remembrance of his failures.
+
+I shall hope to hear very soon that the workmen have "broken through,"
+and that you have been in the state apartments, and that upholstery
+measurements have come off.
+
+There has been a horrible accident in Edinburgh. One of the seven-storey
+old houses in the High Street fell when it was full of people. Berry was
+at the bill-poster's house, a few doors off, waiting for him to come
+home, when he heard what seemed like thunder, and then the air was
+darkened with dust, "as if an immense quantity of steam had been blown
+off," and then all that dismal quarter set up shrieks, which he says
+were most dreadful.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Dickens.]
+
+              WATERLOO HOTEL, EDINBURGH, _Wednesday, Nov. 27th, 1861._
+
+Mrs. Bouncer must decidedly come with you to Carlisle. She shall be
+received with open arms. Apropos of Carlisle, let me know _when_ you
+purpose coming there. We shall be there, please God, on the Saturday in
+good time, as I finish at Glasgow on the Friday night.
+
+I have very little notion of the state of affairs here, as Headland
+brought no more decisive information from the agents yesterday (he never
+_can_ get decisive information from any agents), than "the teeckets air
+joost moving reecht and left." I hope this may be taken as satisfactory.
+Jenny Lind carried off a world of money from here. Miss Glyn, or Mrs.
+Dallas, is playing Lady Macbeth at the theatre, and Mr. Shirley Brooks
+is giving two lectures at the Philosophical Society on the House of
+Commons and Horace Walpole. Grisi's farewell benefits are (I think) on
+my last two nights here.
+
+Gordon dined with me yesterday. He is, if anything, rather better, I
+think, than when we last saw him in town. He was immensely pleased to be
+with me. I went with him (as his office goes anywhere) right into and
+among the ruins of the fallen building yesterday. They were still at
+work trying to find two men (brothers), a young girl, and an old woman,
+known to be all lying there. On the walls two or three common clocks are
+still hanging; one of them, judging from the time at which it stopped,
+would seem to have gone for an hour or so after the fall. Great interest
+had been taken in a poor linnet in a cage, hanging in the wind and rain
+high up against the broken wall. A fireman got it down alive, and great
+exultation had been raised over it. One woman, who was dug out unhurt,
+staggered into the street, stared all round her, instantly ran away, and
+has never been heard of since. It is a most extraordinary sight, and of
+course makes a great sensation.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Dickens.]
+
+                 WATERLOO HOTEL, EDINBURGH, _Friday, Nov. 29th, 1861._
+
+I think it is my turn to write to you, and I therefore send a brief
+despatch, like a telegram, to let you know that in a gale of wind and a
+fierce rain, last night, we turned away a thousand people. There was no
+getting into the hall, no getting near the hall, no stirring among the
+people, no getting out, no possibility of getting rid of them. And yet,
+in spite of all that, and of their being steaming wet, they never
+flagged for an instant, never made a complaint, and took up the trial
+upon their very shoulders, to the last word, in a triumphant roar.
+
+The talk about "Copperfield" rings through the whole place. It is done
+again to-morrow night. To-morrow morning I read "Dombey." To-morrow
+morning is Grisi's "farewell" morning concert, and last night was her
+"farewell" evening concert. Neither she, nor Jenny Lind, nor anything,
+nor anybody seems to make the least effect on the draw of the readings.
+
+I lunch with Blackwood to-day. He was at the reading last night; a
+capital audience. Young Blackwood has also called here. A very good
+young fellow, I think.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Hogarth.]
+
+            CARRICK'S ROYAL HOTEL, GLASGOW, _Tuesday, Dec. 3rd, 1861._
+
+I send you by this post another _Scotsman_. From a paragraph in it, a
+letter, and an advertisement, you may be able to form some dim guess of
+the scene at Edinburgh last night. Such a pouring of hundreds into a
+place already full to the throat, such indescribable confusion, such a
+rending and tearing of dresses, and yet such a scene of good humour on
+the whole. I never saw the faintest approach to it. While I addressed
+the crowd in the room, Gordon addressed the crowd in the street. Fifty
+frantic men got up in all parts of the hall and addressed me all at
+once. Other frantic men made speeches to the walls. The whole Blackwood
+family were borne in on the top of a wave, and landed with their faces
+against the front of the platform. I read with the platform crammed with
+people. I got them to lie down upon it, and it was like some impossible
+tableau or gigantic picnic; one pretty girl in full dress lying on her
+side all night, holding on to one of the legs of my table. It was the
+most extraordinary sight. And yet from the moment I began to the moment
+of my leaving off, they never missed a point, and they ended with a
+burst of cheers.
+
+The confusion was decidedly owing to the local agents. But I think it
+may have been a little heightened by Headland's way of sending them the
+tickets to sell in the first instance.
+
+Now, as I must read again in Edinburgh on Saturday night, your
+travelling arrangements are affected. So observe carefully (you and
+Mamie) all that I am going to say. It appears to me that the best course
+will be for you to come to _Edinburgh_ on Saturday; taking the fast
+train from the Great Northern station at nine in the morning. This would
+bring you to the Waterloo at Edinburgh, at about nine or so at night,
+and I should be home at ten. We could then have a quiet Sunday in
+Edinburgh, and go over to Carlisle on the Monday morning.
+
+The expenditure of lungs and spirits was (as you may suppose) rather
+great last night, and to sleep well was out of the question; I am
+therefore rather fagged to-day. And as the hall in which I read to-night
+is a large one, I must make my letter a short one.
+
+My people were torn to ribbons last night. They have not a hat among
+them, and scarcely a coat.
+
+Give my love to Mamie. To her question, "Will there be war with
+America?" I answer, "Yes;" I fear the North to be utterly mad, and war
+to be unavoidable.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. W. H. Wills.]
+
+                   VICTORIA HOTEL, PRESTON, _Friday, Dec. 13th, 1861._
+
+MY DEAR WILLS,
+
+The news of the Christmas number is indeed glorious, and nothing can
+look brighter or better than the prospects of the illustrious
+publication.
+
+Both Carlisle and Lancaster have come out admirably, though I doubted
+both, as you did. But, unlike you, I always doubted this place. I do so
+still. It is a poor place at the best (you remember?), and the mills are
+working half time, and trade is very bad. The expenses, however, will be
+a mere nothing. The accounts from Manchester for to-morrow, and from
+Liverpool for the readings generally, are very cheering indeed.
+
+The young lady who sells the papers at the station is just the same as
+ever. Has orders for to-night, and is coming "with a person." "_The_
+person?" said I. "Never _you_ mind," said she.
+
+I was so charmed with Robert Chambers's "Traditions of Edinburgh" (which
+I read _in_ Edinburgh), that I was obliged to write to him and say so.
+
+Glasgow finished nobly, and the last night in Edinburgh was signally
+successful and positively splendid.
+
+Will you give my small Admiral, on his personal application, one
+sovereign? I have told him to come to you for that recognition of his
+meritorious services.
+
+                                                      Ever faithfully.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. W. H. Wills.]
+
+                  ADELPHI HOTEL, LIVERPOOL, _Sunday, Dec. 15th, 1861._
+
+MY DEAR WILLS,
+
+I sent you a telegram to-day, and I write before the answer has come to
+hand.
+
+I have been very doubtful what to do here. We have a great let for
+to-morrow night. The Mayor recommends closing to-morrow, and going on on
+Tuesday and Wednesday, so does the town clerk, so do the agents. But I
+have a misgiving that they hardly understand what the public general
+sympathy with the Queen will be. Further, I feel personally that the
+Queen has always been very considerate and gracious to me, and I would
+on no account do anything that might seem unfeeling or disrespectful. I
+shall attach great weight, in this state of indecision, to your
+telegram.
+
+A capital audience at Preston. Not a capacious room, but full. Great
+appreciation.
+
+The scene at Manchester last night was really magnificent. I had had the
+platform carried forward to our "Frozen Deep" point, and my table and
+screen built in with a proscenium and room scenery. When I went in
+(there was a very fine hall), they applauded in the most tremendous
+manner; and the extent to which they were taken aback and taken by storm
+by "Copperfield" was really a thing to see.
+
+The post closes early here on a Sunday, and I shall close this also
+without further reference to "a message from the" W. H. W. being
+probably on the road.
+
+Radley is ill, and supposed to be fast declining, poor fellow. The house
+is crammed, the assizes on, and troops perpetually embarking for Canada,
+and their officers passing through the hotel.
+
+                                     Kindest regards, ever faithfully.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Mary Boyle.]
+
+                          GAD'S HILL, HIGHAM BY ROCHESTER, KENT,
+                                          _Saturday, Dec. 28th, 1861._
+
+MY DEAR MARY,
+
+On Monday (as you know) I am away again, but I am not sorry to see land
+and a little rest before me; albeit, these are great experiences of the
+public heart.
+
+The little Admiral has gone to visit America in the _Orlando_, supposed
+to be one of the foremost ships in the Service, and the best found, best
+manned, and best officered that ever sailed from England. He went away
+much gamer than any giant, attended by a chest in which he could easily
+have stowed himself and a wife and family of his own proportions.
+
+                                 Ever and always, your affectionate
+                                                                  JOE.
+
+
+
+
+1862.
+
+NARRATIVE.
+
+
+At the beginning of this year, Charles Dickens resumed the reading tour
+which he had commenced at the close of the previous year and continued
+up to Christmas. The first letter which follows, to Mr. Wills, a New
+Year's greeting, is written from a railway station between one town and
+another on this journey. Mr. Macready, who had married for the second
+time not very long before this, was now settled at Cheltenham. Charles
+Dickens had arranged to give readings there, chiefly for the pleasure of
+visiting him, and of having him as one of his audience.
+
+This reading tour went on until the beginning of February. One of the
+last of the series was in his favourite "beautiful room," the St.
+George's Hall at Liverpool. In February, he made an exchange of houses
+with his friends Mr. and Mrs. Hogge, they going to Gad's Hill, and he
+and his family to Mr. Hogge's house in Hyde Park Gate South. In March he
+commenced a series of readings at St. James's Hall, which went on until
+the middle of June, when he, very gladly, returned to his country home.
+
+A letter beginning "My dear Girls," addressed to some American ladies
+who happened to be at Colchester, in the same inn with him when he was
+reading there, was published by one of them under the name of "Our
+Letter," in the "St. Nicholas Magazine," New York, in 1877. We think it
+best to explain it in the young lady's own words, which are, therefore,
+appended to the letter.
+
+Mr. Walter Thornbury was one of Charles Dickens's most valuable
+contributors to "All the Year Round." His letters to him about the
+subjects of his articles for that journal, are specimens of the minute
+and careful attention and personal supervision, never neglected or
+distracted by any other work on which he might be engaged, were it ever
+so hard or engrossing.
+
+The letter addressed to Mr. Baylis we give chiefly because it has, since
+Mr. Baylis's death, been added to the collection of MSS. in the British
+Museum. He was a very intimate and confidential friend of the late Lord
+Lytton, and accompanied him on a visit to Gad's Hill in that year.
+
+We give an extract from another letter from Charles Dickens to his
+sister, as a beautiful specimen of a letter of condolence and
+encouragement to one who was striving, very bravely, but by very slow
+degrees, to recover from the overwhelming grief of her bereavement. Mr.
+Wilkie Collins was at this time engaged on his novel of "No Name," which
+appeared in "All the Year Round," and was threatened with a very serious
+breakdown in health. Charles Dickens wrote the letter which we give, to
+relieve Mr. Collins's mind as to his work. Happily he recovered
+sufficiently to make an end to his own story without any help; but the
+true friendship and kindness which suggested the offer were none the
+less appreciated, and may, very likely, by lessening his anxiety, have
+helped to restore his health. At the end of October in this year,
+Charles Dickens, accompanied by his daughter and sister-in-law, went to
+reside for a couple of months in Paris, taking an apartment in the Rue
+du Faubourg St. Honore. From thence he writes to M. Charles Fechter. He
+had been greatly interested in this fine artist from the time of his
+first appearance in England, and was always one of his warmest friends
+and supporters during his stay in this country. M. Fechter was, at this
+time, preparing for the opening of the Lyceum Theatre, under his own
+management, at the beginning of the following year.
+
+Just before Christmas, Charles Dickens returned to Gad's Hill. The
+Christmas number for this year was "Somebody's Luggage."
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. W. H. Wills.]
+
+
+                AT THE BIRMINGHAM STATION, _Thursday, Jan. 2nd, 1862._
+
+MY DEAR WILLS,
+
+Being stationed here for an hour, on my way from Leamington to
+Cheltenham, I write to you.
+
+Firstly, to reciprocate all your cordial and affectionate wishes for the
+New Year, and to express my earnest hope that we may go on through many
+years to come, as we have gone on through many years that are gone. And
+I think we can say that we doubt whether any two men can have gone on
+more happily and smoothly, or with greater trust and confidence in one
+another.
+
+A little packet will come to you from Hunt and Roskell's, almost at the
+same time, I think, as this note.
+
+The packet will contain a claret-jug. I hope it is a pretty thing in
+itself for your table, and I know that you and Mrs. Wills will like it
+none the worse because it comes from me.
+
+It is not made of a perishable material, and is so far expressive of our
+friendship. I have had your name and mine set upon it, in token of our
+many years of mutual reliance and trustfulness. It will never be so full
+of wine as it is to-day of affectionate regard.
+
+                                                Ever faithfully yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Hogarth.]
+
+                                 CHELTENHAM, _Friday, Jan. 3rd, 1862._
+
+MY DEAREST GEORGY,
+
+Mrs. Macready in voice is very like poor Mrs. Macready dead and gone;
+not in the least like her otherwise. She is perfectly satisfactory, and
+exceedingly winning. Quite perfect in her manner with him and in her
+ease with his children, sensible, gay, pleasant, sweet-tempered; not in
+the faintest degree stiff or pedantic; accessible instantly. I have very
+rarely seen a more agreeable woman. The house is (on a smaller scale)
+any house we have known them in. Furnished with the old furniture,
+pictures, engravings, mirrors, tables, and chairs. Butty is too tall for
+strength, I am afraid, but handsome, with a face of great power and
+character, and a very nice girl. Katie you know all about. Macready,
+decidedly much older and infirm. Very much changed. His old force has
+gone out of him strangely. I don't think I left off talking a minute
+from the time of my entering the house to my going to bed last night,
+and he was as much amused and interested as ever I saw him; still he
+was, and is, unquestionably aged.
+
+And even now I am obliged to cut this letter short by having to go and
+look after Headland. It would never do to be away from the rest of them.
+I have no idea what we are doing here; no notion whether things are
+right or wrong; no conception where the room is; no hold of the business
+at all. For which reason I cannot rest without going and looking after
+the worthy man.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Hogarth.]
+
+                                 TORQUAY, _Wednesday, Jan. 8th, 1862._
+
+You know, I think, that I was very averse to going to Plymouth, and
+would not have gone there again but for poor Arthur. But on the last
+night I read "Copperfield," and positively enthralled the people. It was
+a most overpowering effect, and poor Andrew[7] came behind the screen,
+after the storm, and cried in the best and manliest manner. Also there
+were two or three lines of his shipmates and other sailors, and they
+were extraordinarily affected. But its culminating effect was on
+Macready at Cheltenham. When I got home after "Copperfield," I found him
+quite unable to speak, and able to do nothing but square his dear old
+jaw all on one side, and roll his eyes (half closed), like Jackson's
+picture of him. And when I said something light about it, he returned:
+"No--er--Dickens! I swear to Heaven that, as a piece of passion and
+playfulness--er--indescribably mixed up together, it does--er--no,
+really, Dickens!--amaze me as profoundly as it moves me. But as a piece
+of art--and you know--er--that I--no, Dickens! By ----! have seen the
+best art in a great time--it is incomprehensible to me. How is it got
+at--er--how is it done--er--how one man can--well? It lays me on
+my--er--back, and it is of no use talking about it!" With which he put
+his hand upon my breast and pulled out his pocket-handkerchief, and I
+felt as if I were doing somebody to his Werner. Katie, by-the-bye, is a
+wonderful audience, and has a great fund of wild feeling in her. Johnny
+not at all unlike Plorn.
+
+I have not yet seen the room here, but imagine it to be very small.
+Exeter I know, and that is small also. I am very much used up, on the
+whole, for I cannot bear this moist warm climate. It would kill me very
+soon. And I have now got to the point of taking so much out of myself
+with "Copperfield," that I might as well do Richard Wardour.
+
+You have now, my dearest Georgy, the fullest extent of my tidings. This
+is a very pretty place--a compound of Hastings, Tunbridge Wells, and
+little bits of the hills about Naples; but I met four respirators as I
+came up from the station, and three pale curates without them, who
+seemed in a bad way.
+
+Frightful intelligence has just been brought in by Boylett, concerning
+the small size of the room. I have terrified Headland by sending him to
+look at it, and swearing that if it's too small I will go away to
+Exeter.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Hogarth.]
+
+                  ADELPHI HOTEL, LIVERPOOL, _Tuesday, Jan. 28th, 1862._
+
+The beautiful room was crammed to excess last night, and numbers were
+turned away. Its beauty and completeness when it is lighted up are most
+brilliant to behold, and for a reading it is simply perfect. You
+remember that a Liverpool audience is usually dull, but they put me on
+my mettle last night, for I never saw such an audience--no, not even in
+Edinburgh!
+
+I slept horribly last night, and have been over to Birkenhead for a
+little change of air to-day. My head is dazed and worn by gas and heat,
+and I fear that "Copperfield" and "Bob" together to-night won't mend it.
+
+Best love to Mamie and Katie, if still at Gad's. I am going to bring the
+boys some toffee.
+
+
+[Sidenote: The Misses Armstrong]
+
+                    GAD'S HILL PLACE, HIGHAM BY ROCHESTER, KENT,
+                                            _Monday, Feb. 10th, 1862._
+
+MY DEAR GIRLS,
+
+For if I were to write "young friends," it would look like a
+schoolmaster; and if I were to write "young ladies," it would look like
+a schoolmistress; and worse than that, neither form of words would look
+familiar and natural, or in character with our snowy ride that
+tooth-chattering morning.
+
+I cannot tell you both how gratified I was by your remembrance, or how
+often I think of you as I smoke the admirable cigars. But I almost think
+you must have had some magnetic consciousness across the Atlantic, of my
+whiffing my love towards you from the garden here.
+
+My daughter says that when you have settled those little public affairs
+at home, she hopes you will come back to England (possibly in united
+states) and give a minute or two to this part of Kent. _Her_ words are,
+"a day or two;" but I remember your Italian flights, and correct the
+message.
+
+I have only just now finished my country readings, and have had nobody
+to make breakfast for me since the remote ages of Colchester!
+
+                                                Ever faithfully yours.
+
+
+OUR LETTER.
+
+By M. F. ARMSTRONG.
+
+"From among all my treasures--to each one of which some pleasant history
+is bound--I choose this letter, written on coarse blue paper.
+
+The letter was received in answer to cigars sent from America to Mr.
+Dickens.
+
+The 'little public affairs at home' refers to the war of the Rebellion.
+
+At Colchester, he read 'The Trial' from 'Pickwick,' and selections from
+'Nicholas Nickleby.'
+
+The lady, her two sisters, and her brother were Mr. Dickens's guests at
+the queer old English inn at Colchester.
+
+Through the softly falling snow we came back together to London, and on
+the railway platform parted, with a hearty hand-shaking, from the man
+who will for ever be enshrined in our hearts as the kindest and most
+generous, not to say most brilliant of hosts."
+
+
+[Sidenote: M. de Cerjat.]
+
+                      16, HYDE PARK GATE, SOUTH KENSINGTON GORE,
+                                           _Sunday, March 16th, 1862._
+
+MY DEAR CERJAT,
+
+My daughter naturally liking to be in town at this time of year, I have
+changed houses with a friend for three months.
+
+My eldest boy is in business as an Eastern merchant in the City, and
+will do well if he can find continuous energy; otherwise not. My second
+boy is with the 42nd Highlanders in India. My third boy, a good steady
+fellow, is educating expressly for engineers or artillery. My fourth
+(this sounds like a charade), a born little sailor, is a midshipman in
+H.M.S. _Orlando_, now at Bermuda, and will make his way anywhere.
+Remaining two at school, elder of said remaining two very bright and
+clever. Georgina and Mary keeping house for me; and Francis Jeffrey (I
+ought to have counted him as the third boy, so we'll take him in here as
+number two and a half) in my office at present. Now you have the family
+bill of fare.
+
+You ask me about Fechter and his Hamlet. It was a performance of
+extraordinary merit; by far the most coherent, consistent, and
+intelligible Hamlet I ever saw. Some of the delicacies with which he
+rendered his conception clear were extremely subtle; and in particular
+he avoided that brutality towards Ophelia which, with a greater or less
+amount of coarseness, I have seen in all other Hamlets. As a mere _tour
+de force_, it would have been very remarkable in its disclosure of a
+perfectly wonderful knowledge of the force of the English language; but
+its merit was far beyond and above this. Foreign accent, of course, but
+not at all a disagreeable one. And he was so obviously safe and at ease,
+that you were never in pain for him as a foreigner. Add to this a
+perfectly picturesque and romantic "make up," and a remorseless
+destruction of all conventionalities, and you have the leading virtues
+of the impersonation. In Othello he did not succeed. In Iago he is very
+good. He is an admirable artist, and far beyond anyone on our stage. A
+real artist and a gentleman.
+
+Last Thursday I began reading again in London--a condensation of
+"Copperfield," and "Mr. Bob Sawyer's Party," from "Pickwick," to finish
+merrily. The success of "Copperfield" is astounding. It made an
+impression that _I_ must not describe. I may only remark that I was half
+dead when I had done; and that although I had looked forward, all
+through the summer, when I was carefully getting it up, to its being a
+London sensation; and that although Macready, hearing it at Cheltenham,
+told me to be prepared for a great effect, it even went beyond my hopes.
+I read again next Thursday, and the rush for places is quite furious.
+Tell Townshend this with my love, if you see him before I have time to
+write to him; and tell him that I thought the people would never let me
+go away, they became so excited, and showed it so very warmly. I am
+trying to plan out a new book, but have not got beyond trying.
+
+                                                 Yours affectionately.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. Walter Thornbury.]
+
+                                  OFFICE OF "ALL THE YEAR ROUND,"
+                                           _Friday, April 18th, 1862._
+
+
+MY DEAR THORNBURY,
+
+The Bow Street runners ceased out of the land soon after the
+introduction of the new police. I remember them very well as standing
+about the door of the office in Bow Street. They had no other uniform
+than a blue dress-coat, brass buttons (I am not even now sure that that
+was necessary), and a bright red cloth waistcoat. The waistcoat was
+indispensable, and the slang name for them was "redbreasts," in
+consequence.
+
+They kept company with thieves and the like, much more than the
+detective police do. I don't know what their pay was, but I have no
+doubt their principal complements were got under the rose. It was a very
+slack institution, and its head-quarters were The Brown Bear, in Bow
+Street, a public-house of more than doubtful reputation, opposite the
+police-office; and either the house which is now the theatrical costume
+maker's, or the next door to it.
+
+Field, who advertises the Secret Enquiry Office, was a Bow Street
+runner, and can tell you all about it; Goddard, who also advertises an
+enquiry office, was another of the fraternity. They are the only two I
+know of as yet existing in a "questionable shape."
+
+                                              Faithfully yours always.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. Baylis.]
+
+                        GAD'S HILL, ETC., _Wednesday, July 2nd, 1862._
+
+MY DEAR MR. BAYLIS,
+
+I have been in France, and in London, and in other parts of Kent than
+this, and everywhere but here, for weeks and weeks. Pray excuse my not
+having (for this reason specially) answered your kind note sooner.
+
+After carefully cross-examining my daughter, I do NOT believe her to be
+worthy of the fernery. Last autumn we transplanted into the shrubbery a
+quantity of evergreens previously clustered close to the front of the
+house, and trained more ivy about the wall and the like. When I ask her
+where she would have the fernery and what she would do with it, the
+witness falters, turns pale, becomes confused, and says: "Perhaps it
+would be better not to have it at all." I am quite confident that the
+constancy of the young person is not to be trusted, and that she had
+better attach her fernery to one of her chateaux in Spain, or one of her
+English castles in the air. None the less do I thank you for your more
+than kind proposal.
+
+We have been in great anxiety respecting Miss Hogarth, the sudden
+decline of whose health and spirits has greatly distressed us. Although
+she is better than she was, and the doctors are, on the whole, cheerful,
+she requires great care, and fills us with apprehension. The necessity
+of providing change for her will probably take us across the water very
+early in the autumn; and this again unsettles home schemes here, and
+withers many kinds of fern. If they knew (by "they" I mean my daughter
+and Miss Hogarth) that I was writing to you, they would charge me with
+many messages of regard. But as I am shut up in my room in a ferocious
+and unapproachable condition, owing to the great accumulation of letters
+I have to answer, I will tell them at lunch that I have anticipated
+their wish. As I know they have bills for me to pay, and are at present
+shy of producing them, I wish to preserve a gloomy and repellent
+reputation.
+
+                          My dear Mr. Baylis, faithfully yours always.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mrs. Henry Austin.]
+
+                                GAD'S HILL, _Tuesday, Oct. 7th, 1862._
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+I do not preach consolation because I am unwilling to preach at any
+time, and know my own weakness too well. But in this world there is no
+stay but the hope of a better, and no reliance but on the mercy and
+goodness of God. Through those two harbours of a shipwrecked heart, I
+fully believe that you will, in time, find a peaceful resting-place even
+on this careworn earth. Heaven speed the time, and do you try hard to
+help it on! It is impossible to say but that our prolonged grief for the
+beloved dead may grieve them in their unknown abiding-place, and give
+them trouble. The one influencing consideration in all you do as to
+your disposition of yourself (coupled, of course, with a real earnest
+strenuous endeavour to recover the lost tone of spirit) is, that you
+think and feel you _can_ do. I do not in the least regard your change of
+course in going to Havre as any evidence of instability. But I rather
+hope it is likely that through such restlessness you will come to a far
+quieter frame of mind. The disturbed mind and affections, like the
+tossed sea, seldom calm without an intervening time of confusion and
+trouble.
+
+But nothing is to be attained without striving. In a determined effort
+to settle the thoughts, to parcel out the day, to find occupation
+regularly or to make it, to be up and doing something, are chiefly to be
+found the mere mechanical means which must come to the aid of the best
+mental efforts.
+
+It is a wilderness of a day, here, in the way of blowing and raining,
+and as darkly dismal, at four o'clock, as need be. My head is but just
+now raised from a day's writing, but I will not lose the post without
+sending you a word.
+
+Katie was here yesterday, just come back from Clara White's (that was),
+in Scotland. In the midst of her brilliant fortune, it is too clear to
+me that she is already beckoned away to follow her dead sisters.
+Macready was here from Saturday evening to yesterday morning, older but
+looking wonderfully well, and (what is very rare in these times) with
+the old thick sweep of hair upon his head. Georgina being left alone
+here the other day, was done no good to by a great consternation among
+the servants. On going downstairs, she found Marsh (the stableman)
+seated with great dignity and anguish in an arm-chair, and incessantly
+crying out: "I am dead." To which the women servants said with great
+pathos (and with some appearance of reason): "No, you ain't, Marsh!" And
+to which he persisted in replying: "Yes, I am; I am dead!" Some
+neighbouring vagabond was impressed to drive a cart over to Rochester
+and fetch the doctor, who said (the patient and his consolers being all
+very anxious that the heart should be the scene of affliction):
+"Stomach."
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. W. Wilkie Collins.]
+
+                    GAD'S HILL PLACE, HIGHAM BY ROCHESTER, KENT,
+                                     _Tuesday Night, Oct. 14th, 1862._
+
+MY DEAR WILKIE,
+
+Frank Beard has been here this evening, of course since I posted my this
+day's letter to you, and has told me that you are not at all well, and
+how he has given you something which he hopes and believes will bring
+you round. It is not to convey this insignificant piece of intelligence,
+or to tell you how anxious I am that you should come up with a wet sheet
+and a flowing sail (as we say at sea when we are not sick), that I
+write. It is simply to say what follows, which I hope may save you some
+mental uneasiness. For I was stricken ill when I was doing "Bleak
+House," and I shall not easily forget what I suffered under the fear of
+not being able to come up to time.
+
+Dismiss that fear (if you have it) altogether from your mind. Write to
+me at Paris at any moment, and say you are unequal to your work, and
+want me, and I will come to London straight and do your work. I am quite
+confident that, with your notes and a few words of explanation, I could
+take it up at any time and do it. Absurdly unnecessary to say that it
+would be a makeshift! But I could do it at a pinch, so like you as that
+no one should find out the difference. Don't make much of this offer in
+your mind; it is nothing, except to ease it. If you should want help, I
+am as safe as the bank. The trouble would be nothing to me, and the
+triumph of overcoming a difficulty great. Think it a Christmas number,
+an "Idle Apprentice," a "Lighthouse," a "Frozen Deep." I am as ready as
+in any of these cases to strike in and hammer the hot iron out.
+
+You won't want me. You will be well (and thankless!) in no time. But
+there I am; and I hope that the knowledge may be a comfort to you. Call
+me, and I come.
+
+As Beard always has a sense of medical responsibility, and says anything
+important about a patient in confidence, I have merely remarked here
+that "Wilkie" is out of sorts. Charley (who is here with Katie) has no
+other cue from me.
+
+                                                  Ever affectionately.
+
+
+[Sidenote: M. Charles Fechter.]
+
+                          PARIS, RUE DU FAUBOURG ST. HONORE, 27,
+                                            _Tuesday, Nov. 4th, 1862._
+
+MY DEAR FECHTER,
+
+You know, I believe, how our letters crossed, and that I am here until
+Christmas. Also, you know with what pleasure and readiness I should have
+responded to your invitation if I had been in London.
+
+Pray tell Paul Feval that I shall be charmed to know him, and that I
+shall feel the strongest interest in making his acquaintance. It almost
+puts me out of humour with Paris (and it takes a great deal to do that!)
+to think that I was not at home to prevail upon him to come with you,
+and be welcomed to Gad's Hill; but either there or here, I hope to
+become his friend before this present old year is out. Pray tell him so.
+
+You say nothing in your note of your Lyceum preparations. I trust they
+are all going on well. There is a fine opening for you, I am sure, with
+a good beginning; but the importance of a good beginning is very great.
+If you ever have time and inclination to tell me in a short note what
+you are about, you can scarcely interest me more, as my wishes and
+strongest sympathies are for and with your success--_mais cela va sans
+dire_.
+
+I went to the Chatelet (a beautiful theatre!) the other night to see
+"Rothomago," but was so mortally _gene_ with the poor nature of the
+piece and of the acting, that I came out again when there was a week or
+two (I mean an hour or two, but the hours seemed weeks) yet to get
+through.
+
+                        My dear Fechter, very faithfully yours always.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. Clarkson Stanfield, R.A.]
+
+                          PARIS, RUE DU FAUBOURG ST. HONORE, 27,
+                                             _Friday, Dec. 5th, 1862._
+
+MY DEAR STANNY,
+
+We have been here for two months, and I shall probably come back here
+after Christmas (we go home for Christmas week) and stay on into
+February. But I shall write and propose a theatre before Christmas is
+out, so this is to warn you to get yourself into working pantomime
+order!
+
+I hope Wills has duly sent you our new Christmas number. As you may like
+to know what I myself wrote of it, understand the Dick contributions to
+be, _his leaving it till called for_, and _his wonderful end_, _his
+boots_, and _his brown paper parcel_.
+
+Since you were at Gad's Hill I have been travelling a good deal, and
+looking up many odd things for use. I want to know how you are in health
+and spirits, and it would be the greatest of pleasures to me to have a
+line under your hand.
+
+God bless you and yours with all the blessings of the time of year, and
+of all times!
+
+                                Ever your affectionate and faithful
+                                                                 DICK.
+
+
+[Sidenote: M. Charles Fechter.]
+
+                                    PARIS, _Saturday, Dec. 6th, 1862._
+
+MY DEAR FECHTER,
+
+I have read "The White Rose" attentively, and think it an extremely good
+play. It is vigorously written with a great knowledge of the stage, and
+presents many striking situations. I think the close particularly fine,
+impressive, bold, and new.
+
+But I greatly doubt the expediency of your doing _any_ historical play
+early in your management. By the words "historical play," I mean a play
+founded on any incident in English history. Our public are accustomed to
+associate historical plays with Shakespeare. In any other hands, I
+believe they care very little for crowns and dukedoms. What you want is
+something with an interest of a more domestic and general nature--an
+interest as romantic as you please, but having a more general and wider
+response than a disputed succession to the throne can have for
+Englishmen at this time of day. Such interest culminated in the last
+Stuart, and has worn itself out. It would be uphill work to evoke an
+interest in Perkin Warbeck.
+
+I do not doubt the play's being well received, but my fear is that these
+people would be looked upon as mere abstractions, and would have but a
+cold welcome in consequence, and would not lay hold of your audience.
+Now, when you _have_ laid hold of your audience and have accustomed them
+to your theatre, you may produce "The White Rose," with far greater
+justice to the author, and to the manager also. Wait. Feel your way.
+Perkin Warbeck is too far removed from analogy with the sympathies and
+lives of the people for a beginning.
+
+                               My dear Fechter, ever faithfully yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Mary Boyle.]
+
+                    GAD'S HILL PLACE, HIGHAM BY ROCHESTER, KENT,
+                                          _Saturday, Dec. 27th, 1862._
+
+MY DEAR MARY,
+
+I must send you my Christmas greeting and happy New Year wishes in
+return for yours; most heartily and fervently reciprocating your
+interest and affection. You are among the few whom I most care for and
+best love.
+
+Being in London two evenings in the opening week, I tried to persuade my
+legs (for whose judgment I have the highest respect) to go to an evening
+party. But I _could not_ induce them to pass Leicester Square. The
+faltering presentiment under which they laboured so impressed me, that
+at that point I yielded to their terrors. They immediately ran away to
+the east, and I accompanied them to the Olympic, where I saw a very good
+play, "Camilla's Husband," very well played. Real merit in Mr. Neville
+and Miss Saville.
+
+We came across directly after the gale, with the Channel all bestrewn
+with floating wreck, and with a hundred and fifty sick schoolboys from
+Calais on board. I am going back on the morning after Fechter's opening
+night, and have promised to read "Copperfield" at the Embassy, for a
+British charity.
+
+Georgy continues wonderfully well, and she and Mary send you their best
+love. The house is pervaded by boys; and every boy has (as usual) an
+unaccountable and awful power of producing himself in every part of the
+house at every moment, apparently in fourteen pairs of creaking boots.
+
+                              My dear Mary, ever affectionately your
+                                                                  JOE.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[7] Lieutenant Andrew Gordon, R.N., son of the Sheriff of Midlothian.
+
+
+
+
+1863.
+
+NARRATIVE.
+
+
+At the beginning of this year, Charles Dickens was in Paris for the
+purpose of giving a reading at the English Embassy.
+
+He remained in Paris until the beginning of February, staying with his
+servant "John" at the Hotel du Helder. There was a series of readings in
+London this season at the Hanover Square Rooms. The Christmas number of
+"All the Year Round" was entitled "Mrs. Lirriper's Lodgings," to which
+Charles Dickens contributed the first and last chapter.
+
+The Lyceum Theatre, under the management of M. Fechter, was opened in
+January with "The Duke's Motto," and the letter given here has reference
+to this first night.
+
+We regret very much having no letters to Lady Molesworth, who was an old
+and dear friend of Charles Dickens. But this lady explains to us that
+she has long ceased to preserve any letters addressed to her.
+
+The "Mr. and Mrs. Humphery" (now Sir William and Lady Humphery)
+mentioned in the first letter for this year, were dear and intimate
+friends of his eldest daughter, and were frequent guests in her father's
+house. Mrs. Humphery and her sister Lady Olliffe were daughters of the
+late Mr. William Cubitt, M.P.
+
+We have in this year the first letter of Charles Dickens to Mr. Percy
+Fitzgerald. This gentleman had been a valuable contributor to his
+journal before he became personally known to Charles Dickens. The
+acquaintance once made soon ripened into friendship, and for the future
+Mr. Fitzgerald was a constant and always a welcome visitor to Gad's
+Hill.
+
+The letter to Mr. Charles Reade alludes to his story, "Hard Cash," which
+was then appearing in "All the Year Round." As a writer, and as a
+friend, he was held by Charles Dickens in the highest estimation.
+
+Charles Dickens's correspondence with his solicitor and excellent
+friend, Mr. Frederic Ouvry (now a vice-president of the Society of
+Antiquaries), was almost entirely of a business character; but we are
+glad to give one or two notes to that gentleman, although of little
+public interest, in order to have the name in our book of one of the
+kindest of our own friends.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Dickens.]
+
+                          PARIS, HOTEL DU HELDER, RUE DU HELDER,
+                                            _Friday, Jan. 16th, 1863._
+
+MY DEAREST MAMIE,
+
+As I send a line to your aunt to-day and know that you will not see it,
+I send another to you to report my safe (and neuralgic) arrival here. My
+little rooms are perfectly comfortable, and I like the hotel better than
+any I have ever put up at in Paris. John's amazement at, and
+appreciation of, Paris are indescribable. He goes about with his mouth
+open, staring at everything and being tumbled over by everybody.
+
+The state dinner at the Embassy, yesterday, coming off in the room where
+I am to read, the carpenters did not get in until this morning. But
+their platforms were ready--or supposed to be--and the preparations are
+in brisk progress. I think it will be a handsome affair to look at--a
+very handsome one. There seems to be great artistic curiosity in Paris,
+to know what kind of thing the reading is.
+
+I know a "rela-shon" (with one weak eye), who is in the gunmaking line,
+very near here. There is a strong family resemblance--but no muzzle.
+Lady Molesworth and I have not begun to "toddle" yet, but have exchanged
+affectionate greetings. I am going round to see her presently, and I
+dine with her on Sunday. The only remaining news is, that I am beset by
+mysterious adorers, and smuggle myself in and out of the house in the
+meanest and basest manner.
+
+With kind regard to Mr. and Mrs. Humphery,
+
+                     Ever, my dearest Mamey, your affectionate Father.
+
+P.S.--_Hommage a Madame B.!_
+
+
+[Sidenote: Monsieur Regnier.]
+
+                                      PARIS, _Sunday, Feb. 1st, 1863._
+
+MY DEAR REGNIER,
+
+I was charmed by the receipt of your cordial and sympathetic letter, and
+I shall always preserve it carefully as a most noble tribute from a
+great and real artist.
+
+I wished you had been at the Embassy on Friday evening. The audience was
+a fine one, and the "Carol" is particularly well adapted to the purpose.
+It is an uncommon pleasure to me to learn that I am to meet you on
+Tuesday, for there are not many men whom I meet with greater pleasure
+than you. Heaven! how the years roll by! We are quite old friends now,
+in counting by years. If we add sympathies, we have been friends at
+least a thousand years.
+
+                                            Affectionately yours ever.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Dickens.]
+
+                     HOTEL DU HELDER, PARIS, _Sunday, Feb. 1st, 1863._
+
+MY DEAREST MAMIE,
+
+I cannot give you any idea of the success of the readings here, because
+no one can imagine the scene of last Friday night at the Embassy. Such
+audiences and such enthusiasm I have never seen, but the thing
+culminated on Friday night in a two hours' storm of excitement and
+pleasure. They actually recommenced and applauded right away into their
+carriages and down the street.
+
+You know your parent's horror of being lionised, and will not be
+surprised to hear that I am half dead of it. I cannot leave here until
+Thursday (though I am every hour in danger of running away) because I
+have to dine out, to say nothing of breakfasting--think of me
+breakfasting!--every intervening day. But my project is to send John
+home on Thursday, and then to go on a little perfectly quiet tour for
+about ten days, touching the sea at Boulogne. When I get there, I will
+write to your aunt (in case you should not be at home), saying when I
+shall arrive at the office. I must go to the office instead of Gad's,
+because I have much to do with Forster about Elliotson.
+
+I enclose a short note for each of the little boys. Give Harry ten
+shillings pocket-money, and Plorn six.
+
+The Olliffe girls, very nice. Florence at the readings, prodigiously
+excited.
+
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Hogarth.]
+
+                                      PARIS, _Sunday, Feb. 1st, 1863._
+
+From my hurried note to Mamie, you will get some faint general idea of a
+new star's having arisen in Paris. But of its brightness you can have no
+adequate conception.
+
+[John has locked me up and gone out, and the little bell at the door is
+ringing demoniacally while I write.]
+
+You have never heard me read yet. I have been twice goaded and lifted
+out of myself into a state that astonished _me_ almost as much as the
+audience. I have a cold, but no neuralgia, and am "as well as can be
+expected."
+
+I forgot to tell Mamie that I went (with Lady Molesworth) to hear
+"Faust" last night. It is a splendid work, in which that noble and sad
+story is most nobly and sadly rendered, and perfectly delighted me. But
+I think it requires too much of the audience to do for a London opera
+house. The composer must be a very remarkable man indeed. Some
+management of light throughout the story is also very poetical and fine.
+We had Carvalho's box. I could hardly bear the thing, it affected me so.
+
+But, as a certain Frenchman said, "No weakness, Danton!" So I leave off.
+
+
+[Sidenote: M. Charles Fechter.]
+
+                                   PARIS, _Wednesday, Feb. 4th, 1863._
+
+MY DEAR FECHTER,
+
+A thousand congratulations on your great success! Never mind what they
+say, or do, _pour vous ecraser_; you have the game in your hands. The
+romantic drama, thoroughly well done (with a touch of Shakespeare now
+and then), is the speciality of your theatre. Give the public the
+picturesque, romantic drama, with yourself in it; and (as I told you in
+the beginning) you may throw down your gauntlet in defiance of all
+comers.
+
+It is a most brilliant success indeed, and it thoroughly rejoices my
+heart!
+
+Unfortunately I cannot now hope to see "Maquet," because I am packing up
+and going out to dinner (it is late in the afternoon), and I leave
+to-morrow morning when all sensible people, except myself, are in bed;
+and I do not come back to Paris or near it. I had hoped to see him at
+breakfast last Monday, but he was not there. Paul Feval was there, and I
+found him a capital fellow. If I can do anything to help you on with
+"Maquet"[8] when I come back I will most gladly do it.
+
+My readings here have had the finest possible reception, and have
+achieved a most noble success. I never before read to such fine
+audiences, so very quick of perception, and so enthusiastically
+responsive.
+
+I shall be heartily pleased to see you again, my dear Fechter, and to
+share your triumphs with the real earnestness of a real friend. And so
+go on and prosper, and believe me, as I truly am,
+
+
+                                                 Most cordially yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. W. C. Macready.]
+
+                                  OFFICE OF "ALL THE YEAR ROUND,"
+                                          _Thursday, Feb. 19th, 1863._
+
+MY DEAREST MACREADY,
+
+I have just come back from Paris, where the readings--"Copperfield,"
+"Dombey" and "Trial," and "Carol" and "Trial"--have made a sensation
+which modesty (my natural modesty) renders it impossible for me to
+describe. You know what a noble audience the Paris audience is! They
+were at their very noblest with me.
+
+I was very much concerned by hearing hurriedly from Georgy that you
+were ill. But when I came home at night, she showed me Katie's letter,
+and that set me up again. Ah, you have the best of companions and
+nurses, and can afford to be ill now and then for the happiness of being
+so brought through it. But don't do it again yet awhile for all that.
+
+Legouve (whom you remember in Paris as writing for the Ristori) was
+anxious that I should bring you the enclosed. A manly and generous
+effort, I think? Regnier desired to be warmly remembered to you. He
+looks just as of yore.
+
+Paris generally is about as wicked and extravagant as in the days of the
+Regency. Madame Viardot in the "Orphee," most splendid. An opera of
+"Faust," a very sad and noble rendering of that sad and noble story.
+Stage management remarkable for some admirable, and really poetical,
+effects of light. In the more striking situations, Mephistopheles
+surrounded by an infernal red atmosphere of his own. Marguerite by a
+pale blue mournful light. The two never blending. After Marguerite has
+taken the jewels placed in her way in the garden, a weird evening draws
+on, and the bloom fades from the flowers, and the leaves of the trees
+droop and lose their fresh green, and mournful shadows overhang her
+chamber window, which was innocently bright and gay at first. I couldn't
+bear it, and gave in completely.
+
+Fechter doing wonders over the way here, with a picturesque French
+drama. Miss Kate Terry, in a small part in it, perfectly charming. You
+may remember her making a noise, years ago, doing a boy at an inn, in
+"The Courier of Lyons"? She has a tender love-scene in this piece, which
+is a really beautiful and artistic thing. I saw her do it at about three
+in the morning of the day when the theatre opened, surrounded by
+shavings and carpenters, and (of course) with that inevitable hammer
+going; and I told Fechter: "That is the very best piece of womanly
+tenderness I have ever seen on the stage, and you'll find that no
+audience can miss it." It is a comfort to add that it was instantly
+seized upon, and is much talked of.
+
+Stanfield was very ill for some months, then suddenly picked up, and is
+really rosy and jovial again. Going to see him when he was very
+despondent, I told him the story of Fechter's piece (then in rehearsal)
+with appropriate action; fighting a duel with the washing-stand, defying
+the bedstead, and saving the life of the sofa-cushion. This so kindled
+his old theatrical ardour, that I think he turned the corner on the
+spot.
+
+With love to Mrs. Macready and Katie, and (be still my heart!)
+Benvenuta, and the exiled Johnny (not too attentive at school, I hope?),
+and the personally-unknown young Parr,
+
+                    Ever, my dearest Macready, your most affectionate.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Power.]
+
+                                  OFFICE OF "ALL THE YEAR ROUND,"
+                                          _Thursday, Feb. 26th, 1863._
+
+MY DEAR MARGUERITE,
+
+I think I have found a first-rate title for your book, with an early and
+a delightful association in most people's minds, and a strong suggestion
+of Oriental pictures:
+
+                        "ARABIAN DAYS AND NIGHTS."
+
+I have sent it to Low's. If they have the wit to see it, do you in your
+first chapter touch that string, so as to bring a fanciful explanation
+in aid of the title, and sound it afterwards, now and again, when you
+come to anything where Haroun al Raschid, and the Grand Vizier, and
+Mesrour, the chief of the guard, and any of that wonderful _dramatis
+personae_ are vividly brought to mind.
+
+                                                  Ever affectionately.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. Charles Knight.]
+
+                                  OFFICE OF "ALL THE YEAR ROUND,"
+                                         _Wednesday, March 4th, 1863._
+
+MY DEAR CHARLES KNIGHT,
+
+At a quarter to seven on Monday, the 16th, a stately form will be
+descried breathing birthday cordialities and affectionate amenities, as
+it descends the broken and gently dipping ground by which the level
+country of the Clifton Road is attained. A practised eye will be able to
+discern two humble figures in attendance, which from their flowing
+crinolines may, without exposing the prophet to the imputation of
+rashness, be predicted to be women. Though certes their importance,
+absorbed and as it were swallowed up in the illustrious bearing and
+determined purpose of the maturer stranger, will not enthrall the gaze
+that wanders over the forest of San Giovanni as the night gathers in.
+
+                                           Ever affectionately,
+                                                       G. P. R. JAMES.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mrs. Dallas.[9]]
+
+
+EXTRACT.
+
+THE TIME OF THE PRINCESS ALEXANDRA'S ARRIVAL IN LONDON.
+
+It is curious to see London gone mad. Down in the Strand here, the
+monomaniacal tricks it is playing are grievous to behold, but along
+Fleet Street and Cheapside it gradually becomes frenzied, dressing
+itself up in all sorts of odds and ends, and knocking itself about in a
+most amazing manner. At London Bridge it raves, principally about the
+Kings of Denmark and their portraits. I have been looking among them for
+Hamlet's uncle, and have discovered one personage with a high nose, who
+I think is the man.
+
+                                              Faithfully yours always.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mrs. Lehmann.]
+
+      OFFICE OF "ALL THE YEAR ROUND," NO. 26, WELLINGTON STREET,
+                               STRAND, LONDON, W.C.,
+                                          _Tuesday, March 10th, 1863._
+
+DEAR MRS. LEHMANN,
+
+Two stalls for to-morrow's reading were sent to you by post before I
+heard from you this morning. Two will always come to you while you
+remain a Gummidge, and I hope I need not say that if you want more, none
+could be better bestowed in my sight.
+
+Pray tell Lehmann, when you next write to him, that I find I owe him a
+mint of money for the delightful Swedish sleigh-bells. They are the
+wonder, awe, and admiration of the whole country side, and I never go
+out without them.
+
+Let us make an exchange of child stories. I heard of a little fellow the
+other day whose mamma had been telling him that a French governess was
+coming over to him from Paris, and had been expatiating on the blessings
+and advantages of having foreign tongues. After leaning his plump little
+cheek against the window glass in a dreary little way for some minutes,
+he looked round and enquired in a general way, and not as if it had any
+special application, whether she didn't think "that the Tower of Babel
+was a great mistake altogether?"
+
+                                                Ever faithfully yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mrs. Major.[10]]
+
+  OFFICE OF "ALL THE YEAR ROUND," A WEEKLY JOURNAL, ETC. ETC.,
+                     26, WELLINGTON STREET, STRAND,
+                                         _Thursday, March 12th, 1863._
+
+MY DEAR MARY,
+
+I am quite concerned to hear that you and your party (including your
+brother Willie) paid for seats at my reading last night. You must
+promise me never to do so any more. My old affections and attachments
+are not so lightly cherished or so easily forgotten as that I can bear
+the thought of you and yours coming to hear me like so many strangers.
+It will at all times delight me if you will send a little note to me, or
+to Georgina, or to Mary, saying when you feel inclined to come, and how
+many stalls you want. You may always be certain, even on the fullest
+nights, of room being made for you. And I shall always be interested and
+pleased by knowing that you are present.
+
+Mind! You are to be exceedingly penitent for last night's offence, and
+to make me a promise that it shall never be repeated. On which condition
+accept my noble forgiveness.
+
+With kind regard to Mr. Major, my dear Mary,
+
+                                                 Affectionately yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. W. C. Macready.]
+
+                    GAD'S HILL PLACE, HIGHAM BY ROCHESTER, KENT,
+                                         _Thursday, March 31st, 1863._
+
+MY DEAREST MACREADY,
+
+I mean to go on reading into June. For the sake of the finer effects (in
+"Copperfield" principally), I have changed from St. James's Hall to the
+Hanover Square Room. The latter is quite a wonderful room for sound, and
+so easy that the least inflection will tell anywhere in the place
+exactly as it leaves your lips; but I miss my dear old shilling
+galleries--six or eight hundred strong--with a certain roaring sea of
+response in them, that you have stood upon the beach of many and many a
+time.
+
+The summer, I hope and trust, will quicken the pace at which you grow
+stronger again. I am but in dull spirits myself just now, or I should
+remonstrate with you on your slowness.
+
+Having two little boys sent home from school "to see the illuminations"
+on the marriage-night, I chartered an enormous van, at a cost of five
+pounds, and we started in majesty from the office in London, fourteen
+strong. We crossed Waterloo Bridge with the happy design of beginning
+the sight at London Bridge, and working our way through the City to
+Regent Street. In a by-street in the Borough, over against a dead wall
+and under a railway bridge, we were blocked for four hours. We were
+obliged to walk home at last, having seen nothing whatever. The wretched
+van turned up in the course of the next morning; and the best of it was
+that at Rochester here they illuminated the fine old castle, and really
+made a very splendid and picturesque thing (so my neighbours tell me).
+
+With love to Mrs. Macready and Katie,
+
+                    Ever, my dearest Macready, your most affectionate.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. W. Wilkie Collins.]
+
+                    GAD'S HILL PLACE, HIGHAM BY ROCHESTER, KENT,
+                                        _Wednesday, April 22nd, 1863._
+
+
+                  ON THE DEATH OF MR. EGG.
+
+EXTRACT.
+
+Ah, poor Egg! I knew what you would think and feel about it. When we saw
+him in Paris on his way out I was struck by his extreme nervousness, and
+derived from it an uneasy foreboding of his state. What a large piece of
+a good many years he seems to have taken with him! How often have I
+thought, since the news of his death came, of his putting his part in
+the saucepan (with the cover on) when we rehearsed "The Lighthouse;" of
+his falling out of the hammock when we rehearsed "The Frozen Deep;" of
+his learning Italian numbers when he ate the garlic in the carriage; of
+the thousands (I was going to say) of dark mornings when I apostrophised
+him as "Kernel;" of his losing my invaluable knife in that beastly
+stage-coach; of his posting up that mysterious book[11] every night! I
+hardly know why, but I have always associated that volume most with
+Venice. In my memory of the dear gentle little fellow, he will be (as
+since those days he always has been) eternally posting up that book at
+the large table in the middle of our Venice sitting-room, incidentally
+asking the name of an hotel three weeks back! And his pretty house is to
+be laid waste and sold. If there be a sale on the spot I shall try to
+buy something in loving remembrance of him, good dear little fellow.
+Think what a great "Frozen Deep" lay close under those boards we acted
+on! My brother Alfred, Luard, Arthur, Albert, Austin, Egg. Even among
+the audience, Prince Albert and poor Stone! "I heard the"--I forget what
+it was I used to say--"come up from the great deep;" and it rings in my
+ears now, like a sort of mad prophecy.
+
+However, this won't do. We must close up the ranks and march on.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Rev. W. Brookfield.]
+
+                                         GAD'S HILL, _May 17th, 1863._
+
+MY DEAR BROOKFIELD,
+
+It occurs to me that you may perhaps know, or know of, a kind of man
+that I want to discover.
+
+One of my boys (the youngest) now is at Wimbledon School. He is a
+docile, amiable boy of fair abilities, but sensitive and shy. And he
+writes me so very earnestly that he feels the school to be confusingly
+large for him, and that he is sure he could do better with some
+gentleman who gave his own personal attention to the education of
+half-a-dozen or a dozen boys, as to impress me with the belief that I
+ought to heed his conviction.
+
+Has any such phenomenon as a good and reliable man in this wise ever
+come in your way? Forgive my troubling you, and believe me,
+
+                                                      Cordially yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Rev. W. Brookfield.]
+
+                    GAD'S HILL PLACE, HIGHAM BY ROCHESTER, KENT,
+                                                     _May 24th, 1863._
+
+MY DEAR BROOKFIELD,
+
+I am most truly obliged to you for your kind and ready help.
+
+When I am in town next week, I will call upon the Bishop of Natal, more
+to thank him than with the hope of profiting by that gentleman of whom
+he writes, as the limitation to "little boys" seems to stop the way. I
+want to find someone with whom this particular boy could remain; if
+there were a mutual interest and liking, that would be a great point
+gained.
+
+Why did the kings in the fairy tales want children? I suppose in the
+weakness of the royal intellect.
+
+Concerning "Nickleby," I am so much of your mind (comparing it with
+"Copperfield"), that it was a long time before I could take a pleasure
+in reading it. But I got better, as I found the audience always taking
+to it. I have been trying, alone by myself, the "Oliver Twist" murder,
+but have got something so horrible out of it that I am afraid to try it
+in public.
+
+                                                Ever faithfully yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: M. de Cerjat.]
+
+                    GAD'S HILL PLACE, HIGHAM BY ROCHESTER, KENT,
+                                           _Thursday, May 28th, 1863._
+
+MY DEAR CERJAT,
+
+I don't wonder at your finding it difficult to reconcile your mind to a
+French Hamlet; but I assure you that Fechter's is a very remarkable
+performance perfectly consistent with itself (whether it be my
+particular Hamlet, or your particular Hamlet, or no), a coherent and
+intelligent whole, and done by a true artist. I have never seen, I
+think, an intelligent and clear view of the whole character so well
+sustained throughout; and there is a very captivating air of romance and
+picturesqueness added, which is quite new. Rely upon it, the public were
+right. The thing could not have been sustained by oddity; it would have
+perished upon that, very soon. As to the mere accent, there is far less
+drawback in that than you would suppose. For this reason, he obviously
+knows English so thoroughly that you feel he is safe. You are never in
+pain for him. This sense of ease is gained directly, and then you think
+very little more about it.
+
+The Colenso and Jowett matter is a more difficult question, but
+here again I don't go with you. The position of the writers of "Essays
+and Reviews" is, that certain parts of the Old Testament have done
+their intended function in the education of the world _as it was_;
+but that mankind, like the individual man, is designed by the Almighty
+to have an infancy and a maturity, and that as it advances, the
+machinery of its education must advance too. For example: inasmuch as
+ever since there was a sun and there was vapour, there _must have_ been
+a rainbow under certain conditions, so surely it would be better now to
+recognise that indisputable fact. Similarly, Joshua might command the
+sun to stand still, under the impression that it moved round the earth;
+but he could not possibly have inverted the relations of the earth and
+the sun, whatever his impressions were. Again, it is contended that the
+science of geology is quite as much a revelation to man, as books of an
+immense age and of (at the best) doubtful origin, and that your
+consideration of the latter must reasonably be influenced by the former.
+As I understand the importance of timely suggestions such as these, it
+is, that the Church should not gradually shock and lose the more
+thoughtful and logical of human minds; but should be so gently and
+considerately yielding as to retain them, and, through them, hundreds
+of thousands. This seems to me, as I understand the temper and tendency
+of the time, whether for good or evil, to be a very wise and necessary
+position. And as I understand the danger, it is not chargeable on those
+who take this ground, but on those who in reply call names and argue
+nothing. What these bishops and such-like say about revelation, in
+assuming it to be finished and done with, I can't in the least understand.
+Nothing is discovered without God's intention and assistance, and I
+suppose every new knowledge of His works that is conceded to man to be
+distinctly a revelation by which men are to guide themselves. Lastly,
+in the mere matter of religious doctrine and dogmas, these men
+(Protestants--protestors--successors of the men who protested against
+human judgment being set aside) talk and write as if they were all
+settled by the direct act of Heaven; not as if they had been, as we know
+they were, a matter of temporary accommodation and adjustment among
+disputing mortals as fallible as you or I.
+
+Coming nearer home, I hope that Georgina is almost quite well. She has
+no attack of pain or flurry now, and is in all respects immensely
+better. Mary is neither married nor (that I know of) going to be. She
+and Katie and a lot of them have been playing croquet outside my window
+here for these last four days, to a mad and maddening extent. My
+sailor-boy's ship, the _Orlando_, is fortunately in Chatham Dockyard--so
+he is pretty constantly at home--while the shipwrights are repairing a
+leak in her. I am reading in London every Friday just now. Great crams
+and great enthusiasm. Townshend I suppose to have left Lausanne
+somewhere about this day. His house in the park is hermetically sealed,
+ready for him. The Prince and Princess of Wales go about (wisely) very
+much, and have as fair a chance of popularity as ever prince and
+princess had. The City ball in their honour is to be a tremendously
+gorgeous business, and Mary is highly excited by her father's being
+invited, and she with him. Meantime the unworthy parent is devising all
+kinds of subterfuges for sending her and getting out of it himself. A
+very intelligent German friend of mine, just home from America,
+maintains that the conscription will succeed in the North, and that the
+war will be indefinitely prolonged. _I_ say "No," and that however mad
+and villainous the North is, the war will finish by reason of its not
+supplying soldiers. We shall see. The more they brag the more I don't
+believe in them.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. Percy Fitzgerald.]
+
+
+                   GAD'S HILL PLACE, _Saturday Night, July 4th_, 1863.
+
+MY DEAR MR. FITZGERALD,
+
+I have been most heartily gratified by the perusal of your article on my
+dogs. It has given me an amount and a kind of pleasure very unusual, and
+for which I thank you earnestly. The owner of the renowned dog Caesar
+understands me so sympathetically, that I trust with perfect confidence
+to his feeling what I really mean in these few words. You interest me
+very much by your kind promise, the redemption of which I hereby claim,
+to send me your life of Sterne when it comes out. If you should be in
+England before this, I should be delighted to see you here on the top of
+Falstaff's own Gad's Hill. It is a very pretty country, not thirty
+miles from London; and if you could spare a day or two for its fine
+walks, I and my two latest dogs, a St. Bernard and a bloodhound, would
+be charmed with your company as one of ourselves.
+
+                                    Believe me, very faithfully yours.
+
+
+                                        _Friday, July 10th, 1863._[12]
+
+DEAR MADAM,
+
+I hope you will excuse this tardy reply to your letter. It is often
+impossible for me, by any means, to keep pace with my correspondents. I
+must take leave to say, that if there be any general feeling on the part
+of the intelligent Jewish people, that I have done them what you
+describe as "a great wrong," they are a far less sensible, a far less
+just, and a far less good-tempered people than I have always supposed
+them to be. Fagin, in "Oliver Twist," is a Jew, because it unfortunately
+was true of the time to which that story refers, that that class of
+criminal almost invariably was a Jew. But surely no sensible man or
+woman of your persuasion can fail to observe--firstly, that all the rest
+of the wicked _dramatis personae_ are Christians; and secondly, that he
+is called the "Jew," not because of his religion, but because of his
+race. If I were to write a story, in which I described a Frenchman or a
+Spaniard as "the Roman Catholic," I should do a very indecent and
+unjustifiable thing; but I make mention of Fagin as the Jew, because he
+is one of the Jewish people, and because it conveys that kind of idea of
+him which I should give my readers of a Chinaman, by calling him a
+Chinese.
+
+The enclosed is quite a nominal subscription towards the good object in
+which you are interested; but I hope it may serve to show you that I
+have no feeling towards the Jewish people but a friendly one. I always
+speak well of them, whether in public or in private, and bear my
+testimony (as I ought to do) to their perfect good faith in such
+transactions as I have ever had with them; and in my "Child's History of
+England," I have lost no opportunity of setting forth their cruel
+persecution in old times.
+
+                                         Dear Madam, faithfully yours.
+
+
+In reply to this, the Jewish lady thanks him for his kind letter and its
+enclosure, still remonstrating and pointing out that though, as he
+observes, "all the other criminal characters were Christians, they are,
+at least, contrasted with characters of good Christians; this wretched
+Fagin stands alone as the Jew."
+
+The reply to _this_ letter afterwards was the character of Riah, in "Our
+Mutual Friend," and some favourable sketches of Jewish character in the
+lower class, in some articles in "All the Year Round."
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. Ouvry.]
+
+                    GAD'S HILL PLACE, HIGHAM BY ROCHESTER, KENT,
+                                   _Wednesday Night, July 29th, 1863._
+
+MY DEAR OUVRY,
+
+I have had some undefined idea that you were to let me know if you were
+coming to the archaeologs at Rochester. (I myself am keeping out of their
+way, as having had enough of crowding and speech-making in London.) Will
+you tell me where you are, whether you are in this neighbourhood or out
+of it, whether you will come here on Saturday and stay till Monday or
+till Tuesday morning? If you will come, I _know_ I can give you the
+heartiest welcome in Kent, and I _think_ I can give you the best wine in
+this part of it. Send me a word in reply. I will fetch you from
+anywhere, at any indicated time.
+
+We have very pretty places in the neighbourhood, and are not
+uncomfortable people (I believe) to stay with.
+
+                                                Faithfully yours ever.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. Charles Reade.]
+
+                                  OFFICE OF "ALL THE YEAR ROUND,"
+                                        _Wednesday, Sept. 30th, 1863._
+
+MY DEAR READE,
+
+I _must_ write you one line to say how interested I am in your story,
+and to congratulate you upon its admirable art and its surprising grace
+and vigour.
+
+And to hint my hope, at the same time, that you will be able to find
+leisure for a little dash for the Christmas number. It would be a really
+great and true pleasure to me if you could.
+
+                                              Faithfully yours always.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Hogarth.]
+
+                    GAD'S HILL PLACE, HIGHAM BY ROCHESTER, KENT,
+                                          _Wednesday, Oct. 7th, 1863._
+
+MY DEAREST GEORGY,
+
+You will see by to-day's _Times_ that it _was_ an earthquake that shook
+me, and that my watch showed exactly the same time as the man's who
+writes from Blackheath so near us--twenty minutes past three.
+
+It is a great satisfaction to me to make it out so precisely; I wish you
+would enquire whether the servants felt it. I thought it was the voice
+of the cook that answered me, but that was nearly half an hour later. I
+am strongly inclined to think that there is a peculiar susceptibility in
+iron--at all events in our part of the country--to the shock, as though
+there were something magnetic in it. For, whereas my long iron bedstead
+was so violently shaken, I certainly heard nothing rattle in the room.
+
+I will write about my return as soon as I get on with the still unbegun
+"Uncommercial."
+
+                                                  Ever affectionately.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. W. H. Wills.]
+
+                                GAD'S HILL, _Sunday, Dec. 20th, 1863._
+
+MY DEAR WILLS,
+
+I am clear that you took my cold. Why didn't you do the thing
+completely, and take it away from me? for it hangs by me still.
+
+Will you tell Mrs. Linton that in looking over her admirable account
+(_most_ admirable) of Mrs. Gordon's book, I have taken out the
+references to Lockhart, not because I in the least doubt their justice,
+but because I knew him and he liked me; and because one bright day in
+Rome, I walked about with him for some hours when he was dying fast, and
+all the old faults had faded out of him, and the now ghost of the
+handsome man I had first known when Scott's daughter was at the head of
+his house, had little more to do with this world than she in her grave,
+or Scott in his, or small Hugh Littlejohn in his. Lockhart had been
+anxious to see me all the previous day (when I was away on the
+Campagna), and as we walked about I knew very well that _he_ knew very
+well why. He talked of getting better, but I never saw him again. This
+makes me stay Mrs. Linton's hand, gentle as it is.
+
+Mrs. Lirriper is indeed a most brilliant old lady. God bless her.
+
+I am glad to hear of your being "haunted," and hope to increase your
+stock of such ghosts pretty liberally.
+
+                                                      Ever faithfully.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[8] Alluding to a translation of a play by M. Maquet, which M. Fechter
+was then preparing for his theatre.
+
+[9] Now Mrs. Dallas Glyn.
+
+[10] Formerly Miss Talfourd.
+
+[11] His travelling journal.
+
+[12] Answer to letter from Jewish lady, remonstrating with him on
+injustice to the Jews, shown in the character of Fagin, and asking for
+subscription for the benefit of the Jewish poor.
+
+
+
+
+1864.
+
+NARRATIVE.
+
+
+Charles Dickens was, as usual, at Gad's Hill, with a family and friendly
+party, at the opening of this year, and had been much shocked and
+distressed by the news of the sudden death of Mr. Thackeray, brought to
+him by friends arriving from London on the Christmas Eve of 1863, the
+day on which the sad event happened. He writes of it, in the first
+letter of the year, to Mr. Wilkie Collins, who was passing the winter in
+Italy. He tells him, also, of his having got well to work upon a new
+serial story, the first number of which ("Our Mutual Friend") was
+published on the 1st of May.
+
+The year began very sadly for Charles Dickens. On the 7th of February
+(his own birthday) he received the mournful announcement of the death of
+his second son, Walter Landor (a lieutenant in the 42nd Royal
+Highlanders), who had died quite suddenly at Calcutta, on the last night
+of the year of 1863, at the age of twenty-three. His third son, Francis
+Jeffrey, had started for India at the end of January.
+
+His annual letter to M. de Cerjat contains an allusion to "another
+generation beginning to peep above the table"--the children of his son
+Charles, who had been married three years before, to Miss Bessie Evans.
+
+In the middle of February he removed to a house in London (57,
+Gloucester Place, Hyde Park), where he made a stay of the usual
+duration, up to the middle of June, all the time being hard at work upon
+"Our Mutual Friend" and "All the Year Round." Mr. Marcus Stone was the
+illustrator of the new monthly work, and we give a specimen of one of
+many letters which he wrote to him about his "subjects."
+
+His old friend, Mr. Charles Knight, with whom for many years Charles
+Dickens had dined on his birthday, was staying, this spring, in the Isle
+of Wight. To him he writes of the death of Walter, and of another sad
+death which happened at this time, and which affected him almost as
+much. Clara, the last surviving daughter of Mr. and Mrs. White, who had
+been happily married to Mr. Gordon, of Cluny, not more than two years,
+had just died at Bonchurch. Her father, as will be seen by the touching
+allusion to him in this letter, had died a short time after this
+daughter's marriage.
+
+A letter to Mr. Edmund Ollier has reference to certain additions which
+Charles Dickens wished him to make to an article (by Mr. Ollier) on
+Working Men's Clubs, published in "All the Year Round."
+
+We are glad to have one letter to the Lord Chief Baron, Sir Frederick
+Pollock, which shows the great friendship and regard Charles Dickens had
+for him, and his admiration of his qualities in his judicial capacity.
+
+We give a pleasant letter to Mrs. Storrar, for whom, and for her
+husband, Dr. Storrar, Charles Dickens had affectionate regard, because
+we are glad to have their names in our book. The letter speaks for
+itself and needs no explanation.
+
+The latter part of the year was uneventful. Hard at work, he passed the
+summer and autumn at Gad's Hill, taking holidays by receiving visitors
+at home (among them, this year, Sir J. Emerson Tennent, his wife and
+daughter, who were kindly urgent for his paying them a return visit in
+Ireland) and occasional "runs" into France. The last letters we give are
+his annual one to M. de Cerjat, and a graceful little New Year's note to
+his dear old friend "Barry Cornwall."
+
+The Christmas number was "Mrs. Lirriper's Legacy," the first and last
+part written by himself, as in the case of the previous year's "Mrs.
+Lirriper."
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. W. Wilkie Collins.]
+
+                                GAD'S HILL, _Monday, Jan. 24th, 1864._
+
+                              EXTRACT.
+
+MY DEAR WILKIE,
+
+I am horribly behindhand in answering your welcome letter; but I have
+been so busy, and have had the house so full for Christmas and the New
+Year, and have had so much to see to in getting Frank out to India,
+that I have not been able to settle down to a regular long letter, which
+I mean this to be, but which it may not turn out to be, after all.
+
+First, I will answer your enquiries about the Christmas number and the
+new book. The Christmas number has been the greatest success of all; has
+shot ahead of last year; has sold about two hundred and twenty thousand;
+and has made the name of Mrs. Lirriper so swiftly and domestically
+famous as never was. I had a very strong belief in her when I wrote
+about her, finding that she made a great effect upon me; but she
+certainly has gone beyond my hopes. (Probably you know nothing about
+her? which is a very unpleasant consideration.) Of the new book, I have
+done the two first numbers, and am now beginning the third. It is a
+combination of drollery with romance which requires a great deal of
+pains and a perfect throwing away of points that might be amplified; but
+I hope it is _very good_. I confess, in short, that I think it is.
+Strange to say, I felt at first quite dazed in getting back to the large
+canvas and the big brushes; and even now, I have a sensation as of
+acting at the San Carlo after Tavistock House, which I could hardly have
+supposed would have come upon so old a stager.
+
+You will have read about poor Thackeray's death--sudden, and yet not
+sudden, for he had long been alarmingly ill. At the solicitation of Mr.
+Smith and some of his friends, I have done what I would most gladly have
+excused myself from doing, if I felt I could--written a couple of pages
+about him in what was his own magazine.
+
+Concerning the Italian experiment, De la Rue is more hopeful than you.
+He and his bank are closely leagued with the powers at Turin, and he has
+long been devoted to Cavour; but he gave me the strongest assurances
+(with illustrations) of the fusion between place and place, and of the
+blending of small mutually antagonistic characters into one national
+character, progressing cheeringly and certainly. Of course there must be
+discouragements and discrepancies in the first struggles of a country
+previously so degraded and enslaved, and the time, as yet, has been very
+short.
+
+I should like to have a day with you at the Coliseum, and on the Appian
+Way, and among the tombs, and with the Orvieto. But Rome and I are wide
+asunder, physically as well as morally. I wonder whether the dramatic
+stable, where we saw the marionettes, still receives the Roman public?
+And Lord! when I think of you in that hotel, how I think of poor dear
+Egg in the long front drawing-room, giving on to the piazza, posting up
+that wonderful necromantic volume which we never shall see opened!
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. Marcus Stone.]
+
+                    57, GLOUCESTER PLACE, HYDE PARK,, HYDE PARK,
+                                           _Tuesday, Feb. 23rd, 1864._
+
+MY DEAR MARCUS,
+
+I think the design for the cover _excellent_, and do not doubt its
+coming out to perfection. The slight alteration I am going to suggest
+originates in a business consideration not to be overlooked.
+
+The word "Our" in the title must be out in the open like "Mutual
+Friend," making the title three distinct large lines--"Our" as big as
+"Mutual Friend." This would give you too much design at the bottom. I
+would therefore take out the dustman, and put the Wegg and Boffin
+composition (which is capital) in its place. I don't want Mr. Inspector
+or the murder reward bill, because these points are sufficiently
+indicated in the river at the top. Therefore you can have an indication
+of the dustman in Mr. Inspector's place. Note, that the dustman's face
+should be droll, and not horrible. Twemlow's elbow will still go out of
+the frame as it does now, and the same with Lizzie's skirts on the
+opposite side. With these changes, work away!
+
+Mrs. Boffin, as I judge of her from the sketch, "very good, indeed." I
+want Boffin's oddity, without being at all blinked, to be an oddity of a
+very honest kind, that people will like.
+
+The doll's dressmaker is immensely better than she was. I think she
+should now come extremely well. A weird sharpness not without beauty is
+the thing I want.
+
+                                                Affectionately always.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. Charles Knight.]
+
+                                       57, GLOUCESTER PLACE, W.,
+                                           _Tuesday, March 1st, 1864._
+
+MY DEAR KNIGHT,
+
+We knew of your being in the Isle of Wight, and had said that we should
+have this year to drink your health in your absence. Rely on my being
+always ready and happy to renew our old friendship in the flesh. In the
+spirit it needs no renewal, because it has no break.
+
+Ah, poor Mrs. White! A sad, sad story! It is better for poor White that
+that little churchyard by the sea received his ashes a while ago, than
+that he should have lived to this time.
+
+My poor boy was on his way home from an up-country station, on sick
+leave. He had been very ill, but was not so at the time. He was talking
+to some brother-officers in the Calcutta hospital about his preparations
+for home, when he suddenly became excited, had a rush of blood from the
+mouth, and was dead. His brother Frank would arrive out at Calcutta,
+expecting to see him after six years, and he would have been dead a
+month.
+
+My "working life" is resolving itself at the present into another book,
+in twenty green leaves. You work like a Trojan at Ventnor, but you do
+that everywhere; and that's why you are so young.
+
+Mary and Georgina unite in kindest regard to you, and to Mrs. Knight,
+and to your daughters. So do I. And I am ever, my dear Knight,
+
+                                                 Affectionately yours.
+
+P.S.--Serene View! What a placid address!
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. Edmund Ollier.]
+
+                           "ALL THE YEAR ROUND" OFFICE, _March, 1864._
+
+                                 EXTRACT.
+
+I want the article on "Working Men's Clubs" to refer back to "The Poor
+Man and his Beer" in No. 1, and to maintain the principle involved in
+that effort.
+
+Also, emphatically, to show that trustfulness is at the bottom of all
+social institutions, and that to trust a man, as one of a body of men,
+is to place him under a wholesome restraint of social opinion, and is a
+very much better thing than to make a baby of him.
+
+Also, to point out that the rejection of beer in this club, tobacco in
+that club, dancing or what-not in another club, are instances that such
+clubs are founded on mere whims, and therefore cannot successfully
+address human nature in the general, and hope to last.
+
+Also, again to urge that patronage is the curse and blight of all such
+endeavours, and to impress upon the working men that they must originate
+and manage for themselves. And to ask them the question, can they
+possibly show their detestation of drunkenness better, or better strive
+to get rid of it from among them, than to make it a hopeless
+disqualification in all their clubs, and a reason for expulsion.
+
+Also, to encourage them to declare to themselves and their fellow
+working men that they want social rest and social recreation for
+themselves and their families; and that these clubs are intended for
+that laudable and necessary purpose, and do not need educational
+pretences or flourishes. Do not let them be afraid or ashamed of wanting
+to be amused and pleased.
+
+
+[Sidenote: The Lord Chief Baron.]
+
+                    57, GLOUCESTER PLACE, _Tuesday, March 15th, 1864._
+
+MY DEAR CHIEF BARON,
+
+Many thanks for your kind letter, which I find on my return from a
+week's holiday.
+
+Your answer concerning poor Thackeray I will duly make known to the
+active spirit in that matter, Mr. Shirley Brooks.
+
+Your kind invitation to me to come and see you and yours, and hear the
+nightingales, I shall not fail to discuss with Forster, and with an eye
+to spring. I expect to see him presently; the rather as I found a note
+from him when I came back yesterday, describing himself somewhat
+gloomily as not having been well, and as feeling a little out of heart.
+
+It is not out of order, I hope, to remark that you have been much in my
+thoughts and on my lips lately? For I really have not been able to
+repress my admiration of the vigorous dignity and sense and spirit, with
+which one of the best of judges set right one of the dullest of juries
+in a recent case.
+
+                               Believe me ever, very faithfully yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. John Forster.]
+
+                     57, GLOUCESTER PLACE, _Tuesday, March 29th, 1864._
+
+MY DEAR FORSTER,
+
+I meant to write to you last night, but to enable Wills to get away I
+had to read a book of Fitzgerald's through before I went to bed.
+
+Concerning Eliot, I sat down, as I told you, and read the book through
+with the strangest interest and the highest admiration. I believe it to
+be as honest, spirited, patient, reliable, and gallant a piece of
+biography as ever was written, the care and pains of it astonishing, the
+completeness of it masterly; and what I particularly feel about it is
+that the dignity of the man, and the dignity of the book that tells
+about the man, always go together, and fit each other. This same quality
+has always impressed me as the great leading speciality of the
+Goldsmith, and enjoins sympathy with the subject, knowledge of it, and
+pursuit of it in its own spirit; but I think it even more remarkable
+here. I declare that apart from the interest of having been so put into
+the time, and enabled to understand it, I personally feel quite as much
+the credit and honour done to literature by such a book. It quite clears
+out of the remembrance a thousand pitiful things, and sets one up in
+heart again. I am not surprised in the least by Bulwer's enthusiasm. I
+was as confident about the effect of the book when I closed the first
+volume, as I was when I closed the second with a full heart. No man less
+in earnest than Eliot himself could have done it, and I make bold to add
+that it never could have been done by a man who was so distinctly born
+to do the work as Eliot was to do his.
+
+Saturday at Hastings I must give up. I have wavered and considered, and
+considered and wavered, but if I take that sort of holiday, I must have
+a day to spare after it, and at this critical time I have not. If I were
+to lose a page of the five numbers I have purposed to myself to be
+ready by the publication day, I should feel that I had fallen short. I
+have grown hard to satisfy, and write very slowly, and I have so much
+bad fiction, that _will_ be thought of when I don't want to think of it,
+that I am forced to take more care than I ever took.
+
+                                                  Ever affectionately.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mrs. Storrar.]
+
+                    GAD'S HILL PLACE, HIGHAM BY ROCHESTER, KENT,
+                                     _Sunday Morning, May 15th, 1864._
+
+MY DEAR MRS. STORRAR,
+
+Our family dinner must come off at Gad's Hill, where I have improvements
+to exhibit, and where I shall be truly pleased to see you and the doctor
+again. I have deferred answering your note, while I have been scheming
+and scheming for a day between this time and our departure. But it is
+all in vain. My engagements have accumulated, and become such a whirl,
+that no day is left me. Nothing is left me but to get away. I look
+forward to my release from this dining life with an inexpressible
+longing after quiet and my own pursuits. What with public speechifying,
+private eating and drinking, and perpetual simmering in hot rooms, I
+have made London too hot to hold me and my work together. Mary and
+Georgina acknowledge the condition of imbecility to which we have become
+reduced in reference to your kind reminder. They say, when I stare at
+them in a forlorn way with your note in my hand: "What CAN you do!" To
+which I can only reply, implicating them: "See what you have brought me
+to!"
+
+With our united kind regard to yourself and Dr. Storrar, I entreat your
+pity and compassion for an unfortunate wretch whom a too-confiding
+disposition has brought to this pass. If I had not allowed my "cheeild"
+to pledge me to all manner of fellow-creatures, I and my digestion might
+have been in a state of honourable independence this day.
+
+                                      Faithfully and penitently yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. Percy Fitzgerald.]
+
+                  OFFICE OF "ALL THE YEAR ROUND," ETC. ETC. ETC.
+                                         _Wednesday, July 27th, 1864._
+
+MY DEAR MR. FITZGERALD,
+
+First, let me assure you that it gave us all real pleasure to see your
+sister and you at Gad's Hill, and that we all hope you will both come
+and stay a day or two with us when you are next in England.
+
+Next, let me convey to you the intelligence that I resolve to launch
+"Miss Manuel," fully confiding in your conviction of the power of the
+story. On all business points, Wills will communicate with you. I
+purpose beginning its publication in our first September number,
+therefore there is no time to be lost.
+
+The only suggestion I have to make as to the MS. in hand and type is,
+that Captain Fermor wants relief. It is a disagreeable character, as you
+mean it to be, and I should be afraid to do so much with him, if the
+case were mine, without taking the taste of him, here and there, out of
+the reader's mouth. It is remarkable that if you do not administer a
+disagreeable character carefully, the public have a decided tendency to
+think that the _story_ is disagreeable, and not merely the fictitious
+person.
+
+What do you think of the title,
+
+                              NEVER FORGOTTEN?
+
+It is a good one in itself, would express the eldest sister's pursuit,
+and glanced at now and then in the text, would hold the reader in
+suspense. I would propose to add the line,
+
+                       BY THE AUTHOR OF BELLA DONNA.
+
+Let me know your opinion as to the title. I need not assure you that the
+greatest care will be taken of you here, and that we shall make you as
+thoroughly well and widely known as we possibly can.
+
+                                                Very faithfully yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Sir James Emerson Tennent.]
+
+                    GAD'S HILL PLACE, HIGHAM BY ROCHESTER, KENT,
+                                            _Friday, Aug. 26th, 1864._
+
+MY DEAR TENNENT,
+
+Believe me, I fully intended to come to you--did not doubt that I should
+come--and have greatly disappointed Mary and her aunt, as well as
+myself, by not coming. But I do not feel safe in going out for a visit.
+The mere knowledge that I had such a thing before me would put me out.
+It is not the length of time consumed, or the distance traversed, but it
+is the departure from a settled habit and a continuous sacrifice of
+pleasures that comes in question. This is an old story with me. I have
+never divided a book of my writing with anything else, but have always
+wrought at it to the exclusion of everything else; and it is now too
+late to change.
+
+After receiving your kind note I resolved to make another trial. But the
+hot weather and a few other drawbacks did not mend the matter, for I
+have dropped astern this month instead of going ahead. So I have seen
+Forster, and shown him my chains, and am reduced to taking exercise in
+them, like Baron Trenck.
+
+I am heartily pleased that you set so much store by the dedication. You
+may be sure that it does not make me the less anxious to take pains, and
+to work out well what I have in my mind.
+
+Mary and Georgina unite with me in kindest regards to Lady Tennent and
+Miss Tennent, and wish me to report that while they are seriously
+disappointed, they still feel there is no help for it. I can testify
+that they had great pleasure in the anticipation of the visit, and that
+their faces were very long and blank indeed when I began to hint my
+doubts. They fought against them valiantly as long as there was a
+chance, but they see my difficulty as well as anyone not myself can.
+
+                  Believe me, my dear Tennent, ever faithfully yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. Clarkson Stanfield, R.A.]
+
+                          THE ATHENAEUM, _Wednesday, Sept. 21st, 1864._
+
+MY DEAR STANNY,
+
+I met George in the street a few days ago, and he gave me a wonderful
+account of the effect of your natural element upon you at Ramsgate. I
+expect you to come back looking about twenty-nine, and feeling about
+nineteen.
+
+This morning I have looked in here to put down Fechter as a candidate,
+on the chance of the committee's electing him some day or other. He is a
+most devoted worshipper of yours, and would take it as a great honour if
+you would second him. Supposing you to have not the least objection (of
+course, if you should have any, I can in a moment provide a substitute),
+will you write your name in the candidates' book as his seconder when
+you are next in town and passing this way?
+
+Lastly, if you should be in town on his opening night (a Saturday, and
+in all probability the 22nd of October), will you come and dine at the
+office and see his new piece? You have not yet "pronounced" in the
+matter of that new French stage of his, on which Calcott for the said
+new piece has built up all manner of villages, camps, Versailles
+gardens, etc. etc. etc. etc., with no wings, no flies, no looking off
+in any direction. If you tell me that you are to be in town by that
+time, I will not fail to refresh your memory as to the precise day.
+
+        With kind regard to Mrs. Stanfield,
+                Believe me, my dear old boy, ever your affectionate
+                                                                 DICK.
+
+
+[Sidenote: M. de Cerjat.]
+
+                          GAD'S HILL PLACE, HIGHAM BY ROCHESTER,
+                                           _Tuesday, Oct. 25th, 1864._
+
+MY DEAR CERJAT,
+
+Here is a limping brute of a reply to your always-welcome Christmas
+letter! But, as usual, when I have done my day's work, I jump up from my
+desk and rush into air and exercise, and find letter-writing the most
+difficult thing in my daily life.
+
+I hope that your asthmatic tendencies may not be strong just now; but
+Townshend's account of the premature winter at Lausanne is not
+encouraging, and with us here in England all such disorders have been
+aggravated this autumn. However, a man of your dignity _must_ have
+either asthma or gout, and I hope you have got the better of the two.
+
+In London there is, as you see by the papers, extraordinarily little
+news. At present the apprehension (rather less than it was thought) of a
+commercial crisis, and the trial of Mueller next Thursday, are the two
+chief sensations. I hope that gentleman will be hanged, and have hardly
+a doubt of it, though croakers contrariwise are not wanting. It is
+difficult to conceive any other line of defence than that the
+circumstances proved, taken separately, are slight. But a sound judge
+will immediately charge the jury that the strength of the circumstances
+lies in their being put together, and will thread them together on a
+fatal rope.
+
+As to the Church, my friend, I am sick of it. The spectacle presented by
+the indecent squabbles of priests of most denominations, and the
+exemplary unfairness and rancour with which they conduct their
+differences, utterly repel me. And the idea of the Protestant
+establishment, in the face of its own history, seeking to trample out
+discussion and private judgment, is an enormity so cool, that I wonder
+the Right Reverends, Very Reverends, and all other Reverends, who commit
+it, can look in one another's faces without laughing, as the old
+soothsayers did. Perhaps they can't and don't. How our sublime and
+so-different Christian religion is to be administered in the future I
+cannot pretend to say, but that the Church's hand is at its own throat I
+am fully convinced. Here, more Popery, there, more Methodism--as many
+forms of consignment to eternal damnation as there are articles, and all
+in one forever quarrelling body--the Master of the New Testament put out
+of sight, and the rage and fury almost always turning on the letter of
+obscure parts of the Old Testament, which itself has been the subject of
+accommodation, adaptation, varying interpretation without end--these
+things cannot last. The Church that is to have its part in the coming
+time must be a more Christian one, with less arbitrary pretensions and a
+stronger hold upon the mantle of our Saviour, as He walked and talked
+upon this earth.
+
+Of family intelligence I have very little. Charles Collins continuing in
+a very poor way, and showing no signs of amendment. He and my daughter
+Katie went to Wiesbaden and thence to Nice, where they are now. I have
+strong apprehensions that he will never recover, and that she will be
+left a young widow. All the rest are as they were. Mary neither married
+nor going to be; Georgina holding them all together and perpetually
+corresponding with the distant ones; occasional rallyings coming off
+here, in which another generation begins to peep above the table. I once
+used to think what a horrible thing it was to be a grandfather. Finding
+that the calamity falls upon me without my perceiving any other change
+in myself, I bear it like a man.
+
+Mrs. Watson has bought a house in town, to which she repairs in the
+season, for the bringing out of her daughter. She is now at Rockingham.
+Her eldest son is said to be as good an eldest son as ever was, and to
+make her position there a perfectly independent and happy one. I have
+not seen him for some years; her I often see; but he ought to be a good
+fellow, and is very popular in his neighbourhood.
+
+I have altered this place very much since you were here, and have made a
+pretty (I think an unusually pretty) drawing-room. I wish you would come
+back and see it. My being on the Dover line, and my being very fond of
+France, occasion me to cross the Channel perpetually. Whenever I feel
+that I have worked too much, or am on the eve of overdoing it, and want
+a change, away I go by the mail-train, and turn up in Paris or anywhere
+else that suits my humour, next morning. So I come back as fresh as a
+daisy, and preserve as ruddy a face as though I never leant over a sheet
+of paper. When I retire from a literary life I think of setting up as a
+Channel pilot.
+
+Pray give my love to Mrs. Cerjat, and tell her that I should like to go
+up the Great St. Bernard again, and shall be glad to know if she is open
+to another ascent. Old days in Switzerland are ever fresh to me, and
+sometimes I walk with you again, after dark, outside the hotel at
+Martigny, while Lady Mary Taylour (wasn't it?) sang within very
+prettily. Lord, how the time goes! How many years ago!
+
+                                                 Affectionately yours.
+
+
+                                     _Wednesday, Nov. 16th, 1864._[13]
+
+DEAR MADAM,
+
+I have received your letter with great pleasure, and hope to be (as I
+have always been at heart) the best of friends with the Jewish people.
+The error you point out to me had occurred to me, as most errors do to
+most people, when it was too late to correct it. But it will do no harm.
+The peculiarities of dress and manner are fused together for the sake of
+picturesqueness.
+
+                                         Dear Madam, faithfully yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. B. W. Procter.]
+
+                    GAD'S HILL PLACE, HIGHAM BY ROCHESTER, KENT,
+                                          _Saturday, Dec. 31st, 1864._
+
+MY DEAR PROCTER,
+
+I have reserved my acknowledgment of your delightful note (the youngest
+note I have had in all this year) until to-day, in order that I might
+send, most heartily and affectionately, all seasonable good wishes to
+you and to Mrs. Procter, and to those who are nearest and dearest to
+you. Take them from an old friend who loves you.
+
+Mamie returns the tender compliments, and Georgina does what the
+Americans call "endorse them." Mrs. Lirriper is proud to be so
+remembered, and says over and over again "that it's worth twenty times
+the trouble she has taken with the narrative, since Barry Cornwall,
+Esquire, is pleased to like it."
+
+I got rid of a touch of neuralgia in France (as I always do there), but
+I found no old friends in my voyages of discovery on that side, such as
+I have left on this.
+
+                              My dear Procter, ever your affectionate.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[13] In answer to another letter from the "Jewish lady," in which she
+gives her reasons for still being dissatisfied with the character of
+Riah.
+
+
+
+
+1865.
+
+NARRATIVE.
+
+
+For this spring a furnished house in Somer's Place, Hyde Park, had been
+taken, which Charles Dickens occupied, with his sister-in-law and
+daughter, from the beginning of March until June.
+
+During the year he paid two short visits to France.
+
+He was still at work upon "Our Mutual Friend," two numbers of which had
+been issued in January and February, when the first volume was
+published, with dedication to Sir James Emerson Tennent. The remaining
+numbers were issued between March and November, when the complete work
+was published in two volumes.
+
+The Christmas number, to which Charles Dickens contributed three
+stories, was called "Doctor Marigold's Prescriptions."
+
+Being out of health, and much overworked, Charles Dickens, at the end of
+May, took his first short holiday trip into France. And on his way home,
+and on a day afterwards so fatal to him, the 9th of June, he was in that
+most terrible railway accident at Staplehurst. Many of our letters for
+this year have reference to this awful experience--an experience from
+the effects of which his nerves never wholly recovered. His letters to
+Mr. Thomas Mitton and to Mrs. Hulkes (an esteemed friend and neighbour)
+are graphic descriptions of this disaster. But they do NOT tell of the
+wonderful presence of mind and energy shown by Charles Dickens when most
+of the terrified passengers were incapable of thought or action, or of
+his gentleness and goodness to the dead and dying. The Mr. Dickenson[14]
+mentioned in the letter to Mrs. Hulkes soon recovered. He always
+considers that he owes his life to Charles Dickens, the latter having
+discovered and extricated him from beneath a carriage before it was too
+late.
+
+Our first letter to Mr. Kent is one of congratulation upon his having
+become the proprietor of _The Sun_ newspaper.
+
+Professor Owen has been so kind as to give us some notes, which we
+publish for the sake of his great name. Charles Dickens had not much
+correspondence with Professor Owen, but there was a firm friendship and
+great mutual admiration between them.
+
+The letter to Mrs. Procter is in answer to one from her, asking Charles
+Dickens to write a memoir of her daughter Adelaide, as a preface to a
+collected edition of her poems.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. William Charles Kent.]
+
+                    GAD'S HILL PLACE, HIGHAM BY ROCHESTER, KENT,
+                                           _Tuesday, Jan. 17th, 1865._
+
+MY DEAR KENT,
+
+I meant to have written instantly on the appearance of your paper in its
+beautiful freshness, to congratulate you on its handsome appearance, and
+to send you my heartiest good wishes for its thriving and prosperous
+career. Through a mistake of the postman's, that remarkable letter has
+been tesselated into the Infernal Pavement instead of being delivered in
+the Strand.
+
+We have been looking and waiting for your being well enough to propose
+yourself for a mouthful of fresh air. Are you well enough to come on
+Sunday? We shall be coming down from Charing Cross on Sunday morning,
+and I shall be going up again at nine on Monday morning.
+
+It amuses me to find that you don't see your way with a certain "Mutual
+Friend" of ours. I have a horrible suspicion that you may begin to be
+fearfully knowing at somewhere about No. 12 or 13. But you shan't if I
+can help it.
+
+Your note delighted me because it dwelt upon the places in the number
+that _I_ dwell on. Not that that is anything new in your case, but it is
+always new to me in the pleasure I derive from it, which is truly
+inexpressible.
+
+                                                 Ever cordially yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mrs. Procter.]
+
+                    GAD'S HILL PLACE, HIGHAM BY ROCHESTER, KENT,
+                                         _Wednesday, Feb. 15th, 1865._
+
+MY DEAR MRS. PROCTER,
+
+Of course I will do it, and of course I will do it for the love of you
+and Procter. You can give me my brief, and we can speak about its
+details. Once again, of course I will do it, and with all my heart.
+
+I have registered a vow (in which there is not the least merit, for I
+couldn't help it) that when I am, as I am now, very hard at work upon a
+book, I never will dine out more than one day in a week. Why didn't you
+ask me for the Wednesday, before I stood engaged to Lady Molesworth for
+the Tuesday?
+
+It is so delightful to me to sit by your side anywhere and be brightened
+up, that I lay a handsome sacrifice upon the altar of "Our Mutual
+Friend" in writing this note, very much against my will. But for as many
+years as can be made consistent with my present juvenility, I always
+have given my work the first place in my life, and what can I do now at
+35!--or at least at the two figures, never mind their order.
+
+I send my love to Procter, hoping you may appropriate a little of it by
+the way.
+
+                                                 Affectionately yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. W. C. Macready.]
+
+                                  OFFICE OF "ALL THE YEAR ROUND,"
+                                         _Wednesday, March 1st, 1865._
+
+MY DEAREST MACREADY,
+
+I have been laid up here with a frost-bitten foot (from hard walking in
+the snow), or you would have heard from me sooner.
+
+My reply to Professor Agassiz is short, but conclusive. Daily seeing
+improper uses made of confidential letters in the addressing of them to
+a public audience that have no business with them, I made not long ago a
+great fire in my field at Gad's Hill, and burnt every letter I
+possessed. And now I always destroy every letter I receive not on
+absolute business, and my mind is so far at ease. Poor dear Felton's
+letters went up into the air with the rest, or his highly distinguished
+representative should have had them most willingly.
+
+We never fail to drink old P.'s health on his birthday, or to make him
+the subject of a thousand loving remembrances. With best love to Mrs.
+Macready and Katie,
+
+                          Ever, my dearest Macready,
+                                        Your most affectionate Friend.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. W. C. Macready.]
+
+                                   16, SOMER'S PLACE, HYDE PARK,
+                                   _Saturday Night, April 22nd, 1865._
+
+MY DEAREST MACREADY,
+
+A thousand thanks for your kind letter, most heartily welcome.
+
+My frost-bitten foot, after causing me great inconvenience and much
+pain, has begun to conduct itself amiably. I can now again walk my ten
+miles in the morning without inconvenience, but am absurdly obliged to
+sit shoeless all the evening--a very slight penalty, as I detest going
+out to dinner (which killed the original old Parr by-the-bye).
+
+I am working like a dragon at my book, and am a terror to the household,
+likewise to all the organs and brass bands in this quarter. Gad's Hill
+is being gorgeously painted, and we are here until the 1st of June. I
+wish I might hope you would be there any time this summer; I really
+_have_ made the place comfortable and pretty by this time.
+
+It is delightful to us to hear such good news of Butty. She made so
+deep an impression on Fechter that he always asks me what Ceylon has
+done for her, and always beams when I tell him how thoroughly well it
+has made her. As to _you_, you are the youngest man (worth mentioning as
+a thorough man) that I know. Oh, let me be as young when I am as----did
+you think I was going to write "old?" No, sir--withdrawn from the wear
+and tear of busy life is my expression.
+
+Poole still holds out at Kentish Town, and says he is dying of solitude.
+His memory is astoundingly good. I see him about once in two or three
+months, and in the meantime he makes notes of questions to ask me when I
+come. Having fallen in arrear of the time, these generally refer to
+unknown words he has encountered in the newspapers. His three last (he
+always reads them with tremendous difficulty through an enormous
+magnifying-glass) were as follows:
+
+        1. What's croquet?
+        2. What's an Albert chain?
+        3. Let me know the state of mind of the Queen.
+
+When I had delivered a neat exposition on these heads, he turned back to
+his memoranda, and came to something that the utmost power of the
+enormous magnifying-glass couldn't render legible. After a quarter of an
+hour or so, he said: "O yes, I know." And then rose and clasped his
+hands above his head, and said: "Thank God, I am not a dram-drinker."
+
+Do think of coming to Gad's in the summer; and do give my love to Mrs.
+Macready, and tell her I know she can make you come if she will. Mary
+and Georgy send best and dearest loves to her, to you, and to Katie, and
+to baby. Johnny we suppose to be climbing the tree of knowledge
+elsewhere.
+
+                  My dearest Macready, ever yours most affectionately.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. W. C. Macready.]
+
+                                GAD'S HILL, _Monday, June 12th, 1865._
+
+MY DEAREST MACREADY,
+
+                    [_So far in his own writing._]
+
+Many thanks for your kind words of remembrance.[15] This is not all in
+my own hand, because I am too much shaken to write many notes. Not by
+the beating and dragging of the carriage in which I was--it did not go
+over, but was caught on the turn, among the ruins of the bridge--but by
+the work afterwards to get out the dying and dead, which was terrible.
+
+                   [_The rest in his own writing_.]
+
+                                        Ever your affectionate Friend.
+
+P.S.--My love to Mrs. Macready.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. Thomas Mitton.]
+
+                    GAD'S HILL PLACE, HIGHAM BY ROCHESTER, KENT,
+                                           _Tuesday, June 13th, 1865._
+
+MY DEAR MITTON,
+
+I should have written to you yesterday or the day before, if I had been
+quite up to writing.
+
+I was in the only carriage that did not go over into the stream. It was
+caught upon the turn by some of the ruin of the bridge, and hung
+suspended and balanced in an apparently impossible manner. Two ladies
+were my fellow-passengers, an old one and a young one. This is exactly
+what passed. You may judge from it the precise length of the suspense:
+Suddenly we were off the rail, and beating the ground as the car of a
+half-emptied balloon might. The old lady cried out, "My God!" and the
+young one screamed. I caught hold of them both (the old lady sat
+opposite and the young one on my left), and said: "We can't help
+ourselves, but we can be quiet and composed. Pray don't cry out." The
+old lady immediately answered: "Thank you. Rely upon me. Upon my soul I
+will be quiet." We were then all tilted down together in a corner of the
+carriage, and stopped. I said to them thereupon: "You may be sure
+nothing worse can happen. Our danger _must_ be over. Will you remain
+here without stirring, while I get out of the window?" They both
+answered quite collectedly, "Yes," and I got out without the least
+notion what had happened. Fortunately I got out with great caution and
+stood upon the step. Looking down I saw the bridge gone, and nothing
+below me but the line of rail. Some people in the two other compartments
+were madly trying to plunge out at window, and had no idea that there
+was an open swampy field fifteen feet down below them, and nothing else!
+The two guards (one with his face cut) were running up and down on the
+down side of the bridge (which was not torn up) quite wildly. I called
+out to them: "Look at me. Do stop an instant and look at me, and tell me
+whether you don't know me." One of them answered: "We know you very
+well, Mr. Dickens." "Then," I said, "my good fellow, for God's sake give
+me your key, and send one of those labourers here, and I'll empty this
+carriage." We did it quite safely, by means of a plank or two, and when
+it was done I saw all the rest of the train, except the two baggage
+vans, down in the stream. I got into the carriage again for my brandy
+flask, took off my travelling hat for a basin, climbed down the
+brickwork, and filled my hat with water.
+
+Suddenly I came upon a staggering man covered with blood (I think he
+must have been flung clean out of his carriage), with such a frightful
+cut across the skull that I couldn't bear to look at him. I poured some
+water over his face and gave him some to drink, then gave him some
+brandy, and laid him down on the grass, and he said, "I am gone," and
+died afterwards. Then I stumbled over a lady lying on her back against a
+little pollard-tree, with the blood streaming over her face (which was
+lead colour) in a number of distinct little streams from the head. I
+asked her if she could swallow a little brandy and she just nodded, and
+I gave her some and left her for somebody else. The next time I passed
+her she was dead. Then a man, examined at the inquest yesterday (who
+evidently had not the least remembrance of what really passed), came
+running up to me and implored me to help him find his wife, who was
+afterwards found dead. No imagination can conceive the ruin of the
+carriages, or the extraordinary weights under which the people were
+lying, or the complications into which they were twisted up among iron
+and wood, and mud and water.
+
+I don't want to be examined at the inquest, and I don't want to write
+about it. I could do no good either way, and I could only seem to speak
+about myself, which, of course, I would rather not do. I am keeping very
+quiet here. I have a--I don't know what to call it--constitutional (I
+suppose) presence of mind, and was not in the least fluttered at the
+time. I instantly remembered that I had the MS. of a number with me, and
+clambered back into the carriage for it. But in writing these scanty
+words of recollection I feel the shake and am obliged to stop.
+
+                                                      Ever faithfully.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. Walter Jones.]
+
+                    GAD'S HILL PLACE, HIGHAM BY ROCHESTER, KENT,
+                                        _Saturday, June 17th, 1865_.[16]
+
+SIR,
+
+I beg you to assure the Committee of the Newsvendors' Benevolent and
+Provident Institution, that I have been deeply affected by their special
+remembrance of me in my late escape from death or mutilation, and that I
+thank them with my whole heart.
+
+                                          Faithfully yours and theirs.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mrs. Hulkes.]
+
+                                GAD'S HILL, _Sunday, June 18th, 1865._
+
+MY DEAR MRS. HULKES,
+
+I return the _Examiner_ with many thanks. The account is true, except
+that I _had_ brandy. By an extraordinary chance I had a bottle and a
+half with me. I slung the half-bottle round my neck, and carried my hat
+full of water in my hands. But I can understand the describer (whoever
+he is) making the mistake in perfect good faith, and supposing that I
+called for brandy, when I really called to the others who were helping:
+"I have brandy here." The Mr. Dickenson mentioned had changed places
+with a Frenchman, who did not like the window down, a few minutes before
+the accident. The Frenchman was killed, and a labourer and I got Mr.
+Dickenson out of a most extraordinary heap of dark ruins, in which he
+was jammed upside down. He was bleeding at the eyes, ears, nose, and
+mouth; but he didn't seem to know that afterwards, and of course I
+didn't tell him. In the moment of going over the viaduct the whole of
+his pockets were shaken empty! He had no watch, no chain, no money, no
+pocket-book, no handkerchief, when we got him out. He had been choking
+a quarter of an hour when I heard him groaning. If I had not had the
+brandy to give him at the moment, I think he would have been done for.
+As it was, I brought him up to London in the carriage with me, and
+couldn't make him believe he was hurt. He was the first person whom the
+brandy saved. As I ran back to the carriage for the whole full bottle, I
+saw the first two people I had helped lying dead. A bit of shade from
+the hot sun, into which we got the unhurt ladies, soon had as many dead
+in it as living.
+
+                                              Faithfully yours always.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. Arthur Ryland.]
+
+                    GAD'S HILL PLACE, HIGHAM BY ROCHESTER, KENT,
+                                         _Wednesday, June 21st, 1865._
+
+MY DEAR MR. RYLAND,
+
+I need not assure you that I regard the unanimous desire of the Town
+Council Committee as a great honour, and that I feel the strongest
+interest in the occasion, and the strongest wish to associate myself
+with it.
+
+But, after careful consideration, I most unwillingly come to the
+conclusion that I must decline. At the time in question I shall, please
+God, either have just finished, or be just finishing, my present book.
+Country rest and reflection will then be invaluable to me, before
+casting about for Christmas. I am a little shaken in my nervous system
+by the terrible and affecting incidents of the late railway accident,
+from which I bodily escaped. I am withdrawing myself from engagements of
+all kinds, in order that I may pursue my story with the comfortable
+sense of being perfectly free while it is a-doing, and when it is done.
+The consciousness of having made this engagement would, if I were to
+make it, render such sense incomplete, and so open the way to others.
+This is the real state of the case, and the whole reason for my
+declining.
+
+                                              Faithfully yours always.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mrs. Lehmann.]
+
+                    GAD'S HILL PLACE, HIGHAM BY ROCHESTER, KENT,
+                                           _Tuesday, June 29th, 1865._
+
+DEAR MRS. LEHMANN,
+
+Come (with self and partner) on either of the days you name, and you
+will be heartily welcomed by the humble youth who now addresses you, and
+will then cast himself at your feet.
+
+I am quite right again, I thank God, and have even got my voice back; I
+most unaccountably brought somebody else's out of that terrible scene.
+The directors have sent me a Resolution of Thanks for assistance to the
+unhappy passengers.
+
+                             With kind regards to Lehmann, ever yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. Percy Fitzgerald.]
+
+                                  OFFICE OF "ALL THE YEAR ROUND,"
+                                             _Friday, July 7th, 1865._
+
+MY DEAR FITZGERALD,
+
+I shall be delighted to see you at Gad's Hill on Sunday, and I hope you
+will bring a bag with you and will not think of returning to London at
+night.
+
+We are a small party just now, for my daughter Mary has been decoyed to
+Andover for the election week, in the Conservative interest; think of my
+feelings as a Radical parent! The wrong-headed member and his wife are
+the friends with whom she hunts, and she helps to receive (and
+_de_ceive) the voters, which is very awful!
+
+But in the week after next we shall be in great croquet force. I shall
+hope to persuade you to come back to us then for a few days, and we will
+try to make you some amends for a dull Sunday. Turn it over in your mind
+and try to manage it.
+
+                                                 Sincerely yours ever.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Professor Owen, F.R.S.]
+
+                             GAD'S HILL, _Wednesday, July 12th, 1865._
+
+MY DEAR OWEN,
+
+Studying the gorilla last night for the twentieth time, it suddenly came
+into my head that I had never thanked you for that admirable treatise.
+This is to bear witness to my blushes and repentance. If you knew how
+much interest it has awakened in me, and how often it has set me
+a-thinking, you would consider me a more thankless beast than any
+gorilla that ever lived. But happily you do _not_ know, and I am not
+going to tell you.
+
+                                    Believe me, ever faithfully yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: The Earl Russell.]
+
+                    GAD'S HILL PLACE, HIGHAM BY ROCHESTER, KENT,
+                                         _Wednesday, Aug. 16th, 1865._
+
+MY DEAR LORD RUSSELL,
+
+Mr. Dallas, who is a candidate for the Scotch professional chair left
+vacant by Aytoun's death, has asked me if I would object to introduce to
+you the first volume of a book he has in the press with my publishers,
+on "The Gay Science of Art and Criticism." I have replied I would _not_
+object, as I have read as many of the sheets as I could get, with
+extreme pleasure, and as I know you will find it a very winning and
+brilliant piece of writing. Therefore he will send the proofs of the
+volume to you as soon as he can get them from the printer (at about the
+end of this week I take it), and if you read them you will not be hard
+upon me for bearing the responsibility of his doing so, I feel assured.
+
+I suppose Mr. Dallas to have some impression that his pleasing you with
+his book might advance his Scottish suit. But all I know is, that he is
+a gentleman of great attainments and erudition, much distinguished as
+the writer of the best critical literary pieces in _The Times_, and
+thoroughly versed in the subjects which Professor Aytoun represented
+officially.
+
+I beg to send my regard to Lady Russell and all the house, and am ever,
+my dear Lord Russell,
+
+                                            Your faithful and obliged.
+
+P.S.--I am happy to report that my sailor-boy's captain, relinquishing
+his ship on sick leave, departs from the mere form of certificate given
+to all the rest, and adds that his obedience to orders is remarkable,
+and that he is a highly intelligent and promising young officer.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. Marcus Stone.]
+
+                HOTEL DU HELDER, PARIS, _Wednesday, Sept. 13th, 1865._
+
+MY DEAR MARCUS,
+
+I leave here to-morrow, and propose going to the office by tidal train
+_next Saturday evening_. Through the whole of next week, on and off, I
+shall be at the office; when not there, at Gad's; but much oftener at
+the office. The sooner I can know about the subjects you take for
+illustration the better, as I can then fill the list of illustrations to
+the second volume for the printer, and enable him to make up his last
+sheet. Necessarily that list is now left blank, as I cannot give him the
+titles of the subjects, not knowing them myself.
+
+It has been fearfully hot on this side, but is something cooler.
+
+                                            Ever affectionately yours.
+
+P.S.--On glancing over this note, I find it very like the king's
+love-letter in "Ruy Blas." "Madam, there is a high wind. I have shot six
+wolves."
+
+I think the frontispiece to the second volume should be the dustyard
+with the three mounds, and Mr. Boffin digging up the Dutch bottle, and
+Venus restraining Wegg's ardour to get at him. Or Mr. Boffin might be
+coming down with the bottle, and Venus might be dragging Wegg out of the
+way as described.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. Percy Fitzgerald.]
+
+                                  OFFICE OF "ALL THE YEAR ROUND,"
+                                         _Saturday, Sept. 23rd, 1865._
+
+MY DEAR FITZGERALD,
+
+I cannot thank you too much for Sultan. He is a noble fellow, has fallen
+into the ways of the family with a grace and dignity that denote the
+gentleman, and came down to the railway a day or two since to welcome me
+home (it was our first meeting), with a profound absence of interest in
+my individual opinion of him which captivated me completely. I am going
+home to-day to take him about the country, and improve his acquaintance.
+You will find a perfect understanding between us, I hope, when you next
+come to Gad's Hill. (He has only swallowed Bouncer once, and
+temporarily.)
+
+Your hint that you were getting on with your story and liked it was more
+than golden intelligence to me in foreign parts. The intensity of the
+heat, both in Paris and the provinces, was such that I found nothing
+else so refreshing in the course of my rambles.
+
+With many more thanks for the dog than my sheet of paper would hold,
+
+                               Believe me, ever very faithfully yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mrs. Procter.]
+
+                    GAD'S HILL PLACE, HIGHAM BY ROCHESTER, KENT,
+                                                   _Sept. 26th, 1865._
+
+MY DEAR MRS. PROCTER,
+
+I have written the little introduction, and have sent it to my printer,
+in order that you may read it without trouble. But if you would like to
+keep the few pages of MS., of course they are yours.
+
+It is brief, and I have aimed at perfect simplicity, and an avoidance of
+all that your beloved Adelaide would have wished avoided. Do not expect
+too much from it. If there should be anything wrong in fact, or anything
+that you would like changed for any reason, _of course you will tell me
+so_, and of course you will not deem it possible that you can trouble me
+by making any such request most freely.
+
+You will probably receive the proof either on Friday or Saturday. Don't
+write to me until you have read it. In the meantime I send you back the
+two books, with the two letters in the bound one.
+
+                           With love to Procter,
+                                        Ever your affectionate Friend.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. Edmund Yates.]
+
+                HOTEL DU HELDER, PARIS, _Wednesday, Sept. 30th, 1865._
+
+MY DEAR EDMUND,
+
+I leave here to-morrow and purpose being at the office on Saturday
+night; all next week I shall be there, off and on--"off" meaning Gad's
+Hill; the office will be my last address. The heat has been excessive on
+this side of the Channel, and I got a slight sunstroke last Thursday,
+and was obliged to be doctored and put to bed for a day; but, thank God,
+I am all right again. The man who sells the _tisane_ on the Boulevards
+can't keep the flies out of his glasses, and as he wears them on his red
+velvet bands, the flies work themselves into the ends of the tumblers,
+trying to get through and tickle the man. If fly life were long enough,
+I think they would at last. Three paving blouses came to work at the
+corner of this street last Monday, pulled up a bit of road, sat down to
+look at it, and fell asleep. On Tuesday one of the blouses spat on his
+hands and seemed to be going to begin, but didn't. The other two have
+shown no sign of life whatever. This morning the industrious one ate a
+loaf. You may rely upon this as the latest news from the French capital.
+
+                                                      Faithfully ever.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. William Charles Kent.]
+
+                      26, WELLINGTON STREET, _Monday, Nov. 6th, 1865._
+
+MY DEAR KENT,
+
+_No_, I _won't_ write in this book, because I have sent another to the
+binder's for you.
+
+I have been unwell with a relaxed throat, or I should have written to
+you sooner to thank you for your dedication, to assure you that it
+heartily, most heartily, gratifies me, as the sincere tribute of a true
+and generous heart, and to tell you that I have been charmed with your
+book itself. I am proud of having given a name to anything so
+picturesque, so sympathetic and spirited.
+
+I hope and believe the "Doctor" is nothing but a good 'un. He has
+perfectly astonished Forster, who writes: "Neither good, gooder, nor
+goodest, but super-excellent; all through there is such a relish of you
+at your best, as I could not have believed in, after a long story."
+
+I shall be charmed to see you to-night.
+
+                                                  Ever affectionately.
+
+
+[Sidenote: M. de Cerjat.]
+
+                    GAD'S HILL PLACE, HIGHAM BY ROCHESTER, KENT,
+                                                _November 13th, 1865._
+
+                                EXTRACT.
+
+MY DEAR CERJAT,
+
+Having achieved my book and my Christmas number, and having shaken
+myself after two years' work, I send you my annual greeting. How are
+you? Asthmatic, I know you will reply; but as my poor father (who was
+asthmatic, too, and the jolliest of men) used philosophically to say,
+"one must have something wrong, I suppose, and I like to know what it
+is."
+
+In England we are groaning under the brigandage of the butcher, which is
+being carried to that height that I think I foresee resistance on the
+part of the middle-class, and some combination in perspective for
+abolishing the middleman, whensoever he turns up (which is everywhere)
+between producer and consumer. The cattle plague is the butcher's
+stalking-horse, and it is unquestionably worse than it was; but seeing
+that the great majority of creatures lost or destroyed have been cows,
+and likewise that the rise in butchers' meat bears no reasonable
+proportion to the market prices of the beasts, one comes to the
+conclusion that the public is done. The commission has ended very weakly
+and ineffectually, as such things in England rather frequently do; and
+everybody writes to _The Times_, and nobody does anything else.
+
+If the Americans don't embroil us in a war before long it will not be
+their fault. What with their swagger and bombast, what with their claims
+for indemnification, what with Ireland and Fenianism, and what with
+Canada, I have strong apprehensions. With a settled animosity towards
+the French usurper, I believe him to have always been sound in his
+desire to divide the States against themselves, and that we were
+unsound and wrong in "letting I dare not wait upon I would." The Jamaica
+insurrection is another hopeful piece of business. That
+platform-sympathy with the black--or the native, or the devil--afar off,
+and that platform indifference to our own countrymen at enormous odds in
+the midst of bloodshed and savagery, makes me stark wild. Only the other
+day, here was a meeting of jawbones of asses at Manchester, to censure
+the Jamaica Governor for his manner of putting down the insurrection! So
+we are badgered about New Zealanders and Hottentots, as if they were
+identical with men in clean shirts at Camberwell, and were to be bound
+by pen and ink accordingly. So Exeter Hall holds us in mortal submission
+to missionaries, who (Livingstone always excepted) are perfect
+nuisances, and leave every place worse than they found it.
+
+Of all the many evidences that are visible of our being ill-governed, no
+one is so remarkable to me as our ignorance of what is going on under
+our Government. What will future generations think of that enormous
+Indian Mutiny being ripened without suspicion, until whole regiments
+arose and killed their officers? A week ago, red tape, half-bouncing and
+half pooh-poohing what it bounced at, would have scouted the idea of a
+Dublin jail not being able to hold a political prisoner. But for the
+blacks in Jamaica being over-impatient and before their time, the whites
+might have been exterminated, without a previous hint or suspicion that
+there was anything amiss. _Laissez aller_, and Britons never, never,
+never!----
+
+Meantime, if your honour were in London, you would see a great
+embankment rising high and dry out of the Thames on the Middlesex shore,
+from Westminster Bridge to Blackfriars. A really fine work, and really
+getting on. Moreover, a great system of drainage. Another really fine
+work, and likewise really getting on. Lastly, a muddle of railways in
+all directions possible and impossible, with no general public scheme,
+no general public supervision, enormous waste of money, no fixable
+responsibility, no accountability but under Lord Campbell's Act. I think
+of that accident in which I was preserved. Before the most furious and
+notable train in the four-and-twenty hours, the head of a gang of
+workmen takes up the rails. That train changes its time every day as the
+tide changes, and that head workman is not provided by the railway
+company with any clock or watch! Lord Shaftesbury wrote to me to ask me
+what I thought of an obligation on railway companies to put strong walls
+to all bridges and viaducts. I told him, of course, that the force of
+such a shock would carry away anything that any company could set up,
+and I added: "Ask the minister what _he_ thinks about the votes of the
+railway interest in the House of Commons, and about his being afraid to
+lay a finger on it with an eye to his majority."
+
+I seem to be grumbling, but I am in the best of humours. All goes well
+with me and mine, thank God.
+
+Last night my gardener came upon a man in the garden and fired. The man
+returned the compliment by kicking him in the groin and causing him
+great pain. I set off, with a great mastiff-bloodhound I have, in
+pursuit. Couldn't find the evil-doer, but had the greatest difficulty in
+preventing the dog from tearing two policemen down. They were coming
+towards us with professional mystery, and he was in the air on his way
+to the throat of an eminently respectable constable when I caught him.
+
+My daughter Mary and her aunt Georgina send kindest regard and
+remembrance. Katey and her husband are going to try London this winter,
+but I rather doubt (for they are both delicate) their being able to
+weather it out. It has been blowing here tremendously for a fortnight,
+but to-day is like a spring day, and plenty of roses are growing over
+the labourers' cottages. The _Great Eastern_ lies at her moorings beyond
+the window where I write these words; looks very dull and unpromising. A
+dark column of smoke from Chatham Dockyard, where the iron shipbuilding
+is in progress, has a greater significance in it, I fancy.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Dickens.]
+
+                    GAD'S HILL PLACE, HIGHAM BY ROCHESTER, KENT,
+                                           _Tuesday, Nov. 14th, 1865._
+
+MY DEAREST MAMIE,
+
+As you want to know my views of the Sphinx, here they are. But I have
+only seen it once; and it is so extraordinarily well done, that it ought
+to be observed closely several times.
+
+Anyone who attentively notices the flower trick will see that the two
+little high tables hung with drapery cover each a trap. Each of those
+tables, during that trick, hides a confederate, who changes the paper
+cone twice. When the cone has been changed as often as is required, the
+trap is closed and the table can be moved.
+
+When the curtain is removed for the performance of the Sphinx trick,
+there is a covered, that is, draped table on the stage, which is never
+seen before or afterwards. In front of the middle of it, and between it
+and the audience, stands one of those little draped tables covering a
+trap; this is a third trap in the centre of the stage. The box for the
+head is then upon IT, and the conjuror takes it off and shows it. The
+man whose head is afterwards shown in that box is, I conceive, in the
+table; that is to say, is lying on his chest in the thickness of the
+table, in an extremely constrained attitude. To get him into the table,
+and to enable him to use the trap in the table through which his head
+comes into the box, the two hands of a confederate are necessary. That
+confederate comes up a trap, and stands in the space afforded by the
+interval below the stage and the height of the little draped table! his
+back is towards the audience. The moment he has assisted the hidden man
+sufficiently, he closes the trap, and the conjuror then immediately
+removes the little draped table, and also the drapery of the larger
+table; when he places the box on the last-named table _with the slide
+on_ for the head to come into it, he stands with his back to the
+audience and his face to the box, and masks the box considerably to
+facilitate the insertion of the head. As soon as he knows the head to be
+in its place, he undraws the slide. When the verses have been spoken and
+the trick is done, he loses no time in replacing the slide. The curtain
+is then immediately dropped, because the man cannot otherwise be got out
+of the table, and has no doubt had quite enough of it. With kindest
+regards to all at Penton,
+
+                                          Ever your most affectionate.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[14] Now Captain E. Newton Dickenson.
+
+[15] This was a circular note which he sent in answer to innumerable
+letters of enquiry, after the accident.
+
+[16] This letter was written in reply to the Committee's congratulations
+upon Mr. Dickens's escape from the accident to the tidal train from
+Folkestone, at Staplehurst, just previous to this date.
+
+
+
+
+1866.
+
+NARRATIVE.
+
+
+The furnished house hired by Charles Dickens in the spring of this year
+was in Southwick Place, Hyde Park.
+
+Having entered into negotiations with the Messrs. Chappell for a series
+of readings to be given in London, in the English provinces, in Scotland
+and Ireland, Charles Dickens had no leisure for more than his usual
+editorial work for "All the Year Round." He contributed four parts to
+the Christmas number, which was entitled, "Mugby Junction."
+
+For the future all his English readings were given in connection with
+the Messrs. Chappell, and never in all his career had he more
+satisfactory or more pleasant business relations than those connected
+with these gentlemen. Moreover, out of this connection sprang a sincere
+friendship on both sides.
+
+Mr. Dolby is so constantly mentioned in future letters, that they
+themselves will tell of the cordial companionship which existed between
+Charles Dickens and this able and most obliging "manager."
+
+The letter to "Lily" was in answer to a child's letter from Miss Lily
+Benzon, inviting him to a birthday party.
+
+The play alluded to in the letter to M. Fechter was called "A Long
+Strike," and was performed at the Lyceum Theatre.
+
+The "Sultan" mentioned in the letter to Mr. Fitzgerald was a noble Irish
+bloodhound, presented by this gentleman to Charles Dickens. The story of
+the dog's death is told in a letter to M. de Cerjat, which we give in
+the following year.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Mary Boyle.]
+
+                                  OFFICE OF "ALL THE YEAR ROUND,"
+                                           _Saturday, Jan. 6th, 1866._
+
+MY DEAR MARY,
+
+Feeling pretty certain that I shall never answer your letter unless I
+answer it at once (I got it this morning), here goes!
+
+I did not dramatise "The Master of Ravenswood," though I did a good deal
+towards and about the piece, having an earnest desire to put Scott, for
+once, upon the stage in his own gallant manner. It is _an enormous
+success_, and increases in attraction nightly. I have never seen the
+people in all parts of the house so leaning forward, in lines sloping
+towards the stage, earnestly and intently attractive, as while the story
+gradually unfolds itself. But the astonishing circumstance of all is,
+that Miss Leclercq (never thought of for Lucy till all other Lucies had
+failed) is marvellously good, highly pathetic, and almost unrecognisable
+in person! What note it touches in her, always dumb until now, I do not
+pretend to say, but there is no one on the stage who could play the
+contract scene better, or more simply and naturally, and I find it
+impossible to see it without crying! Almost everyone plays well, the
+whole is exceedingly picturesque, and there is scarcely a movement
+throughout, or a look, that is not indicated by Scott. So you get a life
+romance with beautiful illustrations, and I do not expect ever again to
+see a book take up its bed and walk in like manner.
+
+I am charmed to learn that you have had a freeze out of my ghost story.
+It rather did give me a shiver up the back in the writing. "Dr.
+Marigold" has just now accomplished his two hundred thousand. My only
+other news about myself is that I am doubtful whether to read or not in
+London this season. If I decide to do it at all, I shall probably do it
+on a large scale.
+
+Many happy years to you, my dear Mary. So prays
+
+                                              Your ever affectionate
+                                                                   Jo.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. William Charles Kent.]
+
+                              GAD'S HILL, _Thursday, Jan. 18th, 1866._
+
+MY DEAR KENT,
+
+I cannot tell you how grieved we all are here to know that you are
+suffering again. Your patient tone, however, and the hopefulness and
+forbearance of Ferguson's course, gives us some reassurance. Apropos of
+which latter reference I dined with Ferguson at the Lord Mayor's, last
+Tuesday, and had a grimly distracted impulse upon me to defy the
+toast-master and rush into a speech about him and his noble art, when I
+sat pining under the imbecility of constitutional and corporational
+idiots. I did seize him for a moment by the hair of his head (in
+proposing the Lady Mayoress), and derived some faint consolation from
+the company's response to the reference. O! no man will ever know under
+what provocation to contradiction and a savage yell of repudiation I
+suffered at the hands of ----, feebly complacent in the uniform of
+Madame Tussaud's own military waxers, and almost the worst speaker I
+ever heard in my life! Mary and Georgina, sitting on either side of me,
+urged me to "look pleasant." I replied in expressions not to be
+repeated. Shea (the judge) was just as good and graceful, as he (the
+member) was bad and gawky.
+
+Bulwer's "Lost Tales of Miletus" is a most noble book! He is an
+extraordinary fellow, and fills me with admiration and wonder.
+
+It is of no use writing to you about yourself, my dear Kent, because you
+are likely to be tired of that constant companion, and so I have gone
+scratching (with an exceedingly bad pen) about and about you. But I come
+back to you to let you know that the reputation of this house as a
+convalescent hospital stands (like the house itself) very high, and that
+testimonials can be produced from credible persons who have recovered
+health and spirits here swiftly. Try us, only try us, and we are content
+to stake the reputation of the establishment on the result.
+
+                                            Ever affectionately yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. Percy Fitzgerald.]
+
+                                 GAD'S HILL, _Friday, Feb. 2nd, 1866._
+
+MY DEAR FITZGERALD,
+
+I ought to have written to you days and days ago, to thank you for your
+charming book on Charles Lamb, to tell you with what interest and
+pleasure I read it as soon as it came here, and to add that I was
+honestly affected (far more so than your modesty will readily believe)
+by your intimate knowledge of those touches of mine concerning
+childhood.
+
+Let me tell you now that I have not in the least cooled, after all,
+either as to the graceful sympathetic book, or as to the part in it with
+which I am honoured. It has become a matter of real feeling with me, and
+I postponed its expression because I couldn't satisfactorily get it out
+of myself, and at last I came to the conclusion that it must be left in.
+
+                          My dear Fitzgerald, faithfully yours always.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Hogarth.]
+
+             OFFICE OF "ALL THE YEAR ROUND," _Friday, Feb. 9th, 1866._
+
+MY DEAREST GEORGY,
+
+I found your letter here when I came back on Wednesday evening, and was
+extremely glad to get it.
+
+Frank Beard wrote me word that with such a pulse as I described, an
+examination of the heart was absolutely necessary, and that I had better
+make an appointment with him alone for the purpose. This I did. I was
+not at all disconcerted, for I knew well beforehand that the effect
+could not possibly be without that one cause at the bottom of it. There
+seems to be degeneration of some functions of the heart. It does not
+contract as it should. So I have got a prescription of iron, quinine,
+and digitalis, to set it a-going, and send the blood more quickly
+through the system. If it should not seem to succeed on a reasonable
+trial, I will then propose a consultation with someone else. Of course I
+am not so foolish as to suppose that all my work can have been achieved
+without _some_ penalty, and I have noticed for some time a decided
+change in my buoyancy and hopefulness--in other words, in my usual
+"tone."
+
+I shall wait to see Beard again on Monday, and shall most probably come
+down that day. If I should not, I will telegraph after seeing him. Best
+love to Mamie.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mrs. Brookfield.]
+
+                                  OFFICE OF "ALL THE YEAR ROUND,"
+                                           _Tuesday, Feb. 20th, 1866._
+
+MY DEAR MRS. BROOKFIELD,
+
+Having gone through your MS. (which I should have done sooner, but that
+I have not been very well), I write these few following words about it.
+Firstly, with a limited reference to its unsuitability to these pages.
+Secondly, with a more enlarged reference to the merits of the story
+itself.
+
+If you will take any part of it and cut it up (in fancy) into the small
+portions into which it would have to be divided here for only a month's
+supply, you will (I think) at once discover the impossibility of
+publishing it in weekly parts. The scheme of the chapters, the manner of
+introducing the people, the progress of the interest, the places in
+which the principal places fall, are all hopelessly against it. It would
+seem as though the story were never coming, and hardly ever moving.
+There must be a special design to overcome that specially trying mode of
+publication, and I cannot better express the difficulty and labour of it
+than by asking you to turn over any two weekly numbers of "A Tale of Two
+Cities," or "Great Expectations," or Bulwer's story, or Wilkie
+Collins's, or Reade's, or "At the Bar," and notice how patiently and
+expressly the thing has to be planned for presentation in these
+fragments, and yet for afterwards fusing together as an uninterrupted
+whole.
+
+Of the story itself I honestly say that I think highly. The style is
+particularly easy and agreeable, infinitely above ordinary writing, and
+sometimes reminds me of Mrs. Inchbald at her best. The characters are
+remarkably well observed, and with a rare mixture of delicacy and
+truthfulness. I observe this particularly in the brother and sister, and
+in Mrs. Neville. But it strikes me that you constantly hurry your
+narrative (and yet without getting on) _by telling it, in a sort of
+impetuous breathless way, in your own person, when the people should
+tell it and act it for themselves_. My notion always is, that when I
+have made the people to play out the play, it is, as it were, their
+business to do it, and not mine. Then, unless you really have led up to
+a great situation like Basil's death, you are bound in art to make more
+of it. Such a scene should form a chapter of itself. Impressed upon the
+reader's memory, it would go far to make the fortune of the book.
+Suppose yourself telling that affecting incident in a letter to a
+friend. Wouldn't you describe how you went through the life and stir of
+the streets and roads to the sick-room? Wouldn't you say what kind of
+room it was, what time of day it was, whether it was sunlight,
+starlight, or moonlight? Wouldn't you have a strong impression on your
+mind of how you were received, when you first met the look of the dying
+man, what strange contrasts were about you and struck you? I don't want
+you, in a novel, to present _yourself_ to tell such things, but I want
+the things to be there. You make no more of the situation than the index
+might, or a descriptive playbill might in giving a summary of the
+tragedy under representation.
+
+As a mere piece of mechanical workmanship, I think all your chapters
+should be shorter; that is to say, that they should be subdivided.
+Also, when you change from narrative to dialogue, or _vice versa_, you
+should make the transition more carefully. Also, taking the pains to sit
+down and recall the principal landmarks in your story, you should then
+make them far more elaborate and conspicuous than the rest. Even with
+these changes I do not believe that the story would attract the
+attention due to it, if it were published even in such monthly portions
+as the space of "Fraser" would admit of. Even so brightened, it would
+not, to the best of my judgment, express itself piecemeal. It seems to
+me to be so constituted as to require to be read "off the reel." As a
+book in two volumes I think it would have good claims to success, and
+good chances of obtaining success. But I suppose the polishing I have
+hinted at (not a meretricious adornment, but positively necessary to
+good work and good art) to have been first thoroughly administered.
+
+Now don't hate me if you can help it. I can afford to be hated by some
+people, but I am not rich enough to put you in possession of that
+luxury.
+
+                                                Ever faithfully yours.
+
+P.S.--The MS. shall be delivered at your house to-morrow. And your
+petitioner again prays not to be, etc.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Hogarth.]
+
+                       ADELPHI, LIVERPOOL, _Friday, April 13th, 1866._
+
+MY DEAREST GEORGY,
+
+The reception at Manchester last night was quite a magnificent sight;
+the whole of the immense audience standing up and cheering. I thought
+them a little slow with "Marigold," but believe it was only the
+attention necessary in so vast a place. They gave a splendid burst at
+the end. And after "Nickleby" (which went to perfection), they set up
+such a call, that I was obliged to go in again. The unfortunate gasman,
+a very steady fellow, got a fall off a ladder and sprained his leg. He
+was put to bed in a public opposite, and was left there, poor man.
+
+This is the first very fine day we have had. I have taken advantage of
+it by crossing to Birkenhead and getting some air upon the water. It was
+fresh and beautiful.
+
+I send my best love to Mamie, and hope she is better. I am, of course,
+tired (the pull of "Marigold" upon one's energy, in the Free Trade Hall,
+was great); but I stick to my tonic, and feel, all things considered, in
+very good tone. The room here (I mean the hall) being my special
+favourite and extraordinarily easy, is _almost_ a rest!
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Dickens.]
+
+                     ADELPHI, LIVERPOOL, _Saturday, April 14th, 1866._
+
+MY DEAREST MAMIE,
+
+The police reported officially that three thousand people were turned
+away from the hall last night. I doubt if they were so numerous as that,
+but they carried in the outer doors and pitched into Dolby with great
+vigour. I need not add that every corner of the place was crammed. They
+were a very fine audience, and took enthusiastically every point in
+"Copperfield" and the "Trial." They made the reading a quarter of an
+hour longer than usual. One man advertised in the morning paper that he
+would give thirty shillings (double) for three stalls, but nobody would
+sell, and he didn't get in.
+
+Except that I cannot sleep, I really think myself in much better
+training than I had anticipated. A dozen oysters and a little champagne
+between the parts every night, constitute the best restorative I have
+ever yet tried. John appears low, but I don't know why. A letter comes
+for him daily; the hand is female; whether Smudger's, or a nearer one
+still and a dearer one, I don't know. So it may or may not be the cause
+of his gloom.
+
+"Miss Emily" of Preston is married to a rich cotton lord, rides in open
+carriages in gorgeous array, and is altogether splendid. With this
+effective piece of news I close.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Hogarth.]
+
+                                          GLASGOW, _April 17th, 1866._
+
+We arrived here at ten yesterday evening. I don't think the journey
+shook me at all. Dolby provided a superb cold collation and "the best of
+drinks," and we dined in the carriage, and I made him laugh all the way.
+
+The let here is very large. Every precaution taken to prevent my
+platform from being captured as it was last time; but I don't feel at
+all sure that it will not be stormed at one of the two readings. Wills
+is to do the genteel to-night at the stalls, and Dolby is to stem the
+shilling tide _if_ he can. The poor gasman cannot come on, and we have
+got a new one here who is to go to Edinburgh with us. Of Edinburgh we
+know nothing, but as its first night has always been shady, I suppose it
+will stick to its antecedents.
+
+I like to hear about Harness and his freshness. The let for the next
+reading at St. James's is "going," they report, "admirably." Lady
+Russell asked me to dinner to-morrow, and I have written her a note
+to-day. The rest has certainly done me good. I slept thoroughly well
+last night, and feel fresh. What to-night's work, and every night's
+work this week, may do contrariwise, remains to be seen.
+
+I hope Harry's knee may be in the way of mending, from what you relate
+of it.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Dickens.]
+
+              WATERLOO HOTEL, EDINBURGH, _Wednesday, April 18th, 1866._
+
+We had a tremendous house again last night at Glasgow; and turned away
+great numbers. Not only that, but they were a most brilliant and
+delicate audience, and took "Marigold" with a fine sense and quickness
+not to be surpassed. The shillings pitched into Dolby again, and one man
+writes a sensible letter in one of the papers this morning, showing to
+_my_ satisfaction (?) that they really had, through the local agent,
+some cause of complaint. Nevertheless, the shilling tickets are sold for
+to-morrow, and it seems to be out of the question to take any money at
+the doors, the call for all parts is so enormous. The thundering of
+applause last night was quite staggering, and my people checked off my
+reception by the minute hand of a watch, and stared at one another,
+thinking I should never begin. I keep quite well, have happily taken to
+sleeping these last three nights; and feel, all things considered, very
+little conscious of fatigue. I cannot reconcile my town medicine with
+the hours and journeys of reading life, and have therefore given it up
+for the time. But for the moment, I think I am better without it. What
+we are doing here I have not yet heard. I write at half-past one, and we
+have been little more than an hour in the house. But I am quite prepared
+for the inevitable this first Edinburgh night. Endeavours have been
+made (from Glasgow yesterday) to telegraph the exact facts out of our
+local agent; but hydraulic pressure wouldn't have squeezed a straight
+answer out of him. "Friday and Saturday doing very well, Wednesday not
+so good." This was all electricity could discover.
+
+I am going to write a line this post to Katie, from whom I have a note.
+I hope Harry's leg will now step out in the manner of the famous cork
+leg in the song.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Hogarth.]
+
+                              EDINBURGH, _Thursday, April 19th, 1866._
+
+The house was more than twice better than any first night here
+previously. They were, as usual here, remarkably intelligent, and the
+reading went _brilliantly_. I have not sent up any newspapers, as they
+are generally so poorly written, that you may know beforehand all the
+commonplaces that they will write. But _The Scotsman_ has so pretty an
+article this morning, and (so far as I know) so true a one, that I will
+try to post it to you, either from here or Glasgow. John and Dolby went
+over early, and Wills and I follow them at half-past eleven. It is cold
+and wet here. We have laid half-crown bets with Dolby, that he will be
+assaulted to-night at Glasgow. He has a surprising knowledge of what the
+receipts will be always, and wins half-crowns every night. Chang is
+living in this house. John (not knowing it) was rendered perfectly
+drivelling last night, by meeting him on the stairs. The Tartar Dwarf is
+always twining himself upstairs sideways, and drinks a bottle of whisky
+per day, and is reported to be a surprising little villain.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Dickens.]
+
+                WATERLOO HOTEL, EDINBURGH, _Friday, April 20th, 1866._
+
+No row at Glasgow last night. Great placards were posted about the town
+by the anxious Dolby, announcing that no money would be taken at the
+doors. This kept the crowd off. Two files of policemen and a double
+staff everywhere did the rest, and nothing could be better-tempered or
+more orderly. Tremendous enthusiasm with the "Carol" and "Trial." I was
+dead beat afterwards, that reading being twenty minutes longer than
+usual; but plucked up again, had some supper, slept well, and am quite
+right to-day. It is a bright day, and the express ride over from Glasgow
+was very pleasant.
+
+Everything is gone here for to-night. But it is difficult to describe
+what the readings have grown to be. The let at St. James's Hall is not
+only immense for next Tuesday, but so large for the next reading
+afterwards, that Chappell writes: "That will be the greatest house of
+the three." From Manchester this morning they write: "Send us more
+tickets instantly, for we are sold out and don't know what to do with
+the people." Last night the whole of my money under the agreement had
+been taken. I notice that a great bank has broken at Liverpool, which
+may hurt us there, but when last heard of it was going as before. And
+the audience, though so enormous, do somehow express a personal
+affection, which makes them very strange and moving to see.
+
+I have a story to answer you and your aunt with. Before I left Southwick
+Place for Liverpool, I received a letter from Glasgow, saying, "Your
+little Emily has been woo'd and married and a'! since you last saw her;"
+and describing her house within a mile or two of the city, and asking
+me to stay there. I wrote the usual refusal, and supposed Mrs. ---- to
+be some romantic girl whom I had joked with, perhaps at Allison's or
+where not. On the first night at Glasgow I received a bouquet from ----,
+and wore one of the flowers. This morning at the Glasgow station, ----
+appeared, and proved to be the identical Miss Emily, of whose marriage
+Dolby had told me on our coming through Preston. She was attired in
+magnificent raiment, and presented the happy ----.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Hogarth.]
+
+                              LIVERPOOL, _Thursday, April 26th, 1866._
+
+We noticed between London and Rugby (the first stoppage) something very
+odd in our carriage yesterday, not so much in its motion as in its
+sound. We examined it as well as we could out of both windows, but could
+make nothing of it. On our arrival at Rugby, it was found to be on fire.
+And as it was in the middle of the train, the train had to be broken to
+get it off into a siding by itself and get another carriage on. With
+this slight exception we came down all right.
+
+My voice is much better, I am glad to report, and I mean to try Beard's
+remedy after dinner to-day. This is all my present news.
+
+
+[Sidenote: The same.]
+
+                        DOWN HOTEL, CLIFTON, _Friday, May 11th, 1866._
+
+I received your note before I left Birmingham this morning. It has been
+very heavy work getting up at half-past six each morning after a heavy
+night, and I am not at all well to-day. We had a tremendous hall at
+Birmingham last night--two thousand one hundred people. I made a most
+ridiculous mistake. Had "Nickleby" on my list to finish with, instead of
+"Trial." Read "Nickleby" with great go, and the people remained. Went
+back again at ten and explained the accident, and said if they liked, I
+would give them the "Trial." They _did_ like, and I had another
+half-hour of it in that enormous place.
+
+This stoppage of Overend and Gurney in the City will play the ---- with
+all public gaieties, and with all the arts.
+
+My cold is no better. John fell off a platform about ten feet high
+yesterday, and fainted. He looks all the colours of the rainbow to-day,
+but does not seem much hurt beyond being puffed up one hand, arm, and
+side.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Lily Benzon.]
+
+                    GAD'S HILL PLACE, HIGHAM BY ROCHESTER, KENT,
+                                            _Monday, June 18th, 1866._
+
+MY DEAR LILY,
+
+I am sorry that I cannot come to read to you "The Boots at the Holly
+Tree Inn," as you ask me to do; but the truth is, that I am tired of
+reading at this present time, and have come into the country to rest and
+hear the birds sing. There are a good many birds, I daresay, in
+Kensington Palace Gardens, and upon my word and honour they are much
+better worth listening to than I am. So let them sing to you as hard as
+ever they can, while their sweet voices last (they will be silent when
+the winter comes); and very likely after you and I have eaten our next
+Christmas pudding and mince-pies, you and I and Uncle Harry may all meet
+together at St. James's Hall; Uncle Harry to bring you there, to hear
+the "Boots;" I to receive you there, and read the "Boots;" and you (I
+hope) to applaud very much, and tell me that you like the "Boots." So,
+God bless you and me, and Uncle Harry, and the "Boots," and long life
+and happiness to us all!
+
+                                             Your affectionate Friend.
+
+P.S.--There's a flourish!
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. B. W. Procter.]
+
+                    GAD'S HILL PLACE, HIGHAM BY ROCHESTER, KENT,
+                                            _Monday, Aug. 13th, 1866._
+
+MY DEAR PROCTER,
+
+I have read your biography of Charles Lamb with inexpressible pleasure
+and interest. I do not think it possible to tell a pathetic story with a
+more unaffected and manly tenderness. And as to the force and vigour of
+the style, if I did not know you I should have made sure that there was
+a printer's error in the opening of your introduction, and that the word
+"seventy" occupied the place of "forty."
+
+Let me, my dear friend, most heartily congratulate you on your
+achievement. It is not an ordinary triumph to do such justice to the
+memory of such a man. And I venture to add, that the fresh spirit with
+which you have done it impresses me as being perfectly wonderful.
+
+                                            Ever affectionately yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Sir James Emerson Tennent.]
+
+                                GAD'S HILL, _Monday, Aug. 20th, 1866._
+
+MY DEAR TENNENT,
+
+I have been very much interested by your extract, and am strongly
+inclined to believe that the founder of the Refuge for Poor Travellers
+meant the kind of man to which it refers. Chaucer certainly meant the
+Pardonere to be a humbug, living on the credulity of the people. After
+describing the sham reliques he carried, he says:
+
+        But with these relikes whawne that he found
+        A poure personne dwelling up on lond
+        Upon a day he gat him more monnie
+        Than that the personne got in monthes time,
+        And thus, with fained flattering and japes
+        He made the personne, and the people, his apes.
+
+And the worthy Watts (founder of the charity) may have had these very
+lines in his mind when he excluded such a man.
+
+When I last heard from my boy he was coming to you, and was full of
+delight and dignity. My midshipman has just been appointed to the
+_Bristol_, on the West Coast of Africa, and is on his voyage out to join
+her. I wish it was another ship and another station. She has been
+unlucky in losing men.
+
+Kindest regard from all my house to yours.
+
+                                                Faithfully yours ever.
+
+
+[Sidenote: M. Charles Fechter.]
+
+                               GAD'S HILL, _Tuesday, Sept. 4th, 1866._
+
+MY DEAR FECHTER,
+
+This morning I received the play to the end of the telegraph scene, and
+I have since read it twice.
+
+I clearly see the _ground_ of Mr. Boucicault's two objections; but I do
+not see their _force_.
+
+First, as to the writing. If the characters did not speak in a terse and
+homely way, their idea and language would be inconsistent with their
+dress and station, and they would lose, as characters, before the
+audience. The dialogue seems to be exactly what is wanted. Its
+simplicity (particularly in Mr. Boucicault's part) is often very
+effective; and throughout there is an honest, straight-to-the-purpose
+ruggedness in it, like the real life and the real people.
+
+Secondly, as to the absence of the comic element. I really do not see
+how more of it could be got into the story, and I think Mr. Boucicault
+underrates the pleasant effect of his own part. The very notion of a
+sailor, whose life is not among those little courts and streets, and
+whose business does not lie with the monotonous machinery, but with the
+four wild winds, is a relief to me in reading the play. I am quite
+confident of its being an immense relief to the audience when they see
+the sailor before them, with an entirely different bearing, action,
+dress, complexion even, from the rest of the men. I would make him the
+freshest and airiest sailor that ever was seen; and through him I can
+distinctly see my way out of "the Black Country" into clearer air. (I
+speak as one of the audience, mind.) I should like something of this
+contrast to be expressed in the dialogue between the sailor and Jew, in
+the second scene of the second act. Again, I feel Widdicomb's part
+(which is charming, and ought to make the whole house cry) most
+agreeable and welcome, much better than any amount in such a story, of
+mere comicality.
+
+It is unnecessary to say that the play is done with a master's hand. Its
+closeness and movement are quite surprising. Its construction is
+admirable. I have the strongest belief in its making a great success.
+But I must add this proviso: I never saw a play so dangerously depending
+in critical places on strict natural propriety in the manner and
+perfection in the shaping of the small parts. Those small parts cannot
+take the play up, but they can let it down. I would not leave a hair on
+the head of one of them to the chance of the first night, but I would
+see, to the minutest particular, the make-up of every one of them at a
+night rehearsal.
+
+Of course you are free to show this note to Mr. Boucicault, and I
+suppose you will do so; let me throw out this suggestion to him and you.
+Might it not ease the way with the Lord Chamberlain's office, and still
+more with the audience, when there are Manchester champions in it, if
+instead of "Manchester" you used a fictitious name? When I did "Hard
+Times" I called the scene Coketown. Everybody knew what was meant, but
+every cotton-spinning town said it was the other cotton-spinning town.
+
+I shall be up on Saturday, and will come over about mid-day, unless you
+name any other time.
+
+                                                        Ever heartily.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. Walter Thornbury]
+
+            "ALL THE YEAR ROUND" OFFICE, _Saturday, Sept. 15th, 1866._
+
+MY DEAR THORNBURY,
+
+Many thanks for your letter.
+
+In reference to your Shakespeare queries, I am not so much enamoured of
+the first and third subjects as I am of the Ariosto enquiry, which
+should be highly interesting. But if you have so got the matter in your
+mind, as that its execution would be incomplete and unsatisfactory to
+you unless you write all the three papers, then by all means write the
+three, and I will most gladly take them. For some years I have had so
+much pleasure in reading you, that I can honestly warrant myself as what
+actors call "a good audience."
+
+The idea of old stories retold is decidedly a good one. I greatly like
+the notion of that series. Of course you know De Quincey's paper on the
+Ratcliffe Highway murderer? Do you know also the illustration (I have it
+at Gad's Hill), representing the horrible creature as his dead body lay
+on a cart, with a piece of wood for a pillow, and a stake lying by,
+ready to be driven through him?
+
+I don't _quite_ like the title, "The Social History of London." I should
+better like some title to the effect, "The History of London's Social
+Changes in so many Years." Such a title would promise more, and better
+express your intention. What do you think of taking for a first title,
+"London's Changes"? You could then add the second title, "Being a
+History," etc.
+
+I don't at all desire to fix a limit to the series of old stories
+retold. I would state the general intention at the beginning of the
+first paper, and go on like Banquo's line.
+
+Don't let your London title remind people, by so much as the place of
+the word "civilisation," of Buckle. It seems a ridiculous caution, but
+the indolent part of the public (a large part!) on such points tumble
+into extraordinary mistakes.
+
+                                              Faithfully yours always.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. Percy Fitzgerald.]
+
+                                GAD'S HILL, _Tuesday, Nov. 6th, 1866._
+
+MY DEAR FITZGERALD,
+
+It is always pleasant to me to hear from you, and I hope you will
+believe that this is not a mere fashion of speech.
+
+Concerning the green covers, I find the leaves to be budding--on
+unquestionable newspaper authority; but, upon my soul, I have no other
+knowledge of their being in embryo! Really, I do not see a chance of my
+settling myself to such work until after I have accomplished forty-two
+readings, to which I stand pledged.
+
+I hope to begin this series somewhere about the middle of January, in
+Dublin. Touching the details of the realisation of this hope, will you
+tell me in a line as soon as you can--_Is the exhibition room a good
+room for speaking in?_
+
+Your mention of the late Sultan touches me nearly. He was the finest dog
+I ever saw, and between him and me there was a perfect understanding.
+But, to adopt the popular phrase, it was so very confidential that it
+"went no further." He would fly at anybody else with the greatest
+enthusiasm for destruction. I saw him, muzzled, pound into the heart of
+a regiment of the line; and I have frequently seen him, muzzled, hold a
+great dog down with his chest and feet. He has broken loose (muzzled)
+and come home covered with blood, again and again. And yet he never
+disobeyed me, unless he had first laid hold of a dog.
+
+You heard of his going to execution, evidently supposing the procession
+to be a party detached in pursuit of something to kill or eat? It was
+very affecting. And also of his bolting a blue-eyed kitten, and making
+me acquainted with the circumstance by his agonies of remorse (or
+indigestion)?
+
+I cannot find out that there is anyone in Rochester (a sleepy old city)
+who has anything to tell about Garrick, except what is not true. His
+brother, the wine merchant, would be more in Rochester way, I think. How
+on earth do you find time to do all these books?
+
+You make my hair stand on end; an agreeable sensation, for I am charmed
+to find that I have any. Why don't you come yourself and look after
+Garrick? I should be truly delighted to receive you.
+
+                           My dear Fitzgerald, always faithfully yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. W. C. Macready.]
+
+                    GAD'S HILL PLACE, HIGHAM BY ROCHESTER, KENT,
+                                            _Friday, Dec. 28th, 1866._
+
+MY DEAREST MACREADY,
+
+I have received your letter with the utmost pleasure and we all send our
+most affectionate love to you, Mrs. Macready, Katie, Johnny, and the boy
+of boys. All good Christmas and New Year greetings are to be understood
+as included.
+
+You will be interested in knowing that, encouraged by the success of
+summer cricket-matches, I got up a quantity of foot-races and rustic
+sports in my field here on the 26th last past: as I have never yet had a
+case of drunkenness, the landlord of The Falstaff had a drinking-booth
+on the ground. All the prizes I gave were in money, too. We had two
+thousand people here. Among the crowd were soldiers, navvies, and
+labourers of all kinds. Not a stake was pulled up, or a rope slackened,
+or one farthing's-worth of damage done. To every competitor (only) a
+printed bill of general rules was given, with the concluding words: "Mr.
+Dickens puts every man upon his honour to assist in preserving order."
+There was not a dispute all day, and they went away at sunset rending
+the air with cheers, and leaving every flag on a six hundred yards'
+course as neat as they found it when the gates were opened at ten in the
+morning. Surely this is a bright sign in the neighbourhood of such a
+place as Chatham!
+
+"Mugby Junction" turned, yesterday afternoon, the extraordinary number
+of two hundred and fifty thousand!
+
+In the middle of next month I begin a new course of forty-two readings.
+If any of them bring me within reach of Cheltenham, with an hour to
+spare, I shall come on to you, even for that hour. More of this when I
+am afield and have my list, which Dolby (for Chappell) is now
+preparing.
+
+Forster and Mrs. Forster were to have come to us next Monday, to stay
+until Saturday. I write "were," because I hear that Forster (who had a
+touch of bronchitis when he wrote to me on Christmas Eve) is in bed.
+Katie, who has been ill of low nervous fever, was brought here yesterday
+from London. She bore the journey much better than I expected, and so I
+hope will soon recover. This is my little stock of news.
+
+I begin to discover in your riper years, that you have been secretly
+vain of your handwriting all your life. For I swear I see no change in
+it! What it always was since I first knew it (a year or two!) it _is_.
+This I will maintain against all comers.
+
+                             Ever affectionately, my dearest Macready.
+
+
+
+
+1867.
+
+NARRATIVE.
+
+
+As the London and provincial readings were to be resumed early in the
+year and continued until the end of March, Charles Dickens took no house
+in London this spring. He came to his office quarters at intervals, for
+the series in town; usually starting off again, on his country tour, the
+day after a London reading. From some passages in his letters to his
+daughter and sister-in-law during this country course, it will be seen
+that (though he made very light of the fact) the great exertion of the
+readings, combined with incessant railway travelling, was beginning to
+tell upon his health, and he was frequently "heavily beaten" after
+reading at his best to an enthusiastic audience in a large hall.
+
+During the short intervals between his journeys, he was as constantly
+and carefully at work upon the business of "All the Year Round" as if he
+had no other work on hand. A proof of this is given in a letter dated
+"5th February." It is written to a young man (the son of a friend), who
+wrote a long novel when far too juvenile for such a task, and had
+submitted it to Charles Dickens for his opinion, with a view to
+publication. In the midst of his own hard and engrossing occupation he
+read the book, and the letter which he wrote on the subject needs no
+remark beyond this, that the young writer received the adverse criticism
+with the best possible sense, and has since, in his literary profession,
+profited by the advice so kindly given.
+
+At this time the proposals to Charles Dickens for reading in America,
+which had been perpetually renewed from the time of his first abandoning
+the idea, became so urgent and so tempting, that he found at last he
+must, at all events, give the subject his most serious consideration. He
+took counsel with his two most confidential friends and advisers, Mr.
+John Forster and Mr. W. H. Wills. They were both, at first, strongly
+opposed to the undertaking, chiefly on the ground of the trial to his
+health and strength which it would involve. But they could not deny the
+counterbalancing advantages. And, after much deliberation, it was
+resolved that Mr. George Dolby should be sent out by the Messrs.
+Chappell, to take an impression, on the spot, as to the feeling of the
+United States about the Readings. His report as to the undoubted
+enthusiasm and urgency on the other side of the Atlantic it was
+impossible to resist. Even his friends withdrew their opposition (though
+still with misgivings as to the effect upon his health, which were but
+too well founded!), and on the 30th September he telegraphed "Yes" to
+America.
+
+The "Alfred" alluded to in a letter from Glasgow was Charles Dickens's
+fourth son, Alfred Tennyson, who had gone to Australia two years
+previously.
+
+We give, in April, the last letter to one of the friends for whom
+Charles Dickens had always a most tender love--Mr. Stanfield. He was
+then in failing health, and in May he died.
+
+Another death which affected him very deeply happened this summer. Miss
+Marguerite Power died in July. She had long been very ill, but, until it
+became impossible for her to travel, she was a frequent and beloved
+guest at Gad's Hill. The Mrs. Henderson to whom he writes was Miss
+Power's youngest sister.
+
+Before he started for America it was proposed to wish him God-speed by
+giving him a public dinner at the Freemasons' Hall. The proposal was
+most warmly and fully responded to. His zealous friend, Mr. Charles
+Kent, willingly undertook the whole work of arrangement of this banquet.
+It took place on the 2nd November, and Lord Lytton presided.
+
+On the 8th he left London for Liverpool, accompanied by his daughters,
+his sister-in-law, his eldest son, Mr. Arthur Chappell, Mr. Charles
+Collins, Mr. Wilkie Collins, Mr. Kent, and Mr. Wills. The next morning
+the whole party took a final leave of Charles Dickens on board the
+_Cuba_, which sailed that day.
+
+We give a letter which he wrote to Mr. J. L. Toole on the morning of the
+dinner, thanking him for a parting gift and an earnest letter. That
+excellent comedian was one of his most appreciative admirers, and, in
+return, he had for Mr. Toole the greatest admiration and respect.
+
+The Christmas number for this year, "No Thoroughfare," was written by
+Charles Dickens and Mr. Wilkie Collins. It was dramatised by Mr. Collins
+chiefly. But, in the midst of all the work of preparation for departure,
+Charles Dickens gave minute attention to as much of the play as could be
+completed before he left England. It was produced, after Christmas, at
+the Adelphi Theatre, where M. Fechter was then acting, under the
+management of Mr. Benjamin Webster.
+
+
+[Sidenote: M. de Cerjat.]
+
+                    GAD'S HILL PLACE, HIGHAM BY ROCHESTER, KENT,
+                                               _New Year's Day, 1867._
+
+MY DEAR CERJAT,
+
+Thoroughly determined to be beforehand with "the middle of next summer,"
+your penitent friend and remorseful correspondent thus addresses you.
+
+The big dog, on a day last autumn, having seized a little girl (sister
+to one of the servants) whom he knew, and was bound to respect, was
+flogged by his master, and then sentenced to be shot at seven next
+morning. He went out very cheerfully with the half-dozen men told off
+for the purpose, evidently thinking that they were going to be the death
+of somebody unknown. But observing in the procession an empty
+wheelbarrow and a double-barrelled gun, he became meditative, and fixed
+the bearer of the gun with his eyes. A stone deftly thrown across him by
+the village blackguard (chief mourner) caused him to look round for an
+instant, and he then fell dead, shot through the heart. Two posthumous
+children are at this moment rolling on the lawn; one will evidently
+inherit his ferocity, and will probably inherit the gun. The pheasant
+was a little ailing towards Christmas Day, and was found dead under some
+ivy in his cage, with his head under his wing, on the morning of the
+twenty-seventh of December, one thousand eight hundred and sixty-six. I,
+proprietor of the remains of the two deceased, am working hard, getting
+up "Barbox" and "The Boy at Mugby," with which I begin a new series of
+readings in London on the fifteenth. Next morning I believe I start into
+the country. When I read, I _don't_ write. I only edit, and have the
+proof-sheets sent me for the purpose. Here are your questions answered.
+
+As to the Reform question, it should have been, and could have been,
+perfectly known to any honest man in England that the more intelligent
+part of the great masses were deeply dissatisfied with the state of
+representation, but were in a very moderate and patient condition,
+awaiting the better intellectual cultivation of numbers of their
+fellows. The old insolent resource of assailing them and making the most
+audaciously wicked statements that they are politically indifferent,
+has borne the inevitable fruit. The perpetual taunt, "Where are they?"
+has called them out with the answer: "Well then, if you _must_ know,
+here we are." The intolerable injustice of vituperating the bribed to an
+assembly of bribers, has goaded their sense of justice beyond endurance.
+And now, what they would have taken they won't take, and whatever they
+are steadily bent upon having they will get. Rely upon it, this is the
+real state of the case. As to your friend "Punch," you will find him
+begin to turn at the very selfsame instant when the new game shall
+manifestly become the losing one. You may notice his shoes pinching him
+a little already.
+
+My dear fellow, I have no more power to stop that mutilation of my books
+than you have. It is as certain as that every inventor of anything
+designed for the public good, and offered to the English Government,
+becomes _ipso facto_ a criminal, to have his heart broken on the
+circumlocutional wheel. It is as certain as that the whole Crimean story
+will be retold, whenever this country again goes to war. And to tell the
+truth, I have such a very small opinion of what the great genteel have
+done for us, that I am very philosophical indeed concerning what the
+great vulgar may do, having a decided opinion that they can't do worse.
+
+This is the time of year when the theatres do best, there being still
+numbers of people who make it a sort of religion to see Christmas
+pantomimes. Having my annual houseful, I have, as yet, seen nothing.
+Fechter has neither pantomime nor burlesque, but is doing a new version
+of the old "Trente Ans de la Vie d'un Joueur." I am afraid he will not
+find his account in it. On the whole, the theatres, except in the
+articles of scenery and pictorial effect, are poor enough. But in some
+of the smaller houses there are actors who, if there were any dramatic
+head-quarters as a school, might become very good. The most hopeless
+feature is, that they have the smallest possible idea of an effective
+and harmonious whole, each "going in" for himself or herself. The
+music-halls attract an immense public, and don't refine the general
+taste. But such things as they do are well done of their kind, and
+always briskly and punctually.
+
+The American yacht race is the last sensation. I hope the general
+interest felt in it on this side will have a wholesome interest on that.
+It will be a woeful day when John and Jonathan throw their caps into the
+ring. The French Emperor is indubitably in a dangerous state. His
+Parisian popularity wanes, and his army are discontented with him. I
+hear on high authority that his secret police are always making
+discoveries that render him desperately uneasy.
+
+You know how we have been swindling in these parts. But perhaps you
+don't know that Mr. ----, the "eminent" contractor, before he fell into
+difficulties settled _one million of money_ on his wife. Such a good and
+devoted husband!
+
+My daughter Katie has been very ill of nervous fever. On the 27th of
+December she was in a condition to be brought down here (old high road
+and post-horses), and has been steadily getting better ever since. Her
+husband is here too, and is on the whole as well as he ever is or ever
+will be, I fear.
+
+We played forfeit-games here, last night, and then pool. For a
+billiard-room has been added to the house since you were here. Come and
+play a match with me.
+
+                                                Always affectionately.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Hogarth.]
+
+                  ADELPHI HOTEL, LIVERPOOL, _Monday, Jan. 21st, 1867._
+
+MY DEAREST GEORGY,
+
+First I send you my most affectionate wishes for many, many happy
+returns of your birthday. That done, from my heart of hearts, I go on to
+my small report of myself.
+
+The readings have produced such an immense effect here that we are
+coming back for two more in the middle of February. "Marigold" and the
+"Trial," on Friday night, and the "Carol," on Saturday afternoon, were a
+perfect furore; and the surprise about "Barbox" has been amusingly
+great. It is a most extraordinary thing, after the enormous sale of that
+Christmas number, that the provincial public seems to have combined to
+believe that it _won't_ make a reading. From Wolverhampton and Leeds we
+have exactly the same expression of feelings _beforehand_. Exactly as I
+made "Copperfield"--always to the poorest houses I had with Headland,
+and against that luminary's entreaty--so I should have to make this, if
+I hadn't "Marigold" always in demand.
+
+It being next to impossible for people to come out at night with horses,
+we have felt the weather in the stalls, and expect to do so through this
+week. The half-crown and shilling publics have crushed to their places
+most splendidly. The enthusiasm has been unbounded. On Friday night I
+quite astonished myself; but I was taken so faint afterwards that they
+laid me on a sofa at the hall for half an hour. I attribute it to my
+distressing inability to sleep at night, and to nothing worse.
+
+Scott does very well indeed. As a dresser he is perfect. In a quarter of
+an hour after I go into the retiring-room, where all my clothes are
+airing and everything is set out neatly in its own allotted space, I am
+ready; and he then goes softly out, and sits outside the door. In the
+morning he is equally punctual, quiet, and quick. He has his needles and
+thread, buttons, and so forth, always at hand; and in travelling he is
+very systematic with the luggage. What with Dolby and what with this
+skilful valet, everything is made as easy to me as it possibly _can_ be,
+and Dolby would do anything to lighten the work, and does everything.
+
+There is great distress here among the poor (four thousand people
+relieved last Saturday at one workhouse), and there is great anxiety
+concerning _seven mail-steamers some days overdue_. Such a circumstance
+as this last has never been known. It is supposed that some great
+revolving storm has whirled them all out of their course. One of these
+missing ships is an American mail, another an Australian mail.
+
+
+                                                     _Same Afternoon._
+
+We have been out for four hours in the bitter east wind, and walking on
+the sea-shore, where there is a broad strip of great blocks of ice. My
+hands are so rigid that I write with great difficulty.
+
+We have been constantly talking of the terrible Regent's Park accident.
+I hope and believe that nearly the worst of it is now known.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Dickens.]
+
+                                  CHESTER, _Tuesday, Jan. 22nd, 1867._
+
+MY DEAREST MAMIE,
+
+We came over here from Liverpool at eleven this forenoon. There was a
+heavy swell in the Mersey breaking over the boat; the cold was nipping,
+and all the roads we saw as we came along were wretched. We find a very
+moderate let here; but I am myself rather surprised to know that a
+hundred and twenty stalls have made up their minds to the undertaking of
+getting to the hall. This seems to be a very nice hotel, but it is an
+extraordinarily cold one. Our reading for to-night is "Marigold" and
+"Trial." With amazing perversity the local agent said to Dolby: "They
+hoped that Mr. Dickens _might_ have given them 'The Boy at Mugby.'"
+
+Barton, the gasman who succeeded the man who sprained his leg, sprained
+_his_ leg yesterday!! And that, not at his work, but in running
+downstairs at the hotel. However, he has hobbled through it so far, and
+I hope will hobble on, for he knows his work.
+
+I have seldom seen a place look more hopelessly frozen up than this
+place does. The hall is like a Methodist chapel in low spirits, and with
+a cold in its head. A few blue people shiver at the corners of the
+streets. And this house, which is outside the town, looks like an
+ornament on an immense twelfth cake baked for 1847.
+
+I am now going to the fire to try to warm myself, but have not the least
+expectation of succeeding. The sitting-room has two large windows in it,
+down to the ground and facing due east. The adjoining bedroom (mine) has
+also two large windows in it, down to the ground and facing due east.
+The very large doors are opposite the large windows, and I feel as if I
+were something to eat in a pantry.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Hogarth.]
+
+            HEN AND CHICKENS, BIRMINGHAM, _Thursday, Jan. 24th, 1867._
+
+At Chester we read in a snowstorm and a fall of ice. I think it was the
+worst weather I ever saw. Nevertheless, the people were enthusiastic. At
+Wolverhampton last night the thaw had thoroughly set in, and it rained
+heavily. We had not intended to go back there, but have arranged to do
+so on the day after Ash Wednesday. Last night I was again heavily
+beaten. We came on here after the reading (it is only a ride of forty
+minutes), and it was as much as I could do to hold out the journey. But
+I was not faint, as at Liverpool; I was only exhausted. I am all right
+this morning; and to-night, as you know, I have a rest. I trust that
+Charley Collins is better, and that Mamie is strong and well again.
+Yesterday I had a note from Katie, which seemed hopeful and encouraging.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Dickens.]
+
+            HEN AND CHICKENS, BIRMINGHAM, _Thursday, Jan. 24th, 1867._
+
+Since I wrote to your aunt just now, I have received your note addressed
+to Wolverhampton. We left the men there last night, and they brought it
+on with them at noon to-day.
+
+The maimed gasman's foot is much swollen, but he limps about and does
+his work. I have doctored him up with arnica. During the "Boy" last
+night there was an escape of gas from the side of my top batten, which
+caught the copper-wire and was within a thread of bringing down the
+heavy reflector into the stalls. It was a very ticklish matter, though
+the audience knew nothing about it. I saw it, and the gasman and Dolby
+saw it, and stood at that side of the platform in agonies. We all three
+calculated that there would be just time to finish and save it; when the
+gas was turned out the instant I had done, the whole thing was at its
+very last and utmost extremity. Whom it would have tumbled on, or what
+might have been set on fire, it is impossible to say.
+
+I hope you rewarded your police escort on Tuesday night. It was the most
+tremendous night I ever saw at Chester.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Dickens.]
+
+                                      LEEDS, _Friday, Feb. 1st, 1867._
+
+We got here prosperously, and had a good (but not great) house for
+"Barbox" and "Boy" last night. For "Marigold" and "Trial," to-night,
+everything is gone. And I even have my doubts of the possibility of
+Dolby's cramming the people in. For "Marigold" and "Trial" at
+Manchester, to-morrow, we also expect a fine hall.
+
+I shall be at the office for next Wednesday. If Charley Collins should
+have been got to Gad's, I will come there for that day. If not, I
+suppose we had best open the official bower again.
+
+This is a beastly place, with a very good hotel. Except Preston, it is
+one of the nastiest places I know. The room is like a capacious coal
+cellar, and is incredibly filthy; but for sound it is perfect.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Anonymous.]
+
+            OFFICE OF "ALL THE YEAR ROUND," _Tuesday, Feb. 5th, 1867._
+
+DEAR SIR,
+
+I have looked at the larger half of the first volume of your novel, and
+have pursued the more difficult points of the story through the other
+two volumes.
+
+You will, of course, receive my opinion as that of an individual writer
+and student of art, who by no means claims to be infallible.
+
+I think you are too ambitious, and that you have not sufficient
+knowledge of life or character to venture on so comprehensive an
+attempt. Evidences of inexperience in every way, and of your power being
+far below the situations that you imagine, present themselves to me in
+almost every page I have read. It would greatly surprise me if you found
+a publisher for this story, on trying your fortune in that line, or
+derived anything from it but weariness and bitterness of spirit.
+
+On the evidence thus put before me, I cannot even entirely satisfy
+myself that you have the faculty of authorship latent within you. If you
+have not, and yet pursue a vocation towards which you have no call, you
+cannot choose but be a wretched man. Let me counsel you to have the
+patience to form yourself carefully, and the courage to renounce the
+endeavour if you cannot establish your case on a very much smaller
+scale. You see around you every day, how many outlets there are for
+short pieces of fiction in all kinds. Try if you can achieve any success
+within these modest limits (I have practised in my time what I preach to
+you), and in the meantime put your three volumes away.
+
+                                                     Faithfully yours.
+
+P.S.--Your MS. will be returned separately from this office.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Hogarth.]
+
+                                 LIVERPOOL, _Friday, Feb. 15th, 1867._
+
+My short report of myself is that we had an enormous turn-away last
+night, and do not doubt about having a cram to-night. The day has been
+very fine, and I have turned it to the wholesomest account by walking on
+the sands at New Brighton all the morning. I am not quite right, but
+believe it to be an effect of the railway shaking. There is no doubt of
+the fact that, after the Staplehurst experience, it tells more and
+more, instead of (as one might have expected) less and less.
+
+The charming room here greatly lessens the fatigue of this fatiguing
+week. I read last night with no more exertion than if I had been at
+Gad's, and yet to eleven hundred people, and with astonishing effect. It
+is "Copperfield" to-night, and Liverpool is the "Copperfield"
+stronghold.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Dickens.]
+
+                                   GLASGOW, _Sunday, Feb. 17th, 1867._
+
+We arrived here this morning at our time to the moment, five minutes
+past ten. We turned away great numbers on both nights at Liverpool; and
+Manchester last night was a splendid spectacle. They cheered to that
+extent after it was over, that I was obliged to huddle on my clothes
+(for I was undressing to prepare for the journey), and go back again.
+
+After so heavy a week, it _was_ rather stiff to start on this long
+journey at a quarter to two in the morning; but I got more sleep than I
+ever got in a railway-carriage before, and it really was not tedious.
+The travelling was admirable, and a wonderful contrast to my friend the
+Midland.
+
+I am not by any means knocked up, though I have, as I had in the last
+series of readings, a curious feeling of soreness all round the body,
+which I suppose to arise from the great exertion of voice. It is a mercy
+that we were not both made really ill at Liverpool. On Friday morning I
+was taken so faint and sick, that I was obliged to leave the table. On
+the same afternoon the same thing happened to Dolby. We then found that
+a part of the hotel close to us was dismantled for painting, and that
+they were at that moment painting a green passage leading to our rooms,
+with a most horrible mixture of white lead and arsenic. On pursuing the
+enquiry, I found that the four lady book-keepers in the bar were all
+suffering from the poison.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Hogarth.]
+
+                          BRIDGE OF ALLAN, _Tuesday, Feb. 19th, 1867._
+
+I was very glad to get your letter before leaving Glasgow this morning.
+This is a poor return for it, but the post goes out early, and we come
+in late.
+
+Yesterday morning I was so unwell that I wrote to Frank Beard, from whom
+I shall doubtless hear to-morrow. I mention it, only in case you should
+come in his way, for I know how perversely such things fall out. I felt
+it a little more exertion to read afterwards, and I passed a sleepless
+night after that again; but otherwise I am in good force and spirits
+to-day. I may say, in the best force.
+
+The quiet of this little place is sure to do me good. The little inn in
+which we are established seems a capital house of the best country sort.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Dickens.]
+
+                                 GLASGOW, _Thursday, Feb. 21st, 1867._
+
+After two days' rest at the Bridge of Allan I am in renewed force, and
+have nothing to complain of but inability to sleep. I have been in
+excellent air all day since Tuesday at noon, and made an interesting
+walk to Stirling yesterday, and saw its lions, and (strange to relate)
+was not bored by them. Indeed, they left me so fresh that I knocked at
+the gate of the prison, presented myself to the governor, and took Dolby
+over the jail, to his unspeakable interest. We then walked back again
+to our excellent country inn.
+
+Enclosed is a letter from Alfred, which you and your aunt will be
+interested in reading, and which I meant to send you sooner but forgot
+it. Wonderful as it is to mention, the sun shines here to-day! But to
+counterbalance that phenomenon I am in close hiding from ----, who has
+christened his infant son in my name, and, consequently, haunts the
+building. He and Dolby have already nearly come into collision, in
+consequence of the latter being always under the dominion of the one
+idea that he is bound to knock everybody down who asks for me.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+        The "Jewish lady," wishing to mark her
+        "appreciation of Mr. Dickens's nobility of
+        character," presented him with a copy of
+        Benisch's Hebrew and English Bible, with this
+        inscription: "Presented to Charles Dickens, in
+        grateful and admiring recognition of his having
+        exercised the noblest quality man can
+        possess--that of atoning for an injury as soon
+        as conscious of having inflicted it."
+
+        The acknowledgment of the gift is the following
+        letter:
+
+[Sidenote: Jewish Lady.]
+
+                       BRADFORD, YORKSHIRE, _Friday, March 1st, 1867._
+
+MY DEAR MRS. ----,
+
+I am working through a series of readings, widely dispersed through
+England, Scotland, and Ireland, and am so constantly occupied that it is
+very difficult for me to write letters. I have received your highly
+esteemed note (forwarded from my home in Kent), and should have replied
+to it sooner but that I had a hope of being able to get home and see
+your present first. As I have not been able to do so, however, and am
+hardly likely to do so for two months to come, I delay no longer. It is
+safely awaiting me on my own desk in my own quiet room. I cannot thank
+you for it too cordially, and cannot too earnestly assure you that I
+shall always prize it highly. The terms in which you send me that mark
+of your remembrance are more gratifying to me than I can possibly
+express to you; for they assure me that there is nothing but goodwill
+left between you and me and a people for whom I have a real regard, and
+to whom I would not wilfully have given an offence or done an injustice
+for any worldly consideration.
+
+                                    Believe me, very faithfully yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Hogarth.]
+
+                      NEWCASTLE-ON-TYNE, _Wednesday, March 6th, 1867._
+
+The readings have made an immense effect in this place, and it is
+remarkable that although the people are individually rough, collectively
+they are an unusually tender and sympathetic audience; while their comic
+perception is quite up to the high London standard. The atmosphere is so
+very heavy that yesterday we escaped to Tynemouth for a two hours' sea
+walk. There was a high north wind blowing and a magnificent sea running.
+Large vessels were being towed in and out over the stormy bar, with
+prodigious waves breaking on it; and spanning the restless uproar of the
+waters was a quiet rainbow of transcendent beauty. The scene was quite
+wonderful. We were in the full enjoyment of it when a heavy sea caught
+us, knocked us over, and in a moment drenched us, and filled even our
+pockets. We had nothing for it but to shake ourselves together (like
+Doctor Marigold) and dry ourselves as well as we could by hard walking
+in the wind and sunshine! But we were wet through for all that when we
+came back here to dinner after half an hour's railway ride.
+
+I am wonderfully well, and quite fresh and strong. Have had to doctor
+Dolby for a bad cold; have not caught it (yet), and have set him on his
+legs again.
+
+Scott is striking the tents and loading the baggages, so I must deliver
+up my writing-desk. We meet, please God, on Tuesday.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Hogarth.]
+
+                 SHELBOURNE HOTEL, DUBLIN, _Friday, March 15th, 1867._
+
+We made our journey through an incessant snowstorm on Wednesday night;
+at last got snowed up among the Welsh mountains in a tremendous storm of
+wind, came to a stop, and had to dig the engine out. We went to bed at
+Holyhead at six in the morning of Thursday, and got aboard the packet at
+two yesterday afternoon. It blew hard, but as the wind was right astern,
+we only rolled and did not pitch much. As I walked about on the bridge
+all the four hours, and had cold salt beef and biscuit there and
+brandy-and-water, you will infer that my Channel training has not worn
+out.
+
+Our "business" here is _very bad_, though at Belfast it is enormous.
+There is no doubt that great alarm prevails here. This hotel is
+constantly filling and emptying as families leave the country, and set
+in a current to the steamers. There is apprehension of some disturbance
+between to-morrow night and Monday night (both inclusive), and I learn
+this morning that all the drinking-shops are to be closed from to-night
+until Tuesday. It is rumoured here that the Liverpool people are very
+uneasy about some apprehended disturbance there at the same time. Very
+likely you will know more about this than I do, and very likely it may
+be nothing. There is no doubt whatever that alarm prevails, and the
+manager of this hotel, an intelligent German, is very gloomy on the
+subject. On the other hand, there is feasting going on, and I have been
+asked to dinner-parties by divers civil and military authorities.
+
+Don't _you_ be uneasy, I say once again. You may be absolutely certain
+that there is no cause for it. We are splendidly housed here, and in
+great comfort.
+
+Love to Charley and Katey.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Dickens.]
+
+               SHELBOURNE HOTEL, DUBLIN, _Saturday, March 16th, 1867._
+
+I daresay you know already that I held many councils in London about
+coming to Ireland at all, and was much against it. Everything looked as
+bad here as need be, but we did very well last night after all.
+
+There is considerable alarm here beyond all question, and great
+depression in all kinds of trade and commerce. To-morrow being St.
+Patrick's Day, there are apprehensions of some disturbance, and croakers
+predict that it will come off between to-night and Monday night. Of
+course there are preparations on all sides, and large musters of
+soldiers and police, though they are kept carefully out of sight. One
+would not suppose, walking about the streets, that any disturbance was
+impending; and yet there is no doubt that the materials of one lie
+smouldering up and down the city and all over the country. [I have a
+letter from Mrs. Bernal Osborne this morning, describing the fortified
+way in which she is living in her own house in the County Tipperary.]
+
+You may be quite sure that your venerable parent will take good care of
+himself. If any riot were to break out, I should immediately stop the
+readings here. Should all remain quiet, I begin to think they will be
+satisfactorily remunerative after all. At Belfast, we shall have an
+enormous house. I read "Copperfield" and "Bob" here on Monday;
+"Marigold" and "Trial" at Belfast, on Wednesday; and "Carol" and "Trial"
+here, on Friday. This is all my news, except that I am in perfect force.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Hogarth.]
+
+                 SHELBOURNE HOTEL, DUBLIN, _Sunday, March 17th, 1867._
+
+Everything remains in appearance perfectly quiet here. The streets are
+gay all day, now that the weather is improved, and singularly quiet and
+deserted at night. But the whole place is secretly girt in with a
+military force. To-morrow night is supposed to be a critical time; but
+in view of the enormous preparations, I should say that the chances are
+at least one hundred to one against any disturbance.
+
+I cannot make sure whether I wrote to you yesterday, and told you that
+we had done very well at the first reading after all, even in money. The
+reception was prodigious, and the readings are the town talk. But I
+rather think I did actually write this to you. My doubt on the subject
+arises from my having deliberated about writing on a Saturday.
+
+The most curious, and for facilities of mere destruction, such as firing
+houses in different quarters, the most dangerous piece of intelligence
+imparted to me on authority is, that the Dublin domestic men-servants as
+a class are all Fenians.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Hogarth.]
+
+                               BELFAST, _Wednesday, March 20th, 1867._
+
+The post goes out at twelve, and I have only time to report myself. The
+snow not lying between this and Dublin, we got here yesterday to our
+time, after a cold but pleasant journey. Fitzgerald came on with us. I
+had a really charming letter from Mrs. Fitzgerald, asking me to stay
+there. She must be a perfectly unaffected and genuine lady. There are
+kind messages to you and Mary in it. I have sent it on to Mary, who will
+probably in her turn show it to you. We had a wonderful crowd at Dublin
+on Monday, and the greatest appreciation possible. We have a good let,
+in a large hall, here to-night. But I am perfectly convinced that the
+worst part of the Fenian business is to come yet.
+
+All about the Fitzgeralds and everything else when we meet.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Dickens.]
+
+                                BELFAST, _Thursday, March 21st, 1867._
+
+In spite of public affairs and dismal weather, we are doing wonders in
+Ireland.
+
+That the conspiracy is a far larger and more important one than would
+seem from what it has done yet, there is no doubt. I have had a good
+deal of talk with a certain colonel, whose duty it has been to
+investigate it, day and night, since last September. That it will give a
+world of trouble, and cost a world of money, I take to be (after what I
+have thus learned) beyond all question. One regiment has been found to
+contain five hundred Fenian soldiers every man of whom was sworn in the
+barrack-yard. How information is swiftly and secretly conveyed all over
+the country, the Government with all its means and money cannot
+discover; but every hour it is found that instructions, warnings, and
+other messages are circulated from end to end of Ireland. It is a very
+serious business indeed.
+
+I have just time to send this off, and to report myself quite well
+except for a slight cold.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Hogarth.]
+
+                                  NORWICH, _Friday, March 29th, 1867._
+
+The reception at Cambridge last night was something to be proud of in
+such a place. The colleges mustered in full force from the biggest guns
+to the smallest, and went far beyond even Manchester in the roars of
+welcome and the rounds of cheers. All through the readings, the whole of
+the assembly, old men as well as young, and women as well as men, took
+everything with a heartiness of enjoyment not to be described. The place
+was crammed, and the success the most brilliant I have ever seen.
+
+What we are doing in this sleepy old place I don't know, but I have no
+doubt it is mild enough.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. Walter Thornbury]
+
+                                  OFFICE OF "ALL THE YEAR ROUND,"
+                                            _Monday, April 1st, 1867._
+
+MY DEAR THORNBURY,
+
+I am very doubtful indeed about "Vaux," and have kept it out of the
+number in consequence. The mere details of such a rascal's proceedings,
+whether recorded by himself or set down by the Reverend Ordinary, are
+not wholesome for a large audience, and are scarcely justifiable (I
+think) as claiming to be a piece of literature. I can understand
+Barrington to be a good subject, as involving the representation of a
+period, a style of manners, an order of dress, certain habits of street
+life, assembly-room life, and coffee-room life, etc.; but there is a
+very broad distinction between this and mere Newgate Calendar. The
+latter would assuredly damage your book, and be protested against to me.
+I have a conviction of it, founded on constant observation and
+experience here.
+
+Your kind invitation is extremely welcome and acceptable to me, but I am
+sorry to add that I must not go a-visiting. For this reason: So
+incessantly have I been "reading," that I have not once been at home at
+Gad's Hill since last January, and am little likely to get there before
+the middle of May. Judge how the master's eye must be kept on the place
+when it does at length get a look at it after so long an absence! I hope
+you will descry in this a reason for coming to me again, instead of my
+coming to you.
+
+The extinct prize-fighters, as a body, I take to be a good subject, for
+much the same reason as George Barrington. Their patrons were a class of
+men now extinct too, and the whole ring of those days (not to mention
+Jackson's rooms in Bond Street) is a piece of social history. Now Vaux
+is not, nor is he even a phenomenon among thieves.
+
+                                              Faithfully yours always.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. Clarkson Stanfield, R.A.]
+
+                          GAD'S HILL PLACE, HIGHAM BY ROCHESTER,
+                                         _Thursday, April 18th, 1867._
+
+MY DEAR STANNY,
+
+The time of year reminds me how the months have gone, since I last heard
+from you through Mrs. Stanfield.
+
+I hope you have not thought me unmindful of you in the meanwhile. I have
+been almost constantly travelling and reading. England, Ireland, and
+Scotland have laid hold of me by turns, and I have had no rest. As soon
+as I had finished this kind of work last year, I had to fall to work
+upon "All the Year Round" and the Christmas number. I was no sooner quit
+of that task, and the Christmas season was but run out to its last day,
+when I was tempted into another course of fifty readings that are not
+yet over. I am here now for two days, and have not seen the place since
+Twelfth Night. When a reading in London has been done, I have been
+brought up for it from some great distance, and have next morning been
+carried back again. But the fifty will be "paid out" (as we say at sea)
+by the middle of May, and then I hope to see you.
+
+Reading at Cheltenham the other day, I saw Macready, who sent his love
+to you. His face was much more massive and as it used to be, than when I
+saw him previous to his illness. His wife takes admirable care of him,
+and is on the happiest terms with his daughter Katie. His boy by the
+second marriage is a jolly little fellow, and leads a far easier life
+than the children you and I remember, who used to come in at dessert and
+have each a biscuit and a glass of water, in which last refreshment I
+was always convinced that they drank, with the gloomiest malignity,
+"Destruction to the gormandising grown-up company!"
+
+I hope to look up your latest triumphs on the day of the Academy dinner.
+Of course as yet I have had no opportunity of even hearing of what
+anyone has done. I have been (in a general way) snowed up for four
+months. The locomotive with which I was going to Ireland was dug out of
+the snow at midnight, in Wales. Both passages across were made in a
+furious snowstorm. The snow lay ankle-deep in Dublin, and froze hard at
+Belfast. In Scotland it slanted before a perpetual east wind. In
+Yorkshire, it derived novelty from thunder and lightning. Whirlwinds
+everywhere I don't mention.
+
+God bless you and yours. If I look like some weather-beaten pilot when
+we meet, don't be surprised. Any mahogany-faced stranger who holds out
+his hand to you will probably turn out, on inspection, to be the old
+original Dick.
+
+                 Ever, my dear Stanny, your faithful and affectionate.
+
+P.S.--I wish you could have been with me (of course in a snowstorm) one
+day on the pier at Tynemouth. There was a very heavy sea running, and a
+perfect fleet of screw merchantmen were plunging in and out on the turn
+of the tide at high-water. Suddenly there came a golden horizon, and a
+most glorious rainbow burst out, arching one large ship, as if she were
+sailing direct for heaven. I was so enchanted by the scene, that I
+became oblivious of a few thousand tons of water coming on in an
+enormous roller, and was knocked down and beaten by its spray when it
+broke, and so completely wetted through and through, that the very
+pockets in my pocket-book were full of sea.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. George Stanfield.]
+
+                                  OFFICE OF "ALL THE YEAR ROUND,"
+                                             _Sunday, May 19th, 1867._
+
+                    ON THE DEATH OF HIS FATHER.
+
+MY DEAR GEORGE,
+
+When I came up to the house this afternoon and saw what had happened, I
+had not the courage to ring, though I had thought I was fully prepared
+by what I heard when I called yesterday. No one of your father's friends
+can ever have loved him more dearly than I always did, or can have
+better known the worth of his noble character.
+
+It is idle to suppose that I can do anything for you; and yet I cannot
+help saying that I am staying here for some days, and that if I could,
+it would be a much greater relief to me than it could be a service to
+you.
+
+Your poor mother has been constantly in my thoughts since I saw the
+quiet bravery with which she preserved her composure. The beauty of her
+ministration sank into my heart when I saw him for the last time on
+earth. May God be with her, and with you all, in your great loss.
+
+                                          Affectionately yours always.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. W. H. Wills.]
+
+                                           _Thursday, June 6th, 1867._
+
+MY DEAR WILLS,
+
+I cannot tell you how warmly I feel your letter, or how deeply I
+appreciate the affection and regard in which it originates. I thank you
+for it with all my heart.
+
+You will not suppose that I make light of any of your misgivings if I
+present the other side of the question. Every objection that you make
+strongly impresses me, and will be revolved in my mind again and again.
+
+When I went to America in '42, I was so much younger, but (I think) very
+much weaker too. I had had a painful surgical operation performed
+shortly before going out, and had had the labour from week to week of
+"Master Humphrey's Clock." My life in the States was a life of continual
+speech-making (quite as laborious as reading), and I was less patient
+and more irritable then than I am now. My idea of a course of readings
+in America is, that it would involve far less travelling than you
+suppose, that the large first-class rooms would absorb the whole course,
+and that the receipts would be very much larger than your estimate,
+unless the demand for the readings is ENORMOUSLY EXAGGERATED ON ALL
+HANDS. There is considerable reason for this view of the case. And I can
+hardly think that all the speculators who beset, and all the private
+correspondents who urge me, are in a conspiracy or under a common
+delusion.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+I shall never rest much while my faculties last, and (if I know myself)
+have a certain something in me that would still be active in rusting and
+corroding me, if I flattered myself that I was in repose. On the other
+hand, I think that my habit of easy self-abstraction and withdrawal into
+fancies has always refreshed and strengthened me in short intervals
+wonderfully. I always seem to myself to have rested far more than I have
+worked; and I do really believe that I have some exceptional faculty of
+accumulating young feelings in short pauses, which obliterates a
+quantity of wear and tear.
+
+My worldly circumstances (such a large family considered) are very good.
+I don't want money. All my possessions are free and in the best order.
+Still, at fifty-five or fifty-six, the likelihood of making a very great
+addition to one's capital in half a year is an immense consideration....
+I repeat the phrase, because there should be something large to set
+against the objections.
+
+I dine with Forster to-day, to talk it over. I have no doubt he will
+urge most of your objections and particularly the last, though American
+friends and correspondents he has, have undoubtedly staggered him more
+than I ever knew him to be staggered on the money question. Be assured
+that no one can present any argument to me which will weigh more
+heartily with me than your kind words, and that whatever comes of my
+present state of abeyance, I shall never forget your letter or cease to
+be grateful for it.
+
+                                Ever, my dear Wills, faithfully yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. W. H. Wills.]
+
+                    GAD'S HILL PLACE, HIGHAM BY ROCHESTER, KENT,
+                                            _Sunday, June 13th, 1867._
+
+MY DEAR WILLS,
+
+I have read the first three numbers of Wilkie's story this morning, and
+have gone minutely through the plot of the rest to the last line. It
+gives a series of "narratives," but it is a very curious story, wild,
+and yet domestic, with excellent character in it, and great mystery. It
+is prepared with extraordinary care, and has every chance of being a
+hit. It is in many respects much better than anything he has done. The
+question is, how shall we fill up the blank between Mabel's progress and
+Wilkie? What do you think of proposing to Fitzgerald to do a story three
+months long? I daresay he has some unfinished or projected something by
+him.
+
+I have an impression that it was not Silvester who tried Eliza Fenning,
+but Knowles. One can hardly suppose Thornbury to make such a mistake,
+but I wish you would look into the Annual Register. I have added a final
+paragraph about the unfairness of the judge, whoever he was. I
+distinctly recollect to have read of his "putting down" of Eliza
+Fenning's father when the old man made some miserable suggestion in his
+daughter's behalf (this is not noticed by Thornbury), and he also
+stopped some suggestion that a knife thrust into a loaf adulterated with
+alum would present the appearance that these knives presented. But I may
+have got both these points from looking up some pamphlets in Upcott's
+collection which I once had.
+
+Your account of your journey reminds me of one of the latest American
+stories, how a traveller by stage-coach said to the driver: "Did you
+ever see a snail, sir?" "Yes, sir." "Where did you meet him, sir?" "I
+_didn't_ meet him, sir!" "Wa'al, sir, I think you did, if you'll excuse
+me, for I'm damned if you ever overtook him."
+
+Ever faithfully.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mrs. Henderson.]
+
+                               GAD'S HILL, _Thursday, July 4th, 1867._
+
+MY DEAR MRS. HENDERSON,
+
+I was more shocked than surprised by the receipt of your mother's
+announcement of our poor dear Marguerite's death. When I heard of the
+consultation, and recalled what had preceded it and what I have seen
+here, my hopes were very slight.
+
+Your letter did not reach me until last night, and thus I could not
+avoid remaining here to-day, to keep an American appointment of unusual
+importance. You and your mother both know, I think, that I had a great
+affection for Marguerite, that we had many dear remembrances together,
+and that her self-reliance and composed perseverance had awakened my
+highest admiration in later times. No one could have stood by her grave
+to-day with a better knowledge of all that was great and good in her
+than I have, or with a more loving remembrance of her through all her
+phases since she first came to London a pretty timid girl.
+
+I do not trouble your mother by writing to her separately. It is a sad,
+sad task to write at all. God help us!
+
+                                                     Faithfully yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. Percy Fitzgerald.]
+
+                                        GAD'S HILL, _July 21st, 1867._
+
+MY DEAR FITZGERALD,
+
+I am heartily glad to get your letter, and shall be thoroughly well
+pleased to study you again in the pages of A. Y. R.
+
+I have settled nothing yet about America, but am going to send Dolby out
+on the 3rd of next month to survey the land, and come back with a report
+on some heads whereon I require accurate information. Proposals (both
+from American and English speculators) of a very tempting nature have
+been repeatedly made to me; but I cannot endure the thought of binding
+myself to give so many readings there whether I like it or no; and if I
+go at all, am bent on going with Dolby single-handed.
+
+I have been doing two things for America; one, the little story to which
+you refer; the other, four little papers for a child's magazine. I like
+them both, and think the latter a queer combination of a child's mind
+with a grown-up joke. I have had them printed to assure correct printing
+in the United States. You shall have the proof to read, with the
+greatest pleasure. On second thoughts, why shouldn't I send you the
+children's proof by this same post? I will, as I have it here, send it
+under another cover. When you return it, you shall have the short story.
+
+                                    Believe me, always heartily yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. Percy Fitzgerald.]
+
+                                  EXTRACT.
+
+                                                    _July 28th, 1867._
+
+I am glad you like the children, and particularly glad you like the
+pirate. I remember very well when I had a general idea of occupying that
+place in history at the same age. But I loved more desperately than
+Boldheart.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Hogarth.]
+
+             ADELPHI HOTEL, LIVERPOOL, _Friday Night, Aug. 2nd, 1867._
+
+MY DEAREST GEORGY,
+
+I cannot get a boot on--wear a slipper on my left foot, and consequently
+am here under difficulties. My foot is occasionally painful, but not
+very. I don't think it worth while consulting anybody about it as yet. I
+make out so many reasons against supposing it to be gouty, that I really
+do not think it is.
+
+Dolby begs me to send all manner of apologetic messages for his going to
+America. He is very cheerful and hopeful, but evidently feels the
+separation from his wife and child very much. His sister[17] was at
+Euston Square this morning, looking very well. Sainton too, very light
+and jovial.
+
+With the view of keeping myself and my foot quiet, I think I will not
+come to Gad's Hill until Monday. If I don't appear before, send basket
+to Gravesend to meet me, leaving town by the 12.10 on Monday. This is
+important, as I couldn't walk a quarter of a mile to-night for five
+hundred pounds.
+
+Love to all at Gad's.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. W. H. Wills.]
+
+                                GAD'S HILL, _Monday, Sept. 2nd, 1867._
+
+MY DEAR WILLS,
+
+Like you, I was shocked when this new discovery burst upon me on Friday,
+though, unlike you, I never could believe in ----, solely (I think)
+because, often as I have tried him, I never found him standing by my
+desk when I was writing a letter without trying to read it.
+
+I fear there is no doubt that since ----'s discharge, he (----) has
+stolen money at the readings. A case of an abstracted shilling seems to
+have been clearly brought home to him by Chappell's people, and they
+know very well what _that_ means. I supposed a very clear keeping off
+from Anne's husband (whom I recommended for employment to Chappell) to
+have been referable only to ----; but now I see how hopeless and unjust
+it would be to expect belief from him with two such cases within his
+knowledge.
+
+But don't let the thing spoil your holiday. If we try to do our duty by
+people we employ, by exacting their proper service from them on the one
+hand, and treating them with all possible consistency, gentleness, and
+consideration on the other, we know that we do right. Their doing wrong
+cannot change our doing right, and that should be enough for us.
+
+So I have given _my_ feathers a shake, and am all right again. Give
+_your_ feathers a shake, and take a cheery flutter into the air of
+Hertfordshire.
+
+Great reports from Dolby and also from Fields! But I keep myself quite
+calm, and hold my decision in abeyance until I shall have book, chapter,
+and verse before me. Dolby hoped he could leave Uncle Sam on the 11th of
+this month.
+
+Sydney has passed as a lieutenant, and appeared at home yesterday, all
+of a sudden, with the consequent golden garniture on his sleeve, which
+I, God forgive me, stared at without the least idea that it meant
+promotion.
+
+I am glad you see a certain unlikeness to anything in the American
+story. Upon myself it has made the strangest impression of reality and
+originality!! And I feel as if I had read something (by somebody else),
+which I should never get out of my mind!!! The main idea of the
+narrator's position towards the other people was the idea that I _had_
+for my next novel in A. Y. R. But it is very curious that I did not in
+the least see how to begin his state of mind until I walked into Hoghton
+Towers one bright April day with Dolby.
+
+                                                      Faithfully ever.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. F. D. Finlay.]
+
+           CONTRADICTING A NEWSPAPER REPORT OF HIS BEING IN A
+                       CRITICAL STATE OF HEALTH.
+
+                    GAD'S HILL PLACE, HIGHAM BY ROCHESTER, KENT,
+                                           _Tuesday, Sept. 3rd, 1867._
+
+This is to certify that the undersigned victim of a periodical
+paragraph-disease, which usually breaks out once in every seven years
+(proceeding to England by the overland route to India and per Cunard
+line to America, where it strikes the base of the Rocky Mountains, and,
+rebounding to Europe, perishes on the steppes of Russia), is _not_ in a
+"critical state of health," and has _not_ consulted "eminent surgeons,"
+and never was better in his life, and is _not_ recommended to proceed to
+the United States for "cessation from literary labour," and has not had
+so much as a headache for twenty years.
+
+                                                      CHARLES DICKENS.
+
+
+[Sidenote: M. Charles Fechter.]
+
+                                    "ALL THE YEAR ROUND" OFFICE,
+                                           _Monday, Sept. 16th, 1867._
+
+MY DEAR FECHTER,
+
+Going over the prompt-book carefully, I see one change in your part to
+which (on Lytton's behalf) I positively object, as I am quite certain he
+would not consent to it. It is highly injudicious besides, as striking
+out the best known line in the play.
+
+Turn to your part in Act III., the speech beginning
+
+                                Pauline, _by pride
+        Angels have fallen ere thy time_: by pride----
+
+You have made a passage farther on stand:
+
+                            _Then did I seek to rise
+        Out of my mean estate. Thy bright image, etc._
+
+I must stipulate for your restoring it thus:
+
+                            Then did I seek to rise
+        Out of the prison of my mean estate;
+        And, with such jewels as the exploring mind
+        Brings from the caves of knowledge, buy my ransom
+        From those twin jailers of the daring heart--
+        Low birth and iron fortune. Thy bright image, etc. etc.
+
+The last figure has been again and again quoted; is identified with the
+play; is fine in itself; and above all, I KNOW that Lytton would not let
+it go. In writing to him to-day, fully explaining the changes in detail,
+and saying that I disapprove of nothing else, I have told him that I
+notice this change and that I immediately let you know that it must not
+be made.
+
+(There will not be a man in the house from any newspaper who would not
+detect mutilations in that speech, moreover.)
+
+                                                                 Ever.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Hogarth.]
+
+                                           _Monday, Sept. 30th, 1867._
+
+MY DEAREST GEORGY,
+
+The telegram is despatched to Boston: "Yes. Go ahead." After a very
+anxious consultation with Forster, and careful heed of what is to be
+said for and against, I have made up my mind to see it out. I do not
+expect as much money as the calculators estimate, but I cannot set the
+hope of a large sum of money aside.
+
+I am so nervous with travelling and anxiety to decide something, that I
+can hardly write. But I send you these few words as my dearest and best
+friend.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Dickens.]
+
+  OFFICE OF "ALL THE YEAR ROUND," NO. 26, WELLINGTON STREET, STRAND,
+                                      LONDON, W.C.,
+                                           _Monday, Sept. 30th, 1867._
+
+MY DEAREST MAMIE,
+
+You will have had my telegram that I go to America. After a long
+discussion with Forster, and consideration of what is to be said on both
+sides, I have decided to go through with it. I doubt the profit being as
+great as the calculation makes it, but the prospect is sufficiently
+alluring to turn the scale on the American side.
+
+Unless I telegraph to the contrary, I will come to Gravesend (send
+basket there) by 12 train on Wednesday. Love to all.
+
+We have telegraphed "Yes" to Boston.
+
+I begin to feel myself drawn towards America, as Darnay, in the "Tale of
+Two Cities," was attracted to the Loadstone Rock, Paris.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. William Charles Kent.]
+
+                   26, WELLINGTON STREET, _Saturday, Oct. 19th, 1867._
+
+MY DEAR KENT,
+
+In the midst of the great trouble you are taking in the cause of your
+undersigned affectionate friend, I hope the reading of the enclosed may
+be a sort of small godsend. Of course it is very strictly private. The
+printers are not yet trusted with the name, but the name will be, "No
+Thoroughfare." I have done the greater part of it; may you find it
+interesting!
+
+My solicitor, a man of some mark and well known, is anxious to be on the
+Committee:
+
+        Frederic Ouvry, Esquire,
+                 66, Lincoln's Inn Fields.
+
+                                            Ever affectionately yours.
+
+P.S.--My sailor son!
+
+I forgot him!!
+
+Coming up from Portsmouth for the dinner!!!
+
+Der--er--oo not cur--ur--urse me, I implore.
+
+                                                           Penitently.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mrs. Power.]
+
+                             GAD'S HILL, _Wednesday, Oct. 23rd, 1867._
+
+MY DEAR MRS. POWER,
+
+I have a sad pleasure in the knowledge that our dear Marguerite so
+remembered her old friend, and I shall preserve the token of her
+remembrance with loving care. The sight of it has brought back many old
+days.
+
+With kind remembrance to Mrs. Henderson,
+
+                             Believe me always, very faithfully yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. J. L. Toole.]
+
+                    GAD'S HILL PLACE, HIGHAM BY ROCHESTER, KENT,
+                                           _Saturday, Nov. 2nd, 1867._
+
+MY DEAR MR. TOOLE,
+
+I heartily thank you for your elegant token of remembrance, and for your
+earnest letter. Both have afforded me real pleasure, and the first-named
+shall go with me on my journey.
+
+Let me take this opportunity of saying that on receipt of your letter
+concerning to-day's dinner, I immediately forwarded your request to the
+honorary secretary. I hope you will understand that I could not, in
+delicacy, otherwise take part in the matter.
+
+Again thanking you most cordially,
+
+                                  Believe me, always faithfully yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. W. H. Wills.]
+
+                      26, WELLINGTON STREET, _Sunday, Nov. 3rd, 1867._
+
+MY DEAR WILLS,
+
+If you were to write me many such warm-hearted letters as you send this
+morning, my heart would fail me! There is nothing that so breaks down my
+determination, or shows me what an iron force I put upon myself, and how
+weak it is, as a touch of true affection from a tried friend.
+
+All that you so earnestly say about the goodwill and devotion of all
+engaged, I perceived and deeply felt last night. It moved me even more
+than the demonstration itself, though I do suppose it was the most
+brilliant ever seen. When I got up to speak, but for taking a desperate
+hold of myself, I should have lost my sight and voice and sat down
+again.
+
+God bless you, my dear fellow. I am, ever and ever,
+
+                                                    Your affectionate.
+
+
+[Sidenote: The Hon. Mrs. Watson.]
+
+                                  OFFICE OF "ALL THE YEAR ROUND,"
+                                            _Tuesday, Nov. 5th, 1867._
+
+MY DEAR MRS. WATSON,
+
+A thousand thanks for your kind letter, and many congratulations on your
+having successfully attained a dignity which I never allow to be
+mentioned in my presence. Charley's children are instructed from their
+tenderest months only to know me as "Wenerables," which they sincerely
+believe to be my name, and a kind of title that I have received from a
+grateful country.
+
+Alas! I cannot have the pleasure of seeing you before I presently go to
+Liverpool. Every moment of my time is preoccupied. But I send you my
+sincere love, and am always truthful to the dear old days, and the
+memory of one of the dearest friends I ever loved.
+
+                                                 Affectionately yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Dickens.]
+
+                          ABOARD THE "CUBA," QUEENSTOWN HARBOUR,
+                                            _Sunday, Nov. 10th, 1867._
+
+MY DEAREST MAMIE,
+
+We arrived here at seven this morning, and shall probably remain
+awaiting our mail, until four or five this afternoon. The weather in the
+passage here was delightful, and we had scarcely any motion beyond that
+of the screw.
+
+We are nearly but not quite full of passengers. At table I sit next the
+captain, on his right, on the outside of the table and close to the
+door. My little cabin is big enough for everything but getting up in and
+going to bed in. As it has a good window which I can leave open all
+night, and a door which I can set open too, it suits my chief
+requirements of it--plenty of air--admirably. On a writing-slab in it,
+which pulls out when wanted, I now write in a majestic manner.
+
+Many of the passengers are American, and I am already on the best terms
+with nearly all the ship.
+
+We began our voyage yesterday a very little while after you left us,
+which was a great relief. The wind is S.E. this morning, and if it would
+keep so we should go along nobly. My dearest love to your aunt, and
+also to Katie and all the rest. I am in very good health, thank God, and
+as well as possible.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Hogarth.]
+
+                               ABOARD THE "CUBA," FIVE DAYS OUT,
+                                         _Wednesday, Nov. 13th, 1867._
+
+MY DEAREST GEORGY,
+
+As I wrote to Mamie last, I now write to you, or mean to do it, if the
+motion of the ship will let me.
+
+We are very nearly halfway to-day. The weather was favourable for us
+until yesterday morning, when we got a head-wind which still stands by
+us. We have rolled and pitched, of course; but on the whole have been
+wonderfully well off. I have had headache and have felt faint once or
+twice, _but have not been sick at all_. My spacious cabin is very noisy
+at night, as the most important working of the ship goes on outside my
+window and over my head; but it is very airy, and if the weather be bad
+and I can't open the window, I can open the door all night. If the
+weather be fine (as it is now), I can open both door and window, and
+write between them. Last night, I got a foot-bath under the dignified
+circumstances of sitting on a camp-stool in my cabin, and having the
+bath (and my feet) in the passage outside. The officers' quarters are
+close to me, and, as I know them all, I get reports of the weather and
+the way we are making when the watch is changed, and I am (as I usually
+am) lying awake. The motion of the screw is at its slightest vibration
+in my particular part of the ship. The silent captain, reported gruff,
+is a very good fellow and an honest fellow. Kelly has been ill all the
+time, and not of the slightest use, and is ill now. Scott always
+cheerful, and useful, and ready; a better servant for the kind of work
+there never can have been. Young Lowndes has been fearfully sick until
+mid-day yesterday. His cabin is pitch dark, and full of blackbeetles. He
+shares mine until nine o'clock at night, when Scott carries him off to
+bed. He also dines with me in my magnificent chamber. This passage in
+winter time cannot be said to be an enjoyable excursion, but I certainly
+am making it under the best circumstances. (I find Dolby to have been
+enormously popular on board, and to have known everybody and gone
+everywhere.)
+
+So much for my news, except that I have been constantly reading, and
+find that "Pierra" that Mrs. Hogge sent me by Katie to be a very
+remarkable book, not only for its grim and horrible story, but for its
+suggestion of wheels within wheels, and sad human mysteries. Baker's
+second book not nearly so good as his first, but his first anticipated
+it.
+
+We hope to get to Halifax either on Sunday or Monday, and to Boston
+either on Tuesday or Wednesday. The glass is rising high to-day, and
+everybody on board is hopeful of an easterly wind.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Hogarth.]
+
+                                                     _Saturday, 16th._
+
+Last Thursday afternoon a heavy gale of wind sprang up and blew hard
+until dark, when it seemed to lull. But it then came on again with great
+violence, and blew tremendously all night. The noise, and the rolling
+and plunging of the ship, were awful. Nobody on board could get any
+sleep, and numbers of passengers were rolled out of their berths. Having
+a side-board to mine to keep me in, like a baby, I lay still. But it was
+a dismal night indeed, and it was curious to see the change it had made
+in the faces of all the passengers yesterday. It cannot be denied that
+these winter crossings are very trying and startling; while the
+personal discomfort of not being able to wash, and the miseries of
+getting up and going to bed, with what small means there are all
+sliding, and sloping, and slopping about, are really in their way
+distressing.
+
+This forenoon we made Cape Race, and are now running along at full speed
+with the land beside us. Kelly still useless, and positively declining
+to show on deck. Scott, with an eight-day-old moustache, more super like
+than ever. My foot (I hope from walking on the boarded deck) in a very
+shy condition to-day, and rather painful. I shaved this morning for the
+first time since Liverpool; dodging at the glass, very much like
+Fechter's imitation of ----. The white cat that came off with us in the
+tender a general favourite. She belongs to the daughter of a Southerner,
+returning with his wife and family from a two-years' tour in Europe.
+
+
+                                                       _Sunday, 17th._
+
+At four o'clock this morning we got into bad weather again, and the
+state of things at breakfast-time was unutterably miserable. Nearly all
+the passengers in their berths--no possibility of standing on
+deck--sickness and groans--impracticable to pass a cup of tea from one
+pair of hands to another. It has slightly moderated since (between two
+and three in the afternoon I write), and the sun is shining, but the
+rolling of the ship surpasses all imagination or description.
+
+We expect to be at Halifax about an hour after midnight, and this letter
+shall be posted there, to make certain of catching the return mail on
+Wednesday. Boston is only thirty hours from Halifax.
+
+Best love to Mamie, and to Katie and Charley. I know you will report me
+and my love to Forster and Mrs. Forster. I write with great difficulty,
+wedged up in a corner, and having my heels on the paper as often as the
+pen. Kelly worse than ever, and Scott better than ever.
+
+My desk and I have just arisen from the floor.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Dickens.]
+
+                    PARKER HOUSE, BOSTON, _Thursday, Nov. 21st, 1867._
+
+I arrived here on Tuesday night, after a very slow passage from Halifax
+against head-winds. All the tickets for the first four readings here
+(all yet announced) were sold immediately on their being issued.
+
+You know that I begin on the 2nd of December with "Carol" and "Trial"?
+Shall be heartily glad to begin to count the readings off.
+
+This is an immense hotel, with all manner of white marble public
+passages and public rooms. I live in a corner high up, and have a hot
+and cold bath in my bedroom (communicating with the sitting-room), and
+comforts not in existence when I was here before. The cost of living is
+enormous, but happily we can afford it. I dine to-day with Longfellow,
+Emerson, Holmes, and Agassiz. Longfellow was here yesterday. Perfectly
+white in hair and beard, but a remarkably handsome and notable-looking
+man. The city has increased enormously in five-and-twenty years. It has
+grown more mercantile--is like Leeds mixed with Preston, and flavoured
+with New Brighton; but for smoke and fog you substitute an exquisitely
+bright light air. I found my rooms beautifully decorated (by Mrs.
+Fields) with choice flowers, and set off by a number of good books. I am
+not much persecuted by people in general, as Dolby has happily made up
+his mind that the less I am exhibited for nothing the better. So our men
+sit outside the room door and wrestle with mankind.
+
+We had speech-making and singing in the saloon of the _Cuba_ after the
+last dinner of the voyage. I think I have acquired a higher reputation
+from drawing out the captain, and getting him to take the second in
+"All's Well," and likewise in "There's not in the wide world" (your
+parent taking first), than from anything previously known of me on these
+shores. I hope the effect of these achievements may not dim the lustre
+of the readings. We also sang (with a Chicago lady, and a strong-minded
+woman from I don't know where) "Auld Lang Syne," with a tender
+melancholy, expressive of having all four been united from our cradles.
+The more dismal we were, the more delighted the company were. Once (when
+we paddled i' the burn) the captain took a little cruise round the
+compass on his own account, touching at the "Canadian Boat Song," and
+taking in supplies at "Jubilate," "Seas between us braid ha' roared,"
+and roared like the seas themselves. Finally, I proposed the ladies in a
+speech that convulsed the stewards, and we closed with a brilliant
+success. But when you dine with Mr. Forster, ask him to read to you how
+we got on at church in a heavy sea. Hillard has just been in and sent
+his love "to those dear girls." He has grown much older. He is now
+District Attorney of the State of Massachusetts, which is a very good
+office. Best love to your aunt and Katie, and Charley and all his house,
+and all friends.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Hogarth.]
+
+                      PARKER HOUSE, BOSTON, _Monday, Nov. 25th, 1867._
+
+I cannot remember to whom I wrote last, but it will not much matter if I
+make a mistake; this being generally to report myself so well, that I am
+constantly chafing at not having begun to-night instead of this night
+week.
+
+The tickets being all sold for next week, and no other announcement
+being yet made, there is nothing new in that way to tell of. Dolby is
+over at New York, where we are at our wits' end how to keep tickets out
+of the hands of speculators. Morgan is staying with me; came yesterday
+to breakfast, and goes home to-morrow. Fields and Mrs. Fields also dined
+yesterday. She is a very nice woman, with a rare relish for humour and a
+most contagious laugh. The Bostonians having been duly informed that I
+wish to be quiet, really leave me as much so as I should be in
+Manchester or Liverpool. This I cannot expect to last elsewhere; but it
+is a most welcome relief here, as I have all the readings to get up. The
+people are perfectly kind and perfectly agreeable. If I stop to look in
+at a shop-window, a score of passers-by stop; and after I begin to read,
+I cannot expect in the natural course of things to get off so easily.
+But I every day take from seven to ten miles in peace.
+
+Communications about readings incessantly come in from all parts of the
+country. We take no offer whatever, lying by with our plans until after
+the first series in New York, and designing, if we make a furore there,
+to travel as little as possible. I fear I shall have to take Canada at
+the end of the whole tour. They make such strong representations from
+Montreal and Toronto, and from Nova Scotia--represented by St. John's
+and Halifax--of the slight it would be to them, if I wound up with the
+States, that I am shaken.
+
+It is sad to see Longfellow's house (the house in which his wife was
+burnt) with his young daughters in it, and the shadow of that terrible
+story. The young undergraduates of Cambridge (he is a professor there)
+have made a representation to him that they are five hundred strong,
+and cannot get one ticket. I don't know what is to be done for them; I
+suppose I must read there somehow. We are all in the clouds until I
+shall have broken ground in New York, as to where readings will be
+possible and where impossible.
+
+Agassiz is one of the most natural and jovial of men. I go out
+a-visiting as little as I can, but still have to dine, and what is
+worse, sup pretty often. Socially, I am (as I was here before)
+wonderfully reminded of Edinburgh when I had many friends in it.
+
+Your account and Mamie's of the return journey to London gave me great
+pleasure. I was delighted with your report of Wilkie, and not surprised
+by Chappell's coming out gallantly.
+
+My anxiety to get to work is greater than I can express, because time
+seems to be making no movement towards home until I shall be reading
+hard. Then I shall begin to count and count and count the upward steps
+to May.
+
+If ever you should be in a position to advise a traveller going on a sea
+voyage, remember that there is some mysterious service done to the
+bilious system when it is shaken, by baked apples. Noticing that they
+were produced on board the _Cuba_, every day at lunch and dinner, I
+thought I would make the experiment of always eating them freely. I am
+confident that they did wonders, not only at the time, but in stopping
+the imaginary pitching and rolling after the voyage is over, from which
+many good amateur sailors suffer. I have hardly had the sensation at
+all, except in washing of a morning. At that time I still hold on with
+one knee to the washing-stand, and could swear that it rolls from left
+to right. The _Cuba_ does not return until Wednesday, the 4th December.
+You may suppose that every officer on board is coming on Monday, and
+that Dolby has provided extra stools for them. His work is very hard
+indeed. Cards are brought to him every minute in the day; his
+correspondence is immense; and he is jerked off to New York, and I don't
+know where else, on the shortest notice and the most unreasonable times.
+Moreover, he has to be at "the bar" every night, and to "liquor up with
+all creation" in the small hours. He does it all with the greatest good
+humour, and flies at everybody who waylays the Chief, furiously. We have
+divided our men into watches, so that one always sits outside the
+drawing-room door. Dolby knows the whole Cunard line, and as we could
+not get good English gin, went out in a steamer yesterday and got two
+cases (twenty-four bottles) out of Cunard officers. Osgood and he were
+detached together last evening for New York, whence they telegraph every
+other hour about some new point in this precious sale of tickets. So
+distracted a telegram arrived at three that I have telegraphed back,
+"Explain yourselves," and am now waiting for the explanation. I think
+you know that Osgood is a partner in Ticknor and Fields'.
+
+Tuesday morning.--Dolby has come back from New York, where the prospects
+seem immense. We sell tickets there next Friday and Saturday, and a
+tremendous rush is expected.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. Charles Dickens.]
+
+              PARKER HOUSE, BOSTON, U.S., _Saturday, Nov. 30th, 1867._
+
+MY DEAR CHARLEY,
+
+You will have heard before now how fortunate I was on my voyage, and how
+I was not sick for a moment. These screws are tremendous ships for
+carrying on, and for rolling, and their vibration is rather distressing.
+But my little cabin, being for'ard of the machinery, was in the best
+part of the vessel, and I had as much air in it, night and day, as I
+chose. The saloon being kept absolutely without air, I mostly dined in
+my own den, in spite of my being allotted the post of honour on the
+right hand of the captain.
+
+The tickets for the first four readings here (the only readings
+announced) were all sold immediately, and many are now re-selling at a
+large premium. The tickets for the first four readings in New York (the
+only readings announced there also) were on sale yesterday, and were all
+sold in a few hours. The receipts are very large indeed; but engagements
+of any kind and every kind I steadily refuse, being resolved to take
+what is to be taken myself. Dolby is nearly worked off his legs, is now
+at New York, and goes backwards and forwards between this place and that
+(about the distance from London to Liverpool, though they take nine
+hours to do it) incessantly. Nothing can exceed his energy and good
+humour, and he is extremely popular everywhere. My great desire is to
+avoid much travelling, and to try to get the people to come to me,
+instead of my going to them. If I can effect this to any moderate
+extent, I shall be saved a great deal of knocking about. My original
+purpose was not to go to Canada at all; but Canada is so up in arms on
+the subject that I think I shall be obliged to take it at last. In that
+case I should work round to Halifax, Nova Scotia, and then take the
+packet for home.
+
+As they don't seem (Americans who have heard me on their travels
+excepted) to have the least idea here of what the readings are like, and
+as they are accustomed to mere readings out of a book, I am inclined to
+think the excitement will increase when I shall have begun. Everybody
+is very kind and considerate, and I have a number of old friends here,
+at the Bar and connected with the University. I am now negotiating to
+bring out the dramatic version of "No Thoroughfare" at New York. It is
+quite upon the cards that it may turn up trumps.
+
+I was interrupted in that place by a call from my old secretary in the
+States, Mr. Putnam. It was quite affecting to see his delight in meeting
+his old master again. And when I told him that Anne was married, and
+that I had (unacknowledged) grandchildren, he laughed and cried
+together. I suppose you don't remember Longfellow, though he remembers
+you in a black velvet frock very well. He is now white-haired and
+white-bearded, but remarkably handsome. He still lives in his old house,
+where his beautiful wife was burnt to death. I dined with him the other
+day, and could not get the terrific scene out of my imagination. She was
+in a blaze in an instant, rushed into his arms with a wild cry, and
+never spoke afterwards.
+
+My love to Bessie, and to Mekitty, and all the babbies. I will lay this
+by until Tuesday morning, and then add a final line to it.
+
+                      Ever, my dear Charley, your affectionate Father.
+
+
+                                            _Tuesday, Dec. 3rd, 1867._
+
+Success last night beyond description or exaggeration. The whole city is
+quite frantic about it to-day, and it is impossible that prospects could
+be more brilliant.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Dickens.]
+
+                       PARKER HOUSE, BOSTON, _Sunday, Dec. 1st, 1867._
+
+I received yours of the 18th November, yesterday. As I left Halifax in
+the _Cuba_ that very day, you probably saw us telegraphed in _The Times_
+on the 19th.
+
+Dolby came back from another run to New York, this morning. The receipts
+are very large indeed, far exceeding our careful estimate made at Gad's.
+I think you had best in future (unless I give you intimation to the
+contrary) address your letters to me, at the Westminster Hotel, Irving
+Place, New York City. It is a more central position than this, and we
+are likely to be much more there than here. I am going to set up a
+brougham in New York, and keep my rooms at that hotel. The account of
+Matilda is a very melancholy one, and really distresses me. What she
+must sink into, it is sad to consider. However, there was nothing for it
+but to send her away, that is quite clear.
+
+They are said to be a very quiet audience here, appreciative but not
+demonstrative. I shall try to change their character a little.
+
+I have been going on very well. A horrible custom obtains in these parts
+of asking you to dinner somewhere at half-past two, and to supper
+somewhere else about eight. I have run this gauntlet more than once, and
+its effect is, that there is no day for any useful purpose, and that the
+length of the evening is multiplied by a hundred. Yesterday I dined with
+a club at half-past two, and came back here at half-past eight, with a
+general impression that it was at least two o'clock in the morning. Two
+days before I dined with Longfellow at half-past two, and came back at
+eight, supposing it to be midnight. To-day we have a state dinner-party
+in our rooms at six, Mr. and Mrs. Fields, and Mr. and Mrs. Bigelow. (He
+is a friend of Forster's, and was American Minister in Paris). There are
+no negro waiters here, all the servants are Irish--willing, but not
+able. The dinners and wines are very good. I keep our own rooms well
+ventilated by opening the windows, but no window is ever opened in the
+halls or passages, and they are so overheated by a great furnace, that
+they make me faint and sick. The air is like that of a pre-Adamite
+ironing-day in full blast. Your respected parent is immensely popular in
+Boston society, and its cordiality and unaffected heartiness are
+charming. I wish I could carry it with me.
+
+The leading New York papers have sent men over for to-morrow night with
+instructions to telegraph columns of descriptions. Great excitement and
+expectation everywhere. Fields says he has looked forward to it so long
+that he knows he will die at five minutes to eight.
+
+At the New York barriers, where the tickets are on sale and the people
+ranged as at the Paris theatres, speculators went up and down offering
+"twenty dollars for anybody's place." The money was in no case accepted.
+One man sold two tickets for the second, third, and fourth night for
+"one ticket for the first, fifty dollars" (about seven pounds ten
+shillings), "and a brandy cocktail," which is an iced bitter drink. The
+weather has been rather muggy and languid until yesterday, when there
+was the coldest wind blowing that I ever felt. In the night it froze
+very hard, and to-day the sky is beautiful.
+
+
+                                                  _Tuesday, Dec. 3rd._
+
+Most magnificent reception last night, and most signal and complete
+success. Nothing could be more triumphant. The people will hear of
+nothing else and talk of nothing else. Nothing that was ever done here,
+they all agree, evoked any approach to such enthusiasm. I was quite as
+cool and quick as if I were reading at Greenwich, and went at it
+accordingly. Tell your aunt, with my best love, that I have this morning
+received hers of the 21st, and that I will write to her next. That will
+be from New York. My love to Mr. and Mrs. Hulkes and the boy, and to Mr.
+and Mrs. Malleson.[18]
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Hogarth.]
+
+                                  BOSTON, _Wednesday, Dec. 4th, 1867._
+
+I find that by going off to the _Cuba_ myself this morning I can send
+you the enclosed for Mary Boyle (I don't know how to address her), whose
+usual flower for my button-hole was produced in the most extraordinary
+manner here last Monday night! All well and prosperous. "Copperfield"
+and "Bob" last night; great success.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Mary Boyle.]
+
+                                         BOSTON, _December 4th, 1867._
+
+MY DEAR MEERY,
+
+You can have no idea of the glow of pleasure and amazement with which I
+saw your remembrance of me lying on my dressing-table here last Monday
+night. Whosoever undertook that commission accomplished it to a miracle.
+But you must go away four thousand miles, and have such a token conveyed
+to _you_, before you can quite appreciate the feeling of receiving it.
+Ten thousand loving thanks.
+
+Immense success here, and unbounded enthusiasm. My largest expectations
+far surpassed.
+
+                                              Ever your affectionate
+                                                                   Jo.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Dickens.]
+
+                 WESTMINSTER HOTEL, IRVING PLACE, NEW YORK CITY,
+                                          _Wednesday, Dec 11th, 1867._
+
+Amazing success here. A very fine audience; _far better than that at
+Boston_. Great reception. Great, "Carol" and "Trial," on the first
+night; still greater, "Copperfield" and "Bob," on the second. Dolby
+sends you a few papers by this post. You will see from their tone what a
+success it is.
+
+I cannot pay this letter, because I give it at the latest moment to the
+mail-officer, who is going on board the Cunard packet in charge of the
+mails, and who is staying in this house. We are now selling (at the
+hall) the tickets for the four readings of next week. At nine o'clock
+this morning there were two thousand people in waiting, and they had
+begun to assemble in the bitter cold as early as two o'clock. All night
+long Dolby and our man have been stamping tickets. (Immediately over my
+head, by-the-bye, and keeping me awake.) This hotel is quite as quiet as
+Mivart's, in Brook Street. It is not very much larger. There are
+American hotels close by, with five hundred bedrooms, and I don't know
+how many boarders; but this is conducted on what is called "the European
+principle," and is an admirable mixture of a first-class French and
+English house. I keep a very smart carriage and pair; and if you were to
+behold me driving out, furred up to the moustache, with furs on the
+coach-boy and on the driver, and with an immense white, red, and yellow
+striped rug for a covering, you would suppose me to be of Hungarian or
+Polish nationality.
+
+Will you report the success here to Mr. Forster with my love, and tell
+him he shall hear from me by next mail?
+
+Dolby sends his kindest regards. He is just come in from our ticket
+sales, and has put such an immense untidy heap of paper money on the
+table that it looks like a family wash. He hardly ever dines, and is
+always tearing about at unreasonable hours. He works very hard.
+
+My best love to your aunt (to whom I will write next), and to Katie, and
+to both the Charleys, and all the Christmas circle, not forgetting
+Chorley, to whom give my special remembrance. You may get this by
+Christmas Day. _We_ shall have to keep it travelling from Boston here;
+for I read at Boston on the 23rd and 24th, and here again on the 26th.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Hogarth.]
+
+                 WESTMINSTER HOTEL, IRVING PLACE, NEW YORK CITY,
+                                            _Monday, Dec. 16th, 1867._
+
+We have been snowed up here, and the communication with Boston is still
+very much retarded. Thus we have received no letters by the Cunard
+steamer that came in last Wednesday, and are in a grim state of mind on
+that subject.
+
+Last night I was getting into bed just at twelve o'clock, when Dolby
+came to my door to inform me that the house was on fire (I had
+previously smelt fire for two hours). I got Scott up directly, told him
+to pack the books and clothes for the readings first, dressed, and
+pocketed my jewels and papers, while Dolby stuffed himself out with
+money. Meanwhile the police and firemen were in the house, endeavouring
+to find where the fire was. For some time it baffled their endeavours,
+but at last, bursting out through some stairs, they cut the stairs away,
+and traced it to its source in a certain fire-grate. By this time the
+hose was laid all through the house from a great tank on the roof, and
+everybody turned out to help. It was the oddest sight, and people had
+put the strangest things on! After a little chopping and cutting with
+axes and handing about of water, the fire was confined to a dining-room
+in which it had originated, and then everybody talked to everybody else,
+the ladies being particularly loquacious and cheerful. And so we got to
+bed again at about two.
+
+The excitement of the readings continues unabated, the tickets for
+readings are sold as soon as they are ready, and the public pay treble
+prices to the speculators who buy them up. They are a wonderfully fine
+audience, even better than Edinburgh, and almost, if not quite, as good
+as Paris.
+
+Dolby continues to be the most unpopular man in America (mainly because
+he can't get four thousand people into a room that holds two thousand),
+and is reviled in print daily. Yesterday morning a newspaper proclaims
+of him: "Surely it is time that the pudding-headed Dolby retired into
+the native gloom from which he has emerged." He takes it very coolly,
+and does his best. Mrs. Morgan sent me, the other night, I suppose the
+finest and costliest basket of flowers ever seen, made of white
+camellias, yellow roses, pink roses, and I don't know what else. It is a
+yard and a half round at its smallest part.
+
+I must bring this to a close, as I have to go to the hall to try an
+enlarged background.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Hogarth.]
+
+                                    BOSTON, _Sunday, Dec. 22nd, 1867._
+
+Coming here from New York last night (after a detestable journey), I was
+delighted to find your letter of the 6th. I read it at my ten o'clock
+dinner with the greatest interest and pleasure, and then we talked of
+home till we went to bed.
+
+Our tour is now being made out, and I hope to be able to send it in my
+next letter home, which will be to Mamie, from whom I have _not_ heard
+(as you thought I had) by the mail that brought out yours. After very
+careful consideration I have reversed Dolby's original plan, and have
+decided on taking Baltimore, Washington, Cincinnati, _Chicago_ (!), St.
+Louis, and a few other places nearer here, instead of staying in New
+York. My reason is that we are doing immensely, both at New York and
+here, and that I am sure it is in the peculiar character of the people
+to prize a thing the more the less easily attainable it is made.
+Therefore, I want, by absence, to get the greatest rush and pressure
+upon the five farewell readings in New York in April. All our announced
+readings are already crammed.
+
+When we got here last Saturday night, we found that Mrs. Fields had not
+only garnished the rooms with flowers, but also with holly (with real
+red berries) and festoons of moss dependent from the looking-glasses and
+picture frames. She is one of the dearest little women in the world. The
+homely Christmas look of the place quite affected us. Yesterday we dined
+at her house, and there was a plum-pudding, brought on blazing, and not
+to be surpassed in any house in England. There is a certain Captain
+Dolliver, belonging to the Boston Custom House, who came off in the
+little steamer that brought me ashore from the _Cuba_. He took it into
+his head that he would have a piece of English mistletoe brought out in
+this week's Cunard, which should be laid upon my breakfast-table. And
+there it was this morning. In such affectionate touches as this, these
+New England people are especially amiable.
+
+As a general rule, you may lay it down that whatever you see about me in
+the papers is not true. But although my voyage out was of that highly
+hilarious description that you first made known to me, you may
+_generally_ lend a more believing ear to the Philadelphia correspondent
+of _The Times_. I don't know him, but I know the source from which he
+derives his information, and it is a very respectable one.
+
+Did I tell you in a former letter from here, to tell Anne, with her old
+master's love, that I had seen Putnam, my old secretary? Grey, and with
+several front teeth out, but I would have known him anywhere. He is
+coming to "Copperfield" to-night, accompanied by his wife and daughter,
+and is in the seventh heaven at having his tickets given him.
+
+Our hotel in New York was on fire _again_ the other night. But fires in
+this country are quite matters of course. There was a large one there at
+four this morning, and I don't think a single night has passed since I
+have been under the protection of the Eagle, but I have heard the fire
+bells dolefully clanging all over the city.
+
+Dolby sends his kindest regard. His hair has become quite white, the
+effect, I suppose, of the climate. He is so universally hauled over the
+coals (for no reason on earth), that I fully expect to hear him, one of
+these nights, assailed with a howl when he precedes me to the platform
+steps. You may conceive what the low newspapers are here, when one of
+them yesterday morning had, as an item of news, the intelligence:
+"Dickens's Readings. The chap calling himself Dolby got drunk last
+night, and was locked up in a police-station for fighting an Irishman."
+I don't find that anybody is shocked by this liveliness.
+
+My love to all, and to Mrs. Hulkes and the boy. By-the-bye, when we left
+New York for this place, Dolby called my amazed attention to the
+circumstance that Scott was leaning his head against the side of the
+carriage and weeping bitterly. I asked him what was the matter, and he
+replied: "The owdacious treatment of the luggage, which was more
+outrageous than a man could bear." I told him not to make a fool of
+himself; but they do knock it about cruelly. I think every trunk we have
+is already broken.
+
+I must leave off, as I am going out for a walk in a bright sunlight and
+a complete break-up of the frost and snow. I am much better than I have
+been during the last week, but have a cold.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Dickens.]
+
+                 WESTMINSTER HOTEL, IRVING PLACE, NEW YORK CITY,
+                                          _Thursday, Dec. 26th, 1867._
+
+I got your aunt's last letter at Boston yesterday, Christmas Day
+morning, when I was starting at eleven o'clock to come back to this
+place. I wanted it very much, for I had a frightful cold (English colds
+are nothing to those of this country), and was exceedingly depressed and
+miserable. Not that I had any reason but illness for being so, since the
+Bostonians had been quite astounding in their demonstrations. I never
+saw anything like them on Christmas Eve. But it is a bad country to be
+unwell and travelling in; you are one of say a hundred people in a
+heated car, with a great stove in it, and all the little windows closed,
+and the hurrying and banging about are indescribable. The atmosphere is
+detestable, and the motion often all but intolerable. However, we got
+our dinner here at eight o'clock, and plucked up a little, and I made
+some hot gin punch to drink a merry Christmas to all at home in. But it
+must be confessed that we were both very dull. I have been in bed all
+day until two o'clock, and here I am now (at three o'clock) a little
+better. But I am not fit to read, and I must read to-night. After
+watching the general character pretty closely, I became quite sure that
+Dolby was wrong on the length of the stay and the number of readings we
+had proposed in this place. I am quite certain that it is one of the
+national peculiarities that what they want must be difficult of
+attainment. I therefore a few days ago made a _coup d'etat_, and altered
+the whole scheme. We shall go to Philadelphia, Baltimore, Washington,
+also some New England towns between Boston and this place, away to the
+falls of Niagara, and off far west to Chicago and St. Louis, before
+coming back for ten farewell readings here, preceded by farewells at
+Boston, leaving Canada altogether. This will not prolong the list beyond
+eighty-four readings, the exact original number, and will, please God,
+work it all out in April. In my next, I daresay, I shall be able to send
+the exact list, so that you may know every day where we are. There has
+been a great storm here for a few days, and the streets, though wet, are
+becoming passable again. Dolby and Osgood are out in it to-day on a
+variety of business, and left in grave and solemn state. Scott and the
+gasman are stricken with dumb concern, not having received one single
+letter from home since they left. What their wives can have done with
+the letters they take it for granted they have written, is their stormy
+speculation at the door of my hall dressing-room every night.
+
+If I do not send a letter to Katie by this mail, it will be because I
+shall probably be obliged to go across the water to Brooklyn to-morrow
+to see a church, in which it is proposed that I shall read!!! Horrible
+visions of being put in the pulpit already beset me. And whether the
+audience will be in pews is another consideration which greatly disturbs
+my mind. No paper ever comes out without a leader on Dolby, who of
+course reads them all, and never can understand why I don't, in which he
+is called all the bad names in (and not in) the language.
+
+We always call him P. H. Dolby now, in consequence of one of these
+graceful specimens of literature describing him as the "pudding-headed."
+
+I fear that when we travel he will have to be always before me, so that
+I may not see him six times in as many weeks. However, I shall have done
+a fourth of the whole this very next week!
+
+Best love to your aunt, and the boys, and Katie, and Charley, and all
+true friends.
+
+
+                                                             _Friday._
+
+I managed to read last night, but it was as much as I could do. To-day I
+am so very unwell, that I have sent for a doctor; he has just been, and
+is in doubt whether I shall not have to stop reading for a while.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Dickens.]
+
+                      WESTMINSTER HOTEL, IRVING PLACE, NEW YORK,
+                                            _Monday, Dec. 30th, 1867._
+
+I am getting all right again. I have not been well, been very low, and
+have been obliged to have a doctor; a very agreeable fellow indeed, who
+soon turned out to be an old friend of Olliffe's.[19] He has set me on
+my legs and taken his leave "professionally," though he means to give me
+a call now and then.
+
+In the library at Gad's is a bound book, "Remarkable Criminal Trials,"
+translated by Lady Duff Gordon, from the original by Fauerbach. I want
+that book, and a copy of Praed's poems, to be sent out to Boston, care
+of Ticknor and Fields. If you will give the "Criminal Trials" to Wills,
+and explain my wish, and ask him to buy a copy of Praed's poems and add
+it to the parcel, he will know how to send the packet out. I think the
+"Criminal Trials" book is in the corner book-case, by the window,
+opposite the door.
+
+No news here. All going on in the regular way. I read in that church I
+told you of, about the middle of January. It is wonderfully seated for
+two thousand people, and is as easy to speak in as if they were two
+hundred. The people are seated in pews, and we let the pews. I stood on
+a small platform from which the pulpit will be removed for the
+occasion!! I emerge from the vestry!!! Philadelphia, Baltimore, and
+another two nights in Boston will follow this coming month of January.
+On Friday next I shall have read a fourth of my whole list, besides
+having had twelve days' holiday when I first came out. So please God I
+shall soon get to the half, and so begin to work hopefully round.
+
+I suppose you were at the Adelphi on Thursday night last. They are
+pirating the bill as well as the play here, everywhere. I have
+registered the play as the property of an American citizen, but the law
+is by no means clear that I established a right in it by so doing; and
+of course the pirates knew very well that I could not, under existing
+circumstances, try the question with them in an American court of law.
+Nothing is being played here scarcely that is not founded on my
+books--"Cricket," "Oliver Twist," "Our Mutual Friend," and I don't know
+what else, every night. I can't get down Broadway for my own portrait;
+and yet I live almost as quietly in this hotel, as if I were at the
+office, and go in and out by a side door just as I might there.
+
+I go back to Boston on Saturday to read there on Monday and Tuesday.
+Then I am back here, and keep within six or seven hours' journey of
+hereabouts till February. My further movements shall be duly reported as
+the details are arranged.
+
+I shall be curious to know who were at Gad's Hill on Christmas Day, and
+how you (as they say in this country) "got along." It is exceedingly
+cold here again, after two or three quite spring days.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[17] Madame Sainton Dolby.
+
+[18] The nearest neighbour at Higham, and intimate friends.
+
+[19] Dr. Fordyce Barker.
+
+
+
+
+1868.
+
+NARRATIVE.
+
+
+Charles Dickens remained in America through the winter, returning home
+from New York in the _Russia_, on the 19th of April. His letters show
+how entirely he gave himself up to the business of the readings, how
+severely his health suffered from the climate, and from the perpetual
+travelling and hard work, and yet how he was able to battle through to
+the end. These letters are also full of allusions to the many kind and
+dear friends who contributed so largely to the pleasure of this American
+visit, and whose love and attention gave a touch of _home_ to his
+private life, and left such affection and gratitude in his heart as he
+could never forget. Many of these friends paid visits to Gad's Hill; the
+first to come during this summer being Mr. Longfellow, his daughters,
+and Mr. Appleton, brother-in-law of Mr. Longfellow, and Mr. and Mrs.
+Charles Eliot Norton, of Cambridge.
+
+For the future, there were to be no more Christmas numbers of "All the
+Year Round." Observing the extent to which they were now copied in all
+directions, Charles Dickens supposed them likely to become tiresome to
+the public, and so determined that in his journal they should be
+discontinued.
+
+While still in America, he made an agreement with the Messrs. Chappell
+to give a series of farewell readings in England, to commence in the
+autumn of this year. So, in October, Charles Dickens started off again
+for a tour in the provinces. He had for some time been planning, by way
+of a novelty for this series, a reading from the murder in "Oliver
+Twist," but finding it so very horrible, he was fearful of trying its
+effect for the first time on a public audience. It was therefore
+resolved, that a trial of it should be made to a limited private
+audience in St. James's Hall, on the evening of the 18th of November.
+This trial proved eminently successful, and "The Murder from Oliver
+Twist" became one of the most popular of his selections. But the
+physical exertion it involved was far greater than that of any of his
+previous readings, and added immensely to the excitement and exhaustion
+which they caused him.
+
+One of the first letters of the year from America is addressed to Mr.
+Samuel Cartwright, of surgical and artistic reputation, and greatly
+esteemed by Charles Dickens, both in his professional capacity and as a
+private friend.
+
+The letter written to Mrs. Cattermole, in May, tells of the illness of
+Mr. George Cattermole. This dear old friend, so associated with Charles
+Dickens and his works, died soon afterwards, and the letter to his widow
+shows that Charles Dickens was exerting himself in her behalf.
+
+The play of "No Thoroughfare" having been translated into French under
+the title of "L'Abime," Charles Dickens went over to Paris to be present
+at the first night of its production.
+
+On the 26th of September, his youngest son, Edward Bulwer Lytton (the
+"Plorn" so often mentioned), started for Australia, to join his brother
+Alfred Tennyson, who was already established there. It will be seen by
+his own words how deeply and how sadly Charles Dickens felt this
+parting. In October of this year, his son Henry Fielding entered Trinity
+Hall, Cambridge, as an undergraduate.
+
+The Miss Forster mentioned in the letter to his sister-in-law, and for
+whom the kind and considerate arrangements were suggested, was a sister
+of Mr. John Forster, and a lady highly esteemed by Charles Dickens. The
+illness from which she was then suffering was a fatal one. She died in
+this same year, a few days before Christmas.
+
+Mr. J. C. Parkinson, to whom a letter is addressed, was a gentleman
+holding a Government appointment, and contributing largely to journalism
+and periodical literature.
+
+As our last letter for this year, we give one which Charles Dickens
+wrote to his youngest son on his departure for Australia.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Hogarth.]
+
+                      WESTMINSTER HOTEL, IRVING PLACE, NEW YORK,
+                                             _Friday, Jan. 3rd, 1868._
+
+MY DEAREST GEORGY,
+
+I received yours of the 19th from Gad's and the office this morning. I
+read here to-night, and go back to Boston to-morrow, to read there
+Monday and Tuesday.
+
+To-night, I read out the first quarter of my list. Our houses have been
+very fine here, but have never quite recovered the Dolby uproar. It
+seems impossible to devise any scheme for getting the tickets into the
+people's hands without the intervention of speculators. The people _will
+not_ help themselves; and, of course, the speculators and all other such
+prowlers throw as great obstacles in Dolby's way (an Englishman's) as
+they possibly can. He may be a little injudicious into the bargain. Last
+night, for instance, he met one of the "ushers" (who show people to
+their seats) coming in with Kelly. It is against orders that anyone
+employed in front should go out during the readings, and he took this
+man to task in the British manner. Instantly the free and independent
+usher put on his hat and walked off. Seeing which, all the other free
+and independent ushers (some twenty in number) put on _their_ hats and
+walked off, leaving us absolutely devoid and destitute of a staff for
+to-night. One has since been improvised; but it was a small matter to
+raise a stir and ill will about, especially as one of our men was
+equally in fault.
+
+We have a regular clerk, a Bostonian whose name is Wild. He, Osgood,
+Dolby, Kelly, Scott, George the gasman, and perhaps a boy or two,
+constitute my body-guard. It seems a large number of people, but the
+business cannot be done with fewer. The speculators buying the front
+seats to sell at a premium (and we have found instances of this being
+done by merchants in good position!), and the public perpetually
+pitching into Dolby for selling them back seats, the result is that they
+won't have the back seats, send back their tickets, write and print
+volumes on the subject, and deter others from coming.
+
+You may get an idea of the staff's work, by what is in hand now. They
+are preparing, numbering, and stamping six thousand tickets for
+Philadelphia, and eight thousand tickets for Brooklyn. The moment those
+are done, another eight thousand tickets will be wanted for Baltimore,
+and probably another six thousand for Washington. This in addition to
+the correspondence, advertisements, accounts, travellings, and the
+mighty business of the reading four times a week.
+
+The Cunard steamers being now removed from Halifax, I have decided _not_
+to go there, or to St. John's, New Brunswick. And as there would be a
+perfect uproar if I picked out such a place in Canada as Quebec or
+Montreal, and excluded those two places (which would guarantee three
+hundred pounds a night), and further, as I don't want places, having
+more than enough for my list of eighty-four, I have finally resolved not
+to go to Canada either. This will enable me to embark for home in April
+instead of May.
+
+Tell Plorn, with my love, that I think he will find himself much
+interested at that college,[20] and that it is very likely he may make
+some acquaintances there that will thereafter be pleasant and useful to
+him. Sir Sydney Dacres is the best of friends. I have a letter from Mrs.
+Hulkes by this post, wherein the boy encloses a violet, now lying on the
+table before me. Let her know that it arrived safely, and retaining its
+colour. I took it for granted that Mary would have asked Chorley for
+Christmas Day, and am very glad she ultimately did so. I am sorry that
+Harry lost his prize, but believe it was not his fault. Let _him_ know
+_that_, with my love. I would have written to him by this mail in answer
+to his, but for other occupation. Did I tell you that my landlord made
+me a drink (brandy, rum, and snow the principal ingredients) called a
+"Rocky Mountain sneezer"? Or that the favourite drink before you get up
+is an "eye-opener"? Or that Roberts (second landlord), no sooner saw me
+on the night of the first fire, than, with his property blazing, he
+insisted on taking me down into a roomful of hot smoke to drink brandy
+and water with him? We have not been on fire again, by-the-bye, more
+than once.
+
+There has been another fall of snow, succeeded by a heavy thaw. I have
+laid down my sledge, and taken up my carriage again, in consequence. I
+am nearly all right, but cannot get rid of an intolerable cold in the
+head. No more news.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Hogarth.]
+
+                         PARKER HOUSE, BOSTON, U.S., _Jan. 4th, 1868._
+
+I write to you by this opportunity, though I really have nothing to tell
+you. The work is hard and the climate is hard. We made a tremendous hit
+last night with "Nickleby" and "Boots," which the Bostonians certainly
+on the whole appreciate more than "Copperfield"! Dolby is always going
+about with an immense bundle that looks like a sofa cushion, but it is
+in reality paper money; and always works like a Trojan. His business at
+night is a mere nothing, for these people are so accustomed to take care
+of themselves, that one of these immense audiences will fall into their
+places with an ease amazing to a frequenter of St. James's Hall. And the
+certainty with which they are all in, before I go on, is a very
+acceptable mark of respect. I must add, too, that although there is a
+conventional familiarity in the use of one's name in the newspapers as
+"Dickens," "Charlie," and what not, I do not in the least see that
+familiarity in the writers themselves. An inscrutable tone obtains in
+journalism, which a stranger cannot understand. If I say in common
+courtesy to one of them, when Dolby introduces, "I am much obliged to
+you for your interest in me," or so forth, he seems quite shocked, and
+has a bearing of perfect modesty and propriety. I am rather inclined to
+think that they suppose their printed tone to be the public's love of
+smartness, but it is immensely difficult to make out. All I can as yet
+make out is, that my perfect freedom from bondage, and at any moment to
+go on or leave off, or otherwise do as I like, is the only safe position
+to occupy.
+
+Again; there are two apparently irreconcilable contrasts here. Down
+below in this hotel every night are the bar loungers, dram drinkers,
+drunkards, swaggerers, loafers, that one might find in a Boucicault
+play. Within half an hour is Cambridge, where a delightful domestic
+life--simple, self-respectful, cordial, and affectionate--is seen in an
+admirable aspect. All New England is primitive and puritanical. All
+about and around it is a puddle of mixed human mud, with no such quality
+in it. Perhaps I may in time sift out some tolerably intelligible whole,
+but I certainly have not done so yet. It is a good sign, may be, that it
+all seems immensely more difficult to understand than it was when I was
+here before.
+
+Felton left two daughters. I have only seen the eldest, a very sensible,
+frank, pleasant girl of eight-and-twenty, perhaps, rather like him in
+the face. A striking-looking daughter of Hawthorn's (who is also dead)
+came into my room last night. The day has slipped on to three o'clock,
+and I must get up "Dombey" for to-night. Hence this sudden break off.
+Best love to Mamie, and to Katie and Charley Collins.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. W. Wilkie Collins.]
+
+               WESTMINSTER HOTEL, NEW YORK, _Sunday, Jan. 12th, 1868._
+
+MY DEAR WILKIE,
+
+First, of the play.[21] I am truly delighted to learn that it made so
+great a success, and I hope I may yet see it on the Adelphi boards. You
+have had a world of trouble and work with it, but I hope will be repaid
+in some degree by the pleasure of a triumph. Even for the alteration at
+the end of the fourth act (of which you tell me in your letter received
+yesterday), I was fully prepared, for I COULD NOT see the original
+effect in the reading of the play, and COULD NOT make it go. I agree
+with Webster in thinking it best that Obenreizer should die on the
+stage; but no doubt that point is disposed of. In reading the play
+before the representation, I felt that it was too long, and that there
+was a good deal of unnecessary explanation. Those points are, no doubt,
+disposed of too by this time.
+
+We shall do nothing with it on this side. Pirates are producing their
+own wretched versions in all directions, thus (as Wills would say)
+anticipating and glutting "the market." I registered one play as the
+property of Ticknor and Fields, American citizens. But, besides that the
+law on the point is extremely doubtful, the manager of the Museum
+Theatre, Boston, instantly announced his version. (You may suppose what
+it is and how it is done, when I tell you that it was playing within ten
+days of the arrival out of the Christmas number.) Thereupon, Ticknor and
+Fields gave him notice that he mustn't play it. Unto which he replied,
+that he meant to play it and would play it. Of course he knew very well
+that if an injunction were applied for against him, there would be an
+immediate howl against my persecution of an innocent, and he played it.
+Then the noble host of pirates rushed in, and it is being done, in some
+mangled form or other, everywhere.
+
+It touches me to read what you write of your poor mother. But, of
+course, at her age, each winter counts heavily. Do give her my love, and
+tell her that I asked you about her.
+
+I am going on here at the same great rate, but am always counting the
+days that lie between me and home. I got through the first fourth of my
+readings on Friday, January 3rd. I leave for two readings at
+Philadelphia this evening.
+
+Being at Boston last Sunday, I took it into my head to go over the
+medical school, and survey the holes and corners in which that
+extraordinary murder was done by Webster. There was the
+furnace--stinking horribly, as if the dismembered pieces were still
+inside it--and there are all the grim spouts, and sinks, and chemical
+appliances, and what not. At dinner, afterwards, Longfellow told me a
+terrific story. He dined with Webster within a year of the murder, one
+of a party of ten or twelve. As they sat at their wine, Webster suddenly
+ordered the lights to be turned out, and a bowl of some burning mineral
+to be placed on the table, that the guests might see how ghostly it made
+them look. As each man stared at all the rest in the weird light, all
+were horrified to see Webster _with a rope round his neck_, holding it
+up, over the bowl, with his head jerked on one side, and his tongue
+lolled out, representing a man being hanged!
+
+Poking into his life and character, I find (what I would have staked my
+head upon) that he was always a cruel man.
+
+So no more at present from,
+
+        My dear Wilkie, yours ever affectionately.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Hogarth.]
+
+               WESTMINSTER HOTEL, NEW YORK, _Sunday, Jan. 12th, 1868._
+
+As I am off to Philadelphia this evening, I may as well post my letter
+here. I have scarcely a word of news. My cold steadily refuses to leave
+me; but otherwise I am as right as one can hope to be under this heavy
+work. My New York readings are over (except four farewell nights in
+April), and I look forward to the relief of being out of my hardest
+hall. Last Friday night, though it was only "Nickleby" and "Boots," I
+was again dead beat at the end, and was once more laid upon a sofa. But
+the faintness went off after a little while. We have now cold, bright,
+frosty weather, without snow--the best weather for me.
+
+Having been in great trepidation about the play, I am correspondingly
+elated by the belief that it really _is_ a success. No doubt the
+unnecessary explanations will have been taken out, and the flatness of
+the last act fetched up. At some points I could have done wonders to it,
+in the way of screwing it up sharply and picturesquely, if I could have
+rehearsed it. Your account of the first night interested me immensely,
+but I was afraid to open the letter until Dolby rushed in with the
+opened _Times_.
+
+On Wednesday I come back here for my four church readings at Brooklyn.
+Each evening an enormous ferryboat will convey me and my state carriage
+(not to mention half-a-dozen waggons, and any number of people, and a
+few score of horses) across the river, and will bring me back again. The
+sale of tickets there was an amazing scene. The noble army of
+speculators are now furnished (this is literally true, and I am quite
+serious), each man with a straw mattress, a little bag of bread and
+meat, two blankets, and a bottle of whisky. With this outfit _they lie
+down in line on the pavement_ the whole night before the tickets are
+sold, generally taking up their position at about ten. It being severely
+cold at Brooklyn, they made an immense bonfire in the street--a narrow
+street of wooden houses!--which the police turned out to extinguish. A
+general fight then took place, out of which the people farthest off in
+the line rushed bleeding when they saw a chance of displacing others
+near the door, and put their mattresses in those places, and then held
+on by the iron rails. At eight in the morning Dolby appeared with the
+tickets in a portmanteau. He was immediately saluted with a roar of
+"Halloa, Dolby! So Charley has let you have the carriage, has he, Dolby!
+How is he, Dolby! Don't drop the tickets, Dolby! Look alive, Dolby!"
+etc. etc. etc., in the midst of which he proceeded to business, and
+concluded (as usual) by giving universal dissatisfaction.
+
+He is now going off upon a little journey "to look over the ground and
+cut back again." This little journey (to Chicago) is fifteen hundred
+miles on end, by railway, and back again!
+
+We have an excellent gasman, who is well up to that department. We have
+enlarged the large staff by another clerk, yet even now the preparation
+of such an immense number of new tickets constantly, and the keeping and
+checking of the accounts, keep them hard at it. And they get so oddly
+divided! Kelly is at Philadelphia, another man at Baltimore, two others
+are stamping tickets at the top of this house, another is cruising over
+New England, and Osgood will come on duty to-morrow (when Dolby starts
+off) to pick me up after the reading, and take me to the hotel, and
+mount guard over me, and bring me back here. You see that even such
+wretched domesticity as Dolby and self by a fireside is broken up under
+these conditions.
+
+Dolby has been twice poisoned, and Osgood once. Morgan's sharpness has
+discovered the cause. When the snow is deep upon the ground, and the
+partridges cannot get their usual food, they eat something (I don't know
+what, if anybody does) which does not poison _them_, but which poisons
+the people who eat them. The symptoms, which last some twelve hours, are
+violent sickness, cold perspiration, and the formation of some
+detestable mucus in the stomach. You may infer that partridges have been
+banished from our bill of fare. The appearance of our sufferers was
+lamentable in the extreme.
+
+Did I tell you that the severity of the weather, and the heat of the
+intolerable furnaces, dry the hair and break the nails of strangers?
+There is not a complete nail in the whole British suite, and my hair
+cracks again when I brush it. (I am losing my hair with great rapidity,
+and what I don't lose is getting very grey.)
+
+The _Cuba_ will bring this. She has a jolly new captain--Moody, of the
+_Java_--and her people rushed into the reading, the other night,
+captain-headed, as if I were their peculiar property. Please God I shall
+come home in her, in my old cabin; leaving here on the 22nd of April,
+and finishing my eighty-fourth reading on the previous night! It is
+likely enough that I shall read and go straight on board.
+
+I think this is all my poor stock of intelligence. By-the-bye, on the
+last Sunday in the old year, I lost my old year's pocket-book, "which,"
+as Mr. Pepys would add, "do trouble me mightily." Give me Katie's new
+address; I haven't got it.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Dickens.]
+
+                              PHILADELPHIA, _Monday, Jan. 13th, 1868._
+
+I write you this note, a day later than your aunt's, not because I have
+anything to add to the little I have told her, but because you may like
+to have it.
+
+We arrived here last night towards twelve o'clock, more than an hour
+after our time. This is one of the immense American hotels (it is called
+the Continental); but I find myself just as quiet here as elsewhere.
+Everything is very good indeed, the waiter is German, and the greater
+part of the house servants seem to be coloured people. The town is very
+clean, and the day as blue and bright as a fine Italian day. But it
+freezes very hard. All the tickets being sold here for six nights (three
+visits of two nights each), the suite complain of want of excitement
+already, having been here ten hours! Mr. and Mrs. Barney Williams, with
+a couple of servants, and a pretty little child-daughter, were in the
+train each night, and I talked with them a good deal. They are reported
+to have made an enormous fortune by acting among the Californian
+gold-diggers. My cold is no better, for the cars are so intolerably hot,
+that I was often obliged to go and stand upon the break outside, and
+then the frosty air was biting indeed. The great man of this place is
+one Mr. Childs, a newspaper proprietor, and he is so exactly like Mr.
+Esse in all conceivable respects except being an inch or so taller, that
+I was quite confounded when I saw him waiting for me at the station
+(always called depot here) with his carriage. During the last two or
+three days, Dolby and I have been making up accounts, which are
+excellently kept by Mr. Osgood, and I find them amazing, quite, in their
+results.
+
+I was very much interested in the home accounts of Christmas Day. I
+think I have already mentioned that we were in very low spirits on that
+day. I began to be unwell with my cold that morning, and a long day's
+travel did not mend the matter. We scarcely spoke (except when we ate
+our lunch), and sat dolefully staring out of window. I had a few
+affectionate words from Chorley, dated from my room, on Christmas
+morning, and will write him, probably by this mail, a brief
+acknowledgment. I find it necessary (so oppressed am I with this
+American catarrh, as they call it) to dine at three o'clock instead of
+four, that I may have more time to get voice, so that the days are cut
+short, and letter-writing is not easy.
+
+My best love to Katie, and to Charley, and to our Charley, and to all
+friends. If I could only get to the point of being able to hold my head
+up and dispense with my pocket-handkerchief for five minutes, I should
+be all right.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. Charles Dickens.]
+
+                      WESTMINSTER HOTEL, IRVING PLACE, NEW YORK,
+                                         _Wednesday, Jan. 15th, 1868._
+
+MY DEAR CHARLEY,
+
+Finding your letter here this afternoon on my return from Philadelphia
+(where I have been reading two nights), I take advantage of a spare
+half-hour in which to answer it at once, though it will not leave here
+until Saturday. I had previously heard of the play, and had _The Times_.
+It was a great relief and delight to me, for I had no confidence in its
+success; being reduced to the confines of despair by its length. If I
+could have rehearsed it, I should have taken the best part of an hour
+out of it. Fechter must be very fine, and I should greatly like to see
+him play the part.
+
+I have not been very well generally, and am oppressed (and I begin to
+think that I probably shall be until I leave) by a true American cold,
+which I hope, for the comfort of human nature, may be peculiar to only
+one of the four quarters of the world. The work, too, is very severe.
+But I am going on at the same tremendous rate everywhere. The staff,
+too, has had to be enlarged. Dolby was at Baltimore yesterday, is at
+Washington to-day, and will come back in the night, and start away again
+on Friday. We find it absolutely necessary for him to go on ahead. We
+have not printed or posted a single bill here, and have just sold ninety
+pounds' worth of paper we had got ready for bills. In such a rush a
+short newspaper advertisement is all we want. "Doctor Marigold" made a
+great hit here, and is looked forward to at Boston with especial
+interest. I go to Boston for another fortnight, on end, the 24th of
+February. The railway journeys distress me greatly. I get out into the
+open air (upon the break), and it snows and blows, and the train bumps,
+and the steam flies at me, until I am driven in again.
+
+I have finished here (except four farewell nights in April), and begin
+four nights at Brooklyn, on the opposite side of the river, to-night;
+and thus oscillate between Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Washington, and
+then cut into New England, and so work my way back to Boston for a
+fortnight, after which come Chicago, Cincinnati, Detroit and Cleveland,
+and Buffalo, and then Philadelphia, Boston, and New York farewells. I
+will not pass my original bound of eighty-four readings in all. My mind
+was made up as to that long ago. It will be quite enough. Chicago is
+some fifteen hundred miles from here. What with travelling, and getting
+ready for reading, and reading, the days are pretty fully occupied. Not
+the less so because I rest very indifferently at night.
+
+The people are exceedingly kind and considerate, and desire to be most
+hospitable besides. But I cannot accept hospitality, and never go out,
+except at Boston, or I should not be fit for the labour. If Dolby holds
+out well to the last it will be a triumph, for he has to see everybody,
+drink with everybody, sell all the tickets, take all the blame, and go
+beforehand to all the places on the list. I shall not see him after
+to-night for ten days or a fortnight, and he will be perpetually on the
+road during the interval. When he leaves me, Osgood, a partner in
+Ticknor and Fields' publishing firm, mounts guard over me, and has to go
+into the hall from the platform door every night, and see how the public
+are seating themselves. It is very odd to see how hard he finds it to
+look a couple of thousand people in the face, on which head, by-the-bye,
+I notice the papers to take "Mr. Dickens's extraordinary composure"
+(their great phrase) rather ill, and on the whole to imply that it would
+be taken as a suitable compliment if I would stagger on to the platform
+and instantly drop, overpowered by the spectacle before me.
+
+Dinner is announced (by Scott, with a stiff neck and a sore throat), and
+I must break off with love to Bessie and the incipient Wenerableses. You
+will be glad to hear of your distinguished parent that Philadelphia has
+discovered that "he is not like the descriptions we have read of him at
+the little red desk. He is not at all foppish in appearance. He wears a
+heavy moustache and a Vandyke beard, and looks like a well-to-do
+Philadelphian gentleman."
+
+                      Ever, my dear Charley, your affectionate Father.
+
+P.S.--Your paper is remarkably good. There is not the least doubt that
+you can write constantly for A. Y. R. I am very pleased with it.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Dickens.]
+
+               WESTMINSTER HOTEL, NEW YORK, _Friday, Jan, 18th, 1868._
+
+This will be but a very short report, as I must get out for a little
+exercise before dinner.
+
+My "true American catarrh" (the people seem to have a national pride in
+it) sticks to me, but I am otherwise well. I began my church readings
+last night, and it was very odd to see the pews crammed full of people,
+all in a broad roar at the "Carol" and "Trial."
+
+Best love to all. I have written Charley a few lines by this mail, and
+also Chorley.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Hogarth.]
+
+              WESTMINSTER HOTEL, NEW YORK, _Tuesday, Jan. 21st, 1868._
+
+I finished my church to-night. It is Mrs. Stowe's brother's, and a most
+wonderful place to speak in. We had it enormously full last night
+("Marigold" and "Trial"), but it scarcely required an effort. Mr. Ward
+Beecher (Mrs. Stowe's brother's name) being present in his pew. I sent
+to invite him to come round before he left; and I found him to be an
+unostentatious, straightforward, and agreeable fellow.
+
+My cold sticks to me, and I can scarcely exaggerate what I sometimes
+undergo from sleeplessness. The day before yesterday I could get no rest
+until morning, and could not get up before twelve. This morning the
+same. I rarely take any breakfast but an egg and a cup of tea, not even
+toast or bread-and-butter. My dinner at three, and a little quail or
+some such light thing when I come home at night, is my daily fare. At
+the Hall I have established the custom of taking an egg beaten up in
+sherry before going in, and another between the parts. I think that
+pulls me up; at all events, I have since had no return of faintness.
+
+As the men work very hard, and always with their hearts cheerfully in
+the business, I cram them into and outside of the carriage, to bring
+them back from Brooklyn with me. The other night, Scott (with a
+portmanteau across his knees and a wideawake hat low down upon his nose)
+told me that he had presented himself for admission in the circus (as
+good as Franconi's, by-the-bye), and had been refused. "The only
+theayter," he said in a melancholy way, "as I was ever in my life turned
+from the door of." Says Kelly: "There must have been some mistake,
+Scott, because George and me went, and we said, 'Mr. Dickens's staff,'
+and they passed us to the best seats in the house. Go again, Scott."
+"No, I thank you, Kelly," says Scott, more melancholy than before, "I'm
+not a-going to put myself in the position of being refused again. It's
+the only theayter as I was ever turned from the door of, and it shan't
+be done twice. But it's a beastly country!" "Scott," interposed Majesty,
+"don't you express your opinions about the country." "No, sir," says
+Scott, "I never do, please, sir, but when you are turned from the door
+of the only theayter you was ever turned from, sir, and when the beasts
+in railway cars spits tobacco over your boots, you (privately) find
+yourself in a beastly country."
+
+I expect shortly to get myself snowed up on some railway or other, for
+it is snowing hard now, and I begin to move to-morrow. There is so much
+floating ice in the river that we are obliged to leave a pretty wide
+margin of time for getting over the ferry to read. The dinner is coming
+in, and I must leave off.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Dickens.]
+
+                            PHILADELPHIA, _Thursday, Jan. 23rd, 1868._
+
+When I wrote to your aunt by the last mail, I accidentally omitted to
+touch upon the question of helping Anne. So I will begin in this present
+writing with reference to her sad position. I think it will be best for
+you to be guided by an exact knowledge of her _wants_. Try to ascertain
+from herself what means she has, whether her sick husband gets what he
+ought to have, whether she is pinched in the articles of necessary
+clothing, bedding, or the like of that; add to this intelligence your
+own observation of the state of things about her, and supply what she
+most wants, and help her where you find the greatest need. The question,
+in the case of so old and faithful a servant, is not one of so much or
+so little money on my side, but how _most efficiently_ to ease her mind
+and help _her_. To do this at once kindly and sensibly is the only
+consideration by which you have to be guided. Take _carte blanche_ from
+me for all the rest.
+
+My Washington week is the first week in February, beginning on Monday,
+3rd. The tickets are sold, and the President is coming, and the chief
+members of the Cabinet, and the leaders of parties, and so forth, are
+coming; and, as the Holly Tree Boots says: "That's where it is, don't
+you see!"
+
+In my Washington doubts I recalled Dolby for conference, and he joined
+me yesterday afternoon, and we have been in great discussion ever since
+on the possibility of giving up the Far West, and avoiding such immense
+distances and fatigues as would be involved in travelling to Chicago and
+Cincinnati. We have sketched another tour for the last half of March,
+which would be infinitely easier for me, though on the other hand less
+profitable, the places and the halls being smaller. The worst of it is,
+that everybody one advises with has a monomania respecting Chicago.
+"Good heaven, sir," the great Philadelphian authority said to me this
+morning, "if you don't read in Chicago, the people will go into fits."
+In reference to fatigue, I answered: "Well, I would rather they went
+into fits than I did." But he didn't seem to see it at all. ---- alone
+constantly writes me: "Don't go to the West; you can get what you want
+so much more easily." How we shall finally decide, I don't yet know. My
+Brooklyn church has been an immense success, and I found its minister
+was a bachelor, a clever, unparsonic, and straightforward man, and a man
+with a good knowledge of art into the bargain.
+
+We are not a bit too soon here, for the whole country is beginning to be
+stirred and shaken by the presidential election, and trade is
+exceedingly depressed, and will be more so. Fanny Kemble lives near this
+place, but had gone away a day before my first visit here. _She_ is
+going to read in February or March. Du Chaillu has been lecturing out
+West about the gorilla, and has been to see me; I saw the Cunard steamer
+_Persia_ out in the stream, yesterday, beautifully smart, her flags
+flying, all her steam up, and she only waiting for her mails to slip
+away. She gave me a horrible touch of home-sickness.
+
+When the 1st of March arrives, and I can say "next month," I shall begin
+to grow brighter. A fortnight's reading in Boston, too (last week of
+February and first week of March), will help me on gaily, I hope (the
+work so far off tells). It is impossible for the people to be more
+affectionately attached to a third, I really believe, than Fields and
+his wife are to me; and they are a landmark in the prospect.
+
+Dolby sends kindest regards, and wishes it to be known that he has not
+been bullied lately. We do _not_ go West at all, but take the easier
+plan.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Hogarth.]
+
+                              BALTIMORE, _Wednesday, Jan. 29th, 1868._
+
+As I have an hour to spare, before starting to Philadelphia, I begin my
+letter this morning. It has been snowing hard for four-and-twenty hours,
+though this place is as far south as Valentia in Spain; and Dolby, being
+on his way to New York, has a good chance of being snowed up somewhere.
+
+They are a bright responsive people here, and very pleasant to read to.
+I have rarely seen so many fine faces in an audience. I read here in a
+charming little opera-house built by a society of Germans, quite a
+delightful place for the purpose. I stand on the stage, with a drop
+curtain down, and my screen before it. The whole scene is very pretty
+and complete, and the audience have a "ring" in them that sounds in the
+ear. I go from here to Philadelphia to read to-morrow night and Friday,
+come through here again on Saturday on my way to Washington, come back
+here on Saturday week for two finishing nights, then go to Philadelphia
+for two farewells, and so turn my back on the southern part of the
+country. Distances and travelling have obliged us to reduce the list of
+readings by two, leaving eighty-two in all. Of course we afterwards
+discovered that we had finally settled the list on a Friday! I shall be
+halfway through it at Washington, of course, on a Friday also, and my
+birthday!
+
+Dolby and Osgood, who do the most ridiculous things to keep me in
+spirits (I am often very heavy, and rarely sleep much), have decided to
+have a walking-match at Boston, on Saturday, February 29th. Beginning
+this design in joke, they have become tremendously in earnest, and Dolby
+has actually sent home (much to his opponent's terror) for a pair of
+seamless socks to walk in. Our men are hugely excited on the subject,
+and continually make bets on "the men." Fields and I are to walk out six
+miles, and "the men" are to turn and walk round us. Neither of them has
+the least idea what twelve miles at a pace is. Being requested by both
+to give them "a breather" yesterday, I gave them a stiff one of five
+miles over a bad road in the snow, half the distance uphill. I took them
+at a pace of four miles and a half an hour, and you never beheld such
+objects as they were when we got back; both smoking like factories, and
+both obliged to change everything before they could come to dinner. They
+have the absurdest ideas of what are tests of walking power, and
+continually get up in the maddest manner and see _how high they can
+kick_ the wall! The wainscot here, in one place, is scored all over with
+their pencil-marks. To see them doing this--Dolby, a big man, and
+Osgood, a very little one, is ridiculous beyond description.
+
+
+                                           PHILADELPHIA, _Same Night._
+
+We came on here through a snowstorm all the way, but up to time. Fanny
+Kemble (who begins to read shortly) is coming to "Marigold" and "Trial"
+to-morrow night. I have written her a note, telling her that if it will
+at all assist _her_ movements to know _mine_, my list is at her
+service. Probably I shall see her to-morrow. Tell Mamie (to whom I will
+write next), with my love, that I found her letter of the 10th of this
+month awaiting me here. The _Siberia_ that brought it is a new Cunarder,
+and made an unusually slow passage out. Probably because it would be
+dangerous to work new machinery too fast on the Atlantic.
+
+
+                                                     _Thursday, 30th._
+
+My cold still sticks to me. The heat of the railway cars and their
+unventilated condition invariably brings it back when I think it going.
+This morning my head is as stuffed and heavy as ever! A superb sledge
+and four horses have been offered me for a ride, but I am afraid to take
+it, lest I should make the "true American catarrh" worse, and should get
+hoarse. So I am going to give Osgood another "breather" on foot instead.
+
+The communication with New York is not interrupted, so we consider the
+zealous Dolby all right. You may imagine what his work is, when you hear
+that he goes three times to every place we visit. Firstly, to look at
+the hall, arrange the numberings, and make five hundred acquaintances,
+whom he immediately calls by their christian-names; secondly, to sell
+the tickets--a very nice business, requiring great tact and temper;
+thirdly, with me. He will probably turn up at Washington next Sunday,
+but only for a little while; for as soon as I am on the platform on
+Monday night, he will start away again, probably to be seen no more
+until we pass through New York in the middle of February.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. Samuel Cartwright]
+
+                              BALTIMORE, _Wednesday, Jan. 29th, 1868._
+
+MY DEAR CARTWRIGHT,
+
+As I promised to report myself to you from this side of the Atlantic,
+and as I have some leisure this morning, I am going to lighten my
+conscience by keeping my word.
+
+I am going on at a great pace and with immense success. Next week, at
+Washington, I shall, please God, have got through half my readings. The
+remaining half are all arranged, and they will carry me into the third
+week of April. It is very hard work, but it is brilliantly paid. The
+changes that I find in the country generally (this place is the least
+changed of any I have yet seen) exceed my utmost expectations. I had
+been in New York a couple of days before I began to recognise it at all;
+and the handsomest part of Boston was a black swamp when I saw it
+five-and-twenty years ago. Considerable advances, too, have been made
+socially. Strange to say, the railways and railway arrangements (both
+exceedingly defective) seem to have stood still while all other things
+have been moving.
+
+One of the most comical spectacles I have ever seen in my life was
+"church," with a heavy sea on, in the saloon of the Cunard steamer
+coming out. The officiating minister, an extremely modest young man, was
+brought in between two big stewards, exactly as if he were coming up to
+the scratch in a prize-fight. The ship was rolling and pitching so, that
+the two big stewards had to stop and watch their opportunity of making a
+dart at the reading-desk with their reverend charge, during which pause
+he held on, now by one steward and now by the other, with the feeblest
+expression of countenance and no legs whatever. At length they made a
+dart at the wrong moment, and one steward was immediately beheld alone
+in the extreme perspective, while the other and the reverend gentleman
+_held on by the mast_ in the middle of the saloon--which the latter
+embraced with both arms, as if it were his wife. All this time the
+congregation was breaking up into sects and sliding away; every sect (as
+in nature) pounding the other sect. And when at last the reverend
+gentleman had been tumbled into his place, the desk (a loose one, put
+upon the dining-table) deserted from the church bodily, and went over to
+the purser. The scene was so extraordinarily ridiculous, and was made so
+much more so by the exemplary gravity of all concerned in it, that I was
+obliged to leave before the service began.
+
+This is one of the places where Butler carried it with so high a hand in
+the war, and where the ladies used to spit when they passed a Northern
+soldier. It still wears, I fancy, a look of sullen remembrance. (The
+ladies are remarkably handsome, with an Eastern look upon them, dress
+with a strong sense of colour, and make a brilliant audience.) The ghost
+of slavery haunts the houses; and the old, untidy, incapable, lounging,
+shambling black serves you as a free man. Free of course he ought to be;
+but the stupendous absurdity of making him a voter glares out of every
+roll of his eye, stretch of his mouth, and bump of his head. I have a
+strong impression that the race must fade out of the States very fast.
+It never can hold its own against a striving, restless, shifty people.
+In the penitentiary here, the other day, in a room full of all blacks
+(too dull to be taught any of the work in hand), was one young brooding
+fellow, very like a black rhinoceros. He sat glowering at life, as if it
+were just endurable at dinner time, until four of his fellows began to
+sing, most unmelodiously, a part song. He then set up a dismal howl, and
+pounded his face on a form. I took him to have been rendered quite
+desperate by having learnt anything. I send my kind regard to Mrs.
+Cartwright, and sincerely hope that she and you have no new family
+distresses or anxieties. My standing address is the Westminster Hotel,
+Irving Place, New York City. And I am always, my dear Cartwright,
+
+                                                      Cordially yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Dickens.]
+
+                              PHILADELPHIA, _Friday, Jan. 31st, 1868._
+
+Since writing to your aunt I have received yours of the 7th, and am
+truly glad to have the last news of you confirmed by yourself.
+
+From a letter Wilkie has written to me, it seems there can be no doubt
+that the "No Thoroughfare" drama is a real, genuine, and great success.
+It is drawing immensely, and seems to "go" with great effect and
+applause.
+
+"Doctor Marigold" here last night (for the first time) was an immense
+success, and all Philadelphia is going to rush at once for tickets for
+the two Philadelphian farewells the week after next. The tickets are to
+be sold to-morrow, and great excitement is anticipated in the streets.
+Dolby not being here, a clerk will sell, and will probably wish himself
+dead before he has done with it.
+
+It appears to me that Chorley[22] writes to you on the legacy question
+because he wishes you to understand that there is no danger of his
+changing his mind, and at the bottom I descry an honest desire to pledge
+himself as strongly as possible. You may receive it in that better
+spirit, or I am much mistaken. Tell your aunt, with my best love, that I
+wrote to Chauncey weeks ago, in answer to a letter from him. I am now
+going out in a sleigh (and four) with unconceivable dignity and
+grandeur; mentioning which reminds me that I am informed by trusty
+scouts that ---- intends to waylay me at Washington, and may even
+descend upon me in the train to-morrow.
+
+Best love to Katie, the two Charleys, and all.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Dickens.]
+
+                                WASHINGTON, _Tuesday, Feb. 4th, 1868._
+
+I began here last night with great success. The hall being small, the
+prices were raised to three dollars each ticket. The audience was a
+superior one, composed of the foremost public men and their families. At
+the end of the "Carol" they gave a great break out, and applauded, I
+really believe, for five minutes. You would suppose them to be
+Manchester shillings instead of Washington half-sovereigns. Immense
+enthusiasm.
+
+A devoted adherent in this place (an Englishman) had represented to
+Dolby that if I were taken to an hotel here it would be impossible to
+secure me a minute's rest, and he undertook to get one Wheleker, a
+German, who keeps a little Verey's, to furnish his private dining-rooms
+for the illustrious traveller's reception. Accordingly here we are, on
+the first and second floor of a small house, with no one else in it but
+our people, a French waiter, and a very good French cuisine. Perfectly
+private, in the city of all the world (I should say) where the hotels
+are intolerable, and privacy the least possible, and quite comfortable.
+"Wheleker's Restaurant" is our rather undignified address for the
+present week.
+
+I dined (against my rules) with Charles Sumner on Sunday, he having been
+an old friend of mine. Mr. Secretary Staunton (War Minister) was there.
+He is a man of a very remarkable memory, and famous for his
+acquaintance with the minutest details of my books. Give him any passage
+anywhere, and he will instantly cap it and go on with the context. He
+was commander-in-chief of all the Northern forces concentrated here, and
+never went to sleep at night without first reading something from my
+books, which were always with him. I put him through a pretty severe
+examination, but he was better up than I was.
+
+The gas was very defective indeed last night, and I began with a small
+speech, to the effect that I must trust to the brightness of their faces
+for the illumination of mine; this was taken greatly. In the "Carol," a
+most ridiculous incident occurred all of a sudden. I saw a dog look out
+from among the seats into the centre aisle, and look very intently at
+me. The general attention being fixed on me, I don't think anybody saw
+the dog; but I felt so sure of his turning up again and barking, that I
+kept my eye wandering about in search of him. He was a very comic dog,
+and it was well for me that I was reading a very comic part of the book.
+But when he bounced out into the centre aisle again, in an entirely new
+place (still looking intently at me) and tried the effect of a bark upon
+my proceedings, I was seized with such a paroxysm of laughter, that it
+communicated itself to the audience, and we roared at one another loud
+and long.
+
+The President has sent to me twice, and I am going to see him to-morrow.
+He has a whole row for his family every night. Dolby rejoined his chief
+yesterday morning, and will probably remain in the august presence until
+Sunday night. He and Osgood, "training for the match," are ludicrous
+beyond belief. I saw them just now coming up a street, each trying to
+pass the other, and immediately fled. Since I have been writing this,
+they have burst in at the door and sat down on the floor to blow. Dolby
+is now writing at a neighbouring table, with his bald head smoking as if
+he were on fire. Kelly (his great adherent) asked me, when he was last
+away, whether it was quite fair that I should take Mr. Osgood out for
+"breathers" when Mr. Dolby had no such advantage. I begin to expect that
+half Boston will turn out on the 29th to see the match. In which case it
+will be unspeakably droll.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Hogarth.]
+
+                            WASHINGTON, _my Birthday_, 1868.
+                                      (_And my cold worse than ever._)
+
+This will be but a short letter, as I have been to see the President
+this morning, and have little time before the post goes. He had sent a
+gentleman to me, most courteously begging me to make my own appointment,
+and I did so. A man of very remarkable appearance indeed, of tremendous
+firmness of purpose. Not to be turned or trifled with.
+
+As I mention my cold's being so bad, I will add that I have never had
+anything the matter with me since I came here _but_ the cold. It is now
+in my throat, and slightly on my chest. It occasions me great
+discomfort, and you would suppose, seeing me in the morning, that I
+could not possibly read at night. But I have always come up to the
+scratch, have not yet missed one night, and have gradually got used to
+that. I had got much the better of it; but the dressing-room at the hall
+here is singularly cold and draughty, and so I have slid back again.
+
+The papers here having written about this being my birthday, the most
+exquisite flowers came pouring in at breakfast time from all sorts of
+people. The room is covered with them, made up into beautiful bouquets,
+and arranged in all manner of green baskets. Probably I shall find
+plenty more at the hall to-night. This is considered the dullest and
+most apathetic place in America. _My_ audiences have been superb.
+
+I mentioned the dog on the first night here. Next night I thought I
+heard (in "Copperfield") a suddenly suppressed bark. It happened in this
+wise: Osgood, standing just within the door, felt his leg touched, and
+looking down beheld the dog staring intently at me, and evidently just
+about to bark. In a transport of presence of mind and fury, he instantly
+caught him up in both hands and threw him over his own head out into the
+entry, where the check-takers received him like a game at ball. Last
+night he came again _with another dog_; but our people were so sharply
+on the look-out for him that he didn't get in. He had evidently promised
+to pass the other dog free.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Dickens.]
+
+                          BALTIMORE, U.S., _Tuesday, Feb. 11th, 1868._
+
+The weather has been desperately severe, and my cold quite as bad as
+ever. I couldn't help laughing at myself on my birthday at Washington.
+It was observed as much as though I were a little boy. Flowers and
+garlands (of the most exquisite kind) bloomed all over the room; letters
+radiant with good wishes poured in; a shirt pin, a handsome silver
+travelling bottle, a set of gold shirt studs, and a set of gold sleeve
+links were on the dinner-table. After "Boots," at night, the whole
+audience rose and remained (Secretaries of State, President's family,
+Judges of Supreme Court, and so forth) standing and cheering until I
+went back to the table and made them a little speech. On the same
+august day of the year I was received by the President, a man with a
+very remarkable and determined face. Each of us looked at each other
+very hard, and each of us managed the interview (I think) to the
+satisfaction of the other. In the outer room was sitting a certain
+sunburnt General Blair, with many evidences of the war upon him. He got
+up to shake hands with me, and then I found he had been out in the
+prairie with me five-and-twenty years ago. That afternoon my "catarrh"
+was in such a state that Charles Sumner, coming in at five o'clock and
+finding me covered with mustard poultice, and apparently voiceless,
+turned to Dolby and said: "Surely, Mr. Dolby, it is impossible that he
+can read to-night." Says Dolby: "Sir, I have told the dear Chief so four
+times to-day, and I have been very anxious. But you have no idea how he
+will change when he gets to the little table." After five minutes of the
+little table, I was not (for the time) even hoarse. The frequent
+experience of this return of force when it is wanted saves me a vast
+amount of anxiety.
+
+I wish you would get from Homan and report to me, as near as he can
+make, an approximate estimate is the right term in the trade, I believe,
+of the following work:
+
+1. To re-cover, with red leather, all the dining-room chairs.
+
+2. To ditto, with green leather, all the library chairs and the couch.
+
+3. To provide and lay down new _Brussels_ carpets in the front spare and
+the two top spares. Quality of carpet, quality of yours and mine.
+
+I have some doubts about the state of the hall floor-cloth, and also the
+floor-cloth in the dining-room. Will you and your aunt carefully examine
+both (calling in Homan too, if necessary), _and report to me_?
+
+It would seem that "No Thoroughfare" has really developed as a drama
+into an amazing success. I begin to think that I shall see it. Dolby is
+away this morning, to conquer or die in a terrific struggle with the
+Mayor of Newhaven (where I am to read next week), who has assailed him
+on a charge of false play in selling tickets. Osgood, my other keeper,
+stands at the table to take me out, and have a "breather" for the
+walking-match, so I must leave off.
+
+Think of my dreaming of Mrs. Bouncer each night!!!
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. Henry Fielding Dickens.]
+
+                          BALTIMORE, U.S., _Tuesday, Feb. 11th, 1868._
+
+MY DEAR HARRY,
+
+I should have written to you before now, but for constant and arduous
+occupation.
+
+In reference to the cricket club's not being what it might be, I agree
+with you in the main. There are some things to be considered, however,
+which you have hardly taken into account. The first thing to be avoided
+is, the slightest appearance of patronage (one of the curses of
+England). The second thing to be avoided is, the deprival of the men of
+their just right to manage their own affairs. I would rather have no
+club at all, than have either of these great mistakes made. The way out
+of them is this: Call the men together, and explain to them that the
+club might be larger, richer, and better. Say that you think that more
+of the neighbouring gentlemen could be got to be playing members. That
+you submit to them that it would be better to have a captain who could
+correspond with them, and talk to them, and in some sort manage them;
+and that, being perfectly acquainted with the game, and having long
+played it at a great public school, you propose yourself as captain, for
+the foregoing reasons. That you propose to them to make the subscription
+of the gentlemen members at least double that of the working men, for no
+other reason than that the gentlemen can afford it better; but that both
+classes of members shall have exactly the same right of voting equally
+in all that concerns the club. Say that you have consulted me upon the
+matter, and that I am of these opinions, and am ready to become chairman
+of the club, and to preside at their meetings, and to overlook its
+business affairs, and to give it five pounds a year, payable at the
+commencement of each season. Then, having brought them to this point,
+draw up the club's rules and regulations, amending them where they want
+amendment.
+
+Discreetly done, I see no difficulty in this. But it can only be
+honourably and hopefully done by having the men together. And I would
+not have them at The Falstaff, but in the hall or dining-room--the
+servants' hall, an excellent place. Whatever you do, let the men ratify;
+and let them feel their little importance, and at once perceive how much
+better the business begins to be done.
+
+I am very glad to hear of the success of your reading, and still more
+glad that you went at it in downright earnest. I should never have made
+my success in life if I had been shy of taking pains, or if I had not
+bestowed upon the least thing I have ever undertaken exactly the same
+attention and care that I have bestowed upon the greatest. Do everything
+at your best. It was but this last year that I set to and learned every
+word of my readings; and from ten years ago to last night, I have never
+read to an audience but I have watched for an opportunity of striking
+out something better somewhere. Look at such of my manuscripts as are
+in the library at Gad's, and think of the patient hours devoted year
+after year to single lines.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The weather is very severe here, and the work is very hard. Dolby,
+having been violently pitched into by the Mayor of Newhaven (a town at
+which I am to read next week), has gone bodily this morning with defiant
+written instructions from me to inform the said mayor that, if he fail
+to make out his case, he (Dolby) is to return all the money taken, and
+to tell him that I will not set foot in his jurisdiction; whereupon the
+Newhaven people will probably fall upon the mayor in his turn, and lead
+him a pleasant life.
+
+                        Ever, my dear Harry, your affectionate Father.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Hogarth.]
+
+                            PHILADELPHIA, _Thursday, Feb. 13th, 1868._
+
+We have got into an immense difficulty with the people of Newhaven. I
+have a strong suspicion that one of our men (who sold there) has been
+speculating all this while, and that he must have put front seats in his
+pockets, and sold back ones. He denies what the mayor charges, but the
+mayor holds on grimly. Dolby set off from Baltimore as soon as we found
+out what was amiss, to examine and report; but some new feature of
+difficulty must have come out, for this morning he telegraphs from New
+York (where he had to sleep last night on his way to Newhaven), that he
+is coming back for further consultation with the Chief. It will
+certainly hurt us, and will of course be distorted by the papers into
+all manner of shapes. My suspicion _may not_ be correct, but I have an
+instinctive belief that it is. We shall probably have the old New York
+row (and loss) over again, unless I can catch this mayor tripping in an
+assertion.
+
+In this very place, we are half-distracted by the speculators. They have
+been holding out for such high prices, that the public have held out
+too; and now (frightened at what they have done) the speculators are
+trying to sell their worst seats at half the cost price, so that we are
+in the ridiculous situation of having sold the room out, and yet not
+knowing what empty seats there may be. _We_ could sell at our box-office
+to any extent; but _we_ can't buy back of the speculators, because we
+informed the public that all the tickets were gone. And if we bought
+_under_ our own price and _sold_ at our own price, we should at once be
+in treaty with the speculators, and should be making money by it! Dolby,
+the much bullied, will come back here presently, half bereft of his
+senses; and I should be half bereft of mine, if the situation were not
+comically disagreeable.
+
+Nothing will induce the people to believe in the farewells. At Baltimore
+on Tuesday night (a very brilliant night indeed), they asked as they
+came out: "When will Mr. Dickens read here again?" "Never." "Nonsense!
+Not come back, after such houses as these? Come. Say when he'll read
+again." Just the same here. We could as soon persuade them that I am the
+President, as that I am going to read here, for the last time, to-morrow
+night.
+
+There is a child of the Barney Williams's in this house--a little
+girl--to whom I presented a black doll when I was here last. I have seen
+her eye at the keyhole since I began writing this, and I think she and
+the doll are outside still. "When you sent it up to me by the coloured
+boy," she said after receiving it (coloured boy is the term for black
+waiter), "I gave such a cream that ma came running in and creamed too,
+'cos she fort I'd hurt myself. But I creamed a cream of joy." _She_ had
+a friend to play with her that day, and brought the friend with her, to
+my infinite confusion. A friend all stockings, and much too tall, who
+sat on the sofa very far back, with her stockings sticking stiffly out
+in front of her, and glared at me and never spake word. Dolby found us
+confronted in a sort of fascination, like serpent and bird.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Hogarth.]
+
+                                  NEW YORK, _Monday, Feb. 17th, 1868._
+
+I got your letter of the 3rd of February here this morning. As I am off
+at seven to-morrow morning, I answer it at once, though indeed I have
+nothing to say.
+
+"True American" still sticking to me. But I am always ready for my work,
+and therefore don't much mind. Dolby and the Mayor of Newhaven
+alternately embrace and exchange mortal defiances. In writing out some
+advertisements towards midnight last night, he made a very good mistake.
+"The reading will be comprised within two _minutes_, and the audience
+are earnestly entreated to be seated ten _hours_ before its
+commencement."
+
+The weather has been finer lately, but the streets are in a horrible
+condition, through half-melted snow, and it is now snowing again. The
+walking-match (next Saturday week) is already in the Boston papers! I
+suppose half Boston will turn out on the occasion. As a sure way of not
+being conspicuous, "the men" are going to walk in flannel! They are in a
+mingled state of comicality and gravity about it that is highly
+ridiculous. Yesterday being a bright cool day, I took Dolby for a
+"buster" of eight miles. As everybody here knows me, the spectacle of
+our splitting up the fashionable avenue (the only way out of town)
+excited the greatest amazement. No doubt _that_ will be in the papers
+to-morrow. I give a gorgeous banquet to eighteen (ladies and gentlemen)
+after the match. Mr. and Mrs. Fields, Do. Ticknor, Longfellow and his
+daughter, Lowell, Holmes and his wife, etc. etc. Sporting speeches to be
+made, and the stakes (four hats) to be handed over to the winner.
+
+My ship will not be the _Cuba_ after all. She is to go into dock, and
+the _Russia_ (a larger ship, and the latest built for the Cunard line)
+is to take her place.
+
+Very glad to hear of Plorn's success. Best love to Mamie.
+
+
+[Sidenote: M. Charles Fechter.]
+
+                                    WASHINGTON, _February 24th, 1868._
+
+MY DEAR FECHTER,
+
+Your letter reached me here yesterday. I have sent you a telegram
+(addressed to the theatre) this morning, and I write this by the
+earliest return mail.
+
+My dear fellow, consider yourself my representative. Whatever you do, or
+desire to do, about the play, I fully authorise beforehand. Tell
+Webster, with my regard, that I think his proposal honest and fair; that
+I think it, in a word, like himself; and that I have perfect confidence
+in his good faith and liberality.
+
+As to making money of the play in the United States here, Boucicault has
+filled Wilkie's head with golden dreams that have _nothing_ in them. He
+makes no account of the fact that, wherever I go, the theatres (with my
+name in big letters) instantly begin playing versions of my books, and
+that the moment the Christmas number came over here they pirated it and
+played "No Thoroughfare." Now, I have enquired into the law, and am
+extremely doubtful whether I _could_ have prevented this. Why should
+they pay for the piece as you act it, when they have no actors, and when
+all they want is my name, and they can get that for nothing?
+
+Wilkie has uniformly written of you enthusiastically. In a letter I had
+from him, dated the 10th of January, he described your conception and
+execution of the part in the most glowing terms. "Here Fechter is
+magnificent." "Here his superb playing brings the house down." "I should
+call even his exit in the last act one of the subtlest and finest things
+he does in the piece." "You can hardly imagine what he gets out of the
+part, or what he makes of his passionate love for Marguerite." These
+expressions, and many others like them, crowded his letter.
+
+I never did so want to see a character played on the stage as I want to
+see you play Obenreizer. As the play was going when I last heard of it,
+I have some hopes that I MAY see it yet. Please God, your Adelphi
+dressing-room will be irradiated with the noble presence of "Never
+Wrong" (if you are acting), about the evening of Monday, the 4th of May!
+
+I am doing enormous business. It is a wearying life, away from all I
+love, but I hope that the time will soon begin to spin away. Among the
+many changes that I find here is the comfortable change that the people
+are in general extremely considerate, and very observant of my privacy.
+Even in this place, I am really almost as much my own master as if I
+were in an English country town. Generally, they are very good audiences
+indeed. They do not (I think) perceive touches of art to _be_ art; but
+they are responsive to the broad results of such touches. "Doctor
+Marigold" is a great favourite, and they laugh so unrestrainedly at "The
+Trial" from "Pickwick" (which you never heard), that it has grown about
+half as long again as it used to be.
+
+If I could send you a "brandy cocktail" by post I would. It is a highly
+meritorious dram, which I hope to present to you at Gad's. My New York
+landlord made me a "Rocky Mountain sneezer," which appeared to me to be
+compounded of all the spirits ever heard of in the world, with bitters,
+lemon, sugar, and snow. You can only make a true "sneezer" when the snow
+is lying on the ground.
+
+There, my dear boy, my paper is out, and I am going to read
+"Copperfield." Count always on my fidelity and true attachment, and look
+out, as I have already said, for a distinguished visitor about Monday,
+the 4th of May.
+
+                    Ever, my dear Fechter,
+                                 Your cordial and affectionate Friend.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Dickens.]
+
+                                   BOSTON, _Tuesday, Feb. 25th, 1868._
+
+It is so very difficult to know, by any exercise of common sense, what
+turn or height the political excitement may take next, and it may so
+easily, and so soon, swallow up all other things, that I think I shall
+suppress my next week's readings here (by good fortune not yet
+announced) and watch the course of events. Dolby's sudden desponding
+under these circumstances is so acute, that it is actually swelling his
+head as I glance at him in the glass while writing.
+
+The catarrh is no better and no worse. The weather is intensely cold.
+The walking-match (of which I will send particulars) is to come off on
+Sunday. Mrs. Fields is more delightful than ever, and Fields more
+hospitable. My room is always radiant with brilliant flowers of their
+sending. I don't know whether I told you that the walking-match is to
+celebrate the extinction of February, and the coming of the day when I
+can say "next month."
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Hogarth.]
+
+                                  BOSTON, _Thursday, Feb. 27th, 1868._
+
+This morning at breakfast I received yours of the 11th from Palace Gate
+House. I have very little news to give you in return for your budget.
+The walking-match is to come off on Saturday, and Fields and I went over
+the ground yesterday to measure the miles. We went at a tremendous pace.
+The condition of the ground is something indescribable, from half-melted
+snow, running water, and sheets and blocks of ice. The two performers
+have not the faintest notion of the weight of the task they have
+undertaken. I give a dinner afterwards, and have just now been settling
+the bill of fare and selecting the wines.
+
+In the first excitement of the presidential impeachment, our houses
+instantly went down. After carefully considering the subject, I decided
+to take advantage of the fact that next week's four readings here have
+not yet been announced, and to abolish them altogether. Nothing in this
+country lasts long, and I think the public may be heartily tired of the
+President's name by the 9th of March, when I read at a considerable
+distance from here. So behold me with a whole week's holiday in view!
+The Boston audiences have come to regard the readings and the reader as
+their peculiar property; and you would be at once amused and pleased if
+you could see the curious way in which they seem to plume themselves on
+both. They have taken to applauding too whenever they laugh or cry, and
+the result is very inspiriting. I shall remain here until Saturday, the
+7th, but shall not read here, after to-morrow night, until the 1st of
+April, when I begin my Boston farewells, six in number.
+
+
+                                                       _Friday, 28th._
+
+It has been snowing all night, and the city is in a miserable condition.
+We had a fine house last night for "Carol" and "Trial," and such an
+enthusiastic one that they persisted in a call after the "Carol," and,
+while I was out, covered the little table with flowers. The "True
+American" has taken a fresh start, as if it were quite a novelty, and is
+on the whole rather worse than ever to-day. The Cunard packet, the
+_Australasian_ (a poor ship), is some days overdue, and Dolby is
+anxiously looking out for her. There is a lull in the excitement about
+the President, but the articles of impeachment are to be produced this
+afternoon, and then it may set in again. Osgood came into camp last
+night from selling in remote places, and reports that at Rochester and
+Buffalo (both places near the frontier), Canada people bought tickets,
+who had struggled across the frozen river and clambered over all sorts
+of obstructions to get them. Some of those halls turn out to be smaller
+than represented, but I have no doubt, to use an American expression,
+that we shall "get along."
+
+To-morrow fortnight we purpose being at the Falls of Niagara, and then
+we shall turn back and really begin to wind up. I have got to know the
+"Carol" so well that I can't remember it, and occasionally go dodging
+about in the wildest manner to pick up lost pieces. They took it so
+tremendously last night that I was stopped every five minutes. One poor
+young girl in mourning burst into a passion of grief about Tiny Tim, and
+was taken out. This is all my news.
+
+Each of the pedestrians is endeavouring to persuade the other to take
+something unwholesome before starting.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Dickens.]
+
+                                    BOSTON, _Monday, March 2nd, 1868._
+
+A heavy gale of wind and a snowstorm oblige me to write suddenly for the
+Cunard steamer a day earlier than usual. The railroad between this and
+New York will probably be stopped somewhere. After all the hard weather
+we have had, this is the worst day we have seen.
+
+The walking-match came off on Saturday, over tremendously difficult
+ground, against a biting wind, and through deep snow-wreaths. It was so
+cold, too, that our hair, beards, eyelashes, eyebrows, were frozen hard,
+and hung with icicles. The course was thirteen miles. They were close
+together at the turning-point, when Osgood went ahead at a splitting
+pace and with extraordinary endurance, and won by half a mile. Dolby did
+very well indeed, and begs that he may not be despised. In the evening I
+gave a very splendid dinner. Eighteen covers, most magnificent flowers,
+such table decoration as was never seen in these parts. The whole thing
+was a great success, and everybody was delighted.
+
+I am holiday-making until Friday, when we start on the round of travel
+that is to bring us back here for the 1st of April. My holiday-making
+is simply thorough resting, except on Wednesday, when I dine with
+Longfellow. There is still great political excitement, but I hope it may
+not hurt us very much. My fear is that it may damage the farewell. Dolby
+is not of my mind as to this, and I hope he may be right. We are not
+quite determined whether Mrs. Fields did not desert our colours, by
+coming on the ground in a carriage, and having _bread soaked in brandy_
+put into the winning man's mouth as he steamed along. She pleaded that
+she would have done as much for Dolby, if _he_ had been ahead, so we are
+inclined to forgive her. As she had done so much for me in the way of
+flowers, I thought I would show her a sight in that line at the dinner.
+You never saw anything like it. Two immense crowns; the base, of the
+choicest exotics; and the loops, oval masses of violets. In the centre
+of the table an immense basket, overflowing with enormous bell-mouthed
+lilies; all round the table a bright green border of wreathed creeper,
+with clustering roses at intervals; a rose for every button-hole, and a
+bouquet for every lady. They made an exhibition of the table before
+dinner to numbers of people.
+
+P. H. has just come in with a newspaper, containing a reference (in good
+taste!) to the walking-match. He posts it to you by this post.
+
+It is telegraphed that the storm prevails over an immense extent of
+country, and is just the same at Chicago as here. I hope it may prove a
+wind-up. We are getting sick of the sound of sleigh-bells even.
+
+Your account of Anne has greatly interested me.
+
+
+[Sidenote: M. Charles Fechter.]
+
+                                      SYRACUSE, U.S. OF AMERICA,
+                                      _Sunday Night, March 8th, 1868._
+
+MY DEAR FECHTER,
+
+I am here in a most wonderful out-of-the-world place, which looks as if
+it had begun to be built yesterday, and were going to be imperfectly
+knocked together with a nail or two the day after to-morrow. I am in the
+worst inn that ever was seen, and outside is a thaw that places the
+whole country under water. I have looked out of window for the people,
+and I can't find any people. I have tried all the wines in the house,
+and there are only two wines, for which you pay six shillings a bottle,
+or fifteen, according as you feel disposed to change the name of the
+thing you ask for. (The article never changes.) The bill of fare is "in
+French," and the principal article (the carte is printed) is "Paettie de
+shay." I asked the Irish waiter what this dish was, and he said: "It was
+the name the steward giv' to oyster patties--the Frinch name." These are
+the drinks you are to wash it down with: "Mooseux," "Abasinthe,"
+"Curacco," "Marschine," "Annise," and "Margeaux"!
+
+I am growing very home-sick, and very anxious for the 22nd of April; on
+which day, please God, I embark for home. I am beginning to be tired,
+and have been depressed all the time (except when reading), and have
+lost my appetite. I cannot tell you--but you know, and therefore why
+should I?--how overjoyed I shall be to see you again, my dear boy, and
+how sorely I miss a dear friend, and how sorely I miss all art, in these
+parts. No disparagement to the country, which has a great future in
+reserve, or to its people, who are very kind to me.
+
+I mean to take my leave of readings in the autumn and winter, in a final
+series in England with Chappell. This will come into the way of literary
+work for a time, for, after I have rested--don't laugh--it is a grim
+reality--I shall have to turn my mind to--ha! ha! ha!--to--ha! ha! ha!
+(more sepulchrally than before)--the--the CHRISTMAS NUMBER!!! I feel as
+if I had murdered a Christmas number years ago (perhaps I did!) and its
+ghost perpetually haunted me. Nevertheless in some blessed rest at
+Gad's, we will talk over stage matters, and all matters, in an even way,
+and see what we can make of them, please God. Be sure that I shall not
+be in London one evening, after disembarking, without coming round to
+the theatre to embrace you, my dear fellow.
+
+I have had an American cold (the worst in the world) since Christmas
+Day. I read four times a week, with the most tremendous energy I can
+bring to bear upon it. I travel about pretty heavily. I am very resolute
+about calling on people, or receiving people, or dining out, and so save
+myself a great deal. I read in all sorts of places--churches, theatres,
+concert rooms, lecture halls. Every night I read I am described (mostly
+by people who have not the faintest notion of observing) from the sole
+of my boot to where the topmost hair of my head ought to be, but is not.
+Sometimes I am described as being "evidently nervous;" sometimes it is
+rather taken ill that "Mr. Dickens is so extraordinarily composed." My
+eyes are blue, red, grey, white, green, brown, black, hazel, violet, and
+rainbow-coloured. I am like "a well-to-do American gentleman," and the
+Emperor of the French, with an occasional touch of the Emperor of China,
+and a deterioration from the attributes of our famous townsman, Rufus W.
+B. D. Dodge Grumsher Pickville. I say all sorts of things that I never
+said, go to all sorts of places that I never saw or heard of, and have
+done all manner of things (in some previous state of existence I
+suppose) that have quite escaped my memory. You ask your friend to
+describe what he is about. This is what he is about, every day and hour
+of his American life.
+
+I hope to be back with you before you write to me!
+
+                  Ever, my dear Fechter,
+                             Your most affectionate and hearty Friend.
+
+P.S.--Don't let Madame Fechter, or Marie, or Paul forget me!
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Hogarth.]
+
+                                  SYRACUSE, _Sunday, March 8th, 1868._
+
+As we shall probably be busy all day to-morrow, I write this to-day,
+though it will not leave New York until Wednesday. This is a very grim
+place in a heavy thaw, and a most depressing one. The hotel also is
+surprisingly bad, quite a triumph in that way. We stood out for an hour
+in the melting snow, and came in again, having to change completely.
+Then we sat down by the stove (no fireplace), and there we are now. We
+were so afraid to go to bed last night, the rooms were so close and
+sour, that we played whist, double dummy, till we couldn't bear each
+other any longer. We had an old buffalo for supper, and an old pig for
+breakfast, and we are going to have I don't know what for dinner at six.
+In the public rooms downstairs, a number of men (speechless) are sitting
+in rocking-chairs, with their feet against the window-frames, staring
+out at window and spitting dolefully at intervals. Scott is in tears,
+and George the gasman is suborning people to go and clean the hall,
+which is a marvel of dirt. And yet we have taken considerably over three
+hundred pounds for to-morrow night!
+
+We were at Albany the night before last and yesterday morning; a very
+pretty town, where I am to read on the 18th and 19th. This day week we
+hope to wash out this establishment with the Falls of Niagara. And there
+is my news, except that your _last letters_ to me in America must be
+posted by the Cunard steamer, which will sail from Liverpool on
+_Saturday, the 4th of April_. These I shall be safe to get before
+embarking.
+
+I send a note to Katie (addressed to Mamie) by this mail. I wrote to
+Harry some weeks ago, stating to him on what principles he must act in
+remodelling the cricket club, if he would secure success.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Hogarth.]
+
+                                                _Monday Morning, 9th._
+
+Nothing new. Weather cloudy, and town more dismal than yesterday. It
+froze again last night, and thaws again this morning. Somebody sent me
+an Australian newspaper this morning--some citizen of Syracuse I
+mean--because of a paragraph in it describing the taking of two
+freebooters, at which taking Alfred was present. Though I do not make
+out that he had anything in the world to do with it, except having his
+name pressed into the service of the newspaper.
+
+
+                                BUFFALO, _Thursday, March 12th, 1868._
+
+I hope this may be in time for next Saturday's mail; but this is a long
+way from New York, and rivers are swollen with melted snow, and
+travelling is unusually slow.
+
+Just now (two o'clock in the afternoon) I received your sad news of the
+death of poor dear Chauncey.[23] It naturally goes to my heart. It is
+not a light thing to lose such a friend, and I truly loved him. In the
+first unreasonable train of feeling, I dwelt more than I should have
+thought possible on my being unable to attend his funeral. I know how
+little this really matters; but I know he would have wished me to be
+there with real honest tears for his memory, and I feel it very much. I
+never, never, never was better loved by man than I was by him, I am
+sure. Poor dear fellow, good affectionate gentle creature.
+
+I have not as yet received any letter from Henri, nor do I think he can
+have written to New York by your mail. I believe that I am--I know that
+I _was_--one of the executors. In that case Mr. Jackson, his agent, will
+either write to me very shortly on Henri's information of my address, or
+enquiry will be made at Gad's or at the office about it.
+
+It is difficult for me to write more just now. The news is a real shock
+at such a distance, and I must read to-night, and I must compose my
+mind. Let Mekitty know that I received her violets with great pleasure,
+and that I sent her my best love and my best thanks.
+
+On the 25th of February I read "Copperfield" and "Bob" at Boston. Either
+on that very day, or very close upon it, I was describing his
+(Townshend's) house to Fields, and telling him about the great Danby
+picture that he should see when he came to London.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Dickens.]
+
+                                ROCHESTER, _Sunday, March 16th, 1868._
+
+I found yours of the 28th February, when I came back here last night. We
+have had two brilliant sunny days at Niagara, and have seen that
+wonderful place under the finest circumstances.
+
+Enclosed I return you Homan's estimate; let all that work be done,
+including the curtains.
+
+As to the hall, I have my doubts whether one of the parqueted floors
+made by Aaron Smith's, of Bond Street, ought not to be better than
+tiles, for the reason that perhaps the nature of the house's
+construction might render the "bed" necessary for wooden flooring more
+easy to be made than the "bed" necessary for tiles. I don't think you
+can do better than call in the trusty Lillie to advise. Decide with your
+aunt on which appears to be better, under the circumstances. Have
+estimate made for _cash_, select patterns and colours, and let the work
+be done out of hand. (Here's a prompt order; now I draw breath.) Let it
+be thoroughly well done--no half measures.
+
+There is a great thaw all over the country here, and I think it has done
+the catarrh good. I am to read at the famous Newhaven on Tuesday, the
+24th. I hope without a row, but cannot say. The readings are running out
+fast now, and we are growing very restless.
+
+This is a short letter, but we are pressed for time. It is two o'clock,
+and we dine at three, before reading. To-morrow we rise at six, and have
+eleven hours' railway or so. We have now come back from our farthest
+point, and are steadily working towards home.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. W. C. Macready.]
+
+                     SPRINGFIELD, MASS., _Saturday, March 21st, 1868._
+
+MY DEAREST MACREADY,
+
+What with perpetual reading and travelling, what with a "true American
+catarrh" (on which I am complimented almost boastfully), and what with
+one of the severest winters ever known, your coals of fire received by
+the last mail did not burn my head so much as they might have done
+under less excusatory circumstances. But they scorched it too!
+
+You would find the general aspect of America and Americans decidedly
+much improved. You would find immeasurably greater consideration and
+respect for your privacy than of old. You would find a steady change for
+the better everywhere, except (oddly enough) in the railroads generally,
+which seem to have stood still, while everything else has moved. But
+there is an exception westward. There the express trains have now a very
+delightful carriage called a "drawing-room car," literally a series of
+little private drawing-rooms, with sofas and a table in each, opening
+out of a little corridor. In each, too, is a large plate-glass window,
+with which you can do as you like. As you pay extra for this luxury, it
+may be regarded as the first move towards two classes of passengers.
+When the railroad straight away to San Francisco (in six days) shall be
+opened through, it will not only have these drawing-rooms, but
+sleeping-rooms too; a bell in every little apartment communicating with
+a steward's pantry, a restaurant, a staff of servants, marble
+washing-stands, and a barber's shop! I looked into one of these cars a
+day or two ago, and it was very ingeniously arranged and quite complete.
+
+I left Niagara last Sunday, and travelled on to Albany, through three
+hundred miles of flood, villages deserted, bridges broken, fences
+drifting away, nothing but tearing water, floating ice, and absolute
+wreck and ruin. The train gave in altogether at Utica, and the
+passengers were let loose there for the night. As I was due at Albany, a
+very active superintendent of works did all he could to "get Mr. Dickens
+along," and in the morning we resumed our journey through the water,
+with a hundred men in seven-league boots pushing the ice from before us
+with long poles. How we got to Albany I can't say, but we got there
+somehow, just in time for a triumphal "Carol" and "Trial." All the
+tickets had been sold, and we found the Albanians in a state of great
+excitement. You may imagine what the flood was when I tell you that we
+took the passengers out of two trains that had their fires put out by
+the water four-and-twenty hours before, and cattle from trucks that had
+been in the water I don't know how long, but so long that the sheep had
+begun to eat each other! It was a horrible spectacle, and the haggard
+human misery of their faces was quite a new study. There was a fine
+breath of spring in the air concurrently with the great thaw; but lo and
+behold! last night it began to snow again with a strong wind, and to-day
+a snowdrift covers this place with all the desolation of winter once
+more. I never was so tired of the sight of snow. As to sleighing, I have
+been sleighing about to that extent, that I am sick of the sound of a
+sleigh-bell.
+
+I have seen all our Boston friends, except Curtis. Ticknor is dead. The
+rest are very little changed, except that Longfellow has a perfectly
+white flowing beard and long white hair. But he does not otherwise look
+old, and is infinitely handsomer than he was. I have been constantly
+with them all, and they have always talked much of you. It is the
+established joke that Boston is my "native place," and we hold all sorts
+of hearty foregatherings. They all come to every reading, and are always
+in a most delightful state of enthusiasm. They give me a parting dinner
+at the club, on the Thursday before Good Friday. To pass from Boston
+personal to New York theatrical, I will mention here that one of the
+proprietors of my New York hotel is one of the proprietors of Niblo's,
+and the most active. Consequently I have seen the "Black Crook" and the
+"White Fawn," in majesty, from an arm-chair in the first entrance, P.S.,
+more than once. Of these astonishing dramas, I beg to report (seriously)
+that I have found no human creature "behind" who has the slightest idea
+what they are about (upon my honour, my dearest Macready!), and that
+having some amiable small talk with a neat little Spanish woman, who is
+the _premiere danseuse_, I asked her, in joke, to let me measure her
+skirt with my dress glove. Holding the glove by the tip of the
+forefinger, I found the skirt to be just three gloves long, and yet its
+length was much in excess of the skirts of two hundred other ladies,
+whom the carpenters were at that moment getting into their places for a
+transformation scene, on revolving columns, on wires and "travellers" in
+iron cradles, up in the flies, down in the cellars, on every description
+of float that Wilmot, gone distracted, could imagine!
+
+I have taken my passage for Liverpool from New York in the Cunarder
+_Russia_, on the 22nd of April. I had the second officer's cabin on deck
+coming out, and I have the chief steward's cabin on deck going home,
+because it will be on the sunny side of the ship. I have experienced
+nothing here but good humour and cordiality. In the autumn and winter I
+have arranged with Chappells to take my farewell of reading in the
+United Kingdom for ever and ever.
+
+I am delighted to hear of Benvenuta's marriage, and I think her husband
+a very lucky man. Johnnie has my profound sympathy under his
+examinatorial woes. The noble boy will give me Gavazzi revised and
+enlarged, I expect, when I next come to Cheltenham. I will give you and
+Mrs. Macready all my American experiences when you come to London, or,
+better still, to Gad's. Meanwhile I send my hearty love to all, not
+forgetting dear Katie.
+
+Niagara is not at all spoiled by a very dizzy-looking suspension bridge.
+Is to have another still nearer to the Horse-shoe opened in July. My
+last sight of that scene (last Sunday) was thus: We went up to the
+rapids above the Horse-shoe--say two miles from it--and through the
+great cloud of spray. Everything in the magnificent valley--buildings,
+forest, high banks, air, water, everything--was _made of rainbow_.
+Turner's most imaginative drawing in his finest day has nothing in it so
+ethereal, so gorgeous in fancy, so celestial. We said to one another
+(Dolby and I), "Let it for evermore remain so," and shut our eyes and
+came away.
+
+God bless you and all dear to you, my dear old Friend!
+
+                               I am ever your affectionate and loving.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Dickens.]
+
+                                 PORTLAND, _Sunday, March 29th, 1868._
+
+I should have written to you by the last mail, but I really was too
+unwell to do it. The writing day was last Friday, when I ought to have
+left Boston for New Bedford (fifty-five miles) before eleven in the
+morning. But I was so exhausted that I could not be got up, and had to
+take my chance of an evening's train producing me in time to read, which
+it just did. With the return of snow, nine days ago, the "true American"
+(which had lulled) came back as bad as ever. I have coughed from two or
+three in the morning until five or six, and have been absolutely
+sleepless. I have had no appetite besides, and no taste. Last night here
+I took some laudanum, and it is the only thing that has done me good.
+But the life in this climate is so very hard. When I did manage to get
+from Boston to New Bedford, I read with my utmost force and vigour.
+Next morning, well or ill, I must turn out at seven to get back to
+Boston on my way here.
+
+I dine at Boston at three, and at five must come on here (a hundred and
+thirty miles or so), for to-morrow night; there being no Sunday train.
+To-morrow night I read here in a very large place, and Tuesday morning
+at six I must start again to get back to Boston once more. But after
+to-morrow night, I have only the Boston and New York farewells, thank
+God! I am most grateful to think that when we came to devise the details
+of the tour, I foresaw that it could never be done, as Dolby and Osgood
+proposed, by one unassisted man, as if he were a machine. If I had not
+cut out the work, and cut out Canada, I could never have gone there, I
+am quite sure. Even as it is, I have just now written to Dolby (who is
+in New York), to see my doctor there, and ask him to send me some
+composing medicine that I can take at night, inasmuch as without sleep I
+cannot get through. However sympathetic and devoted the people are about
+me, they _can not_ be got to comprehend that one's being able to do the
+two hours with spirit when the time comes round, may be co-existent with
+the consciousness of great depression and fatigue. I don't mind saying
+all this, now that the labour is so nearly over. You shall have a
+brighter account of me, please God, when I close this at Boston.
+
+
+                                                 _Monday, March 30th._
+
+Without any artificial aid, I got a splendid night's rest last night,
+and consequently am very much freshened up to-day. Yesterday I had a
+fine walk by the sea, and to-day I have had another on the heights
+overlooking it.
+
+
+                                              BOSTON, _Tuesday, 31st._
+
+I have safely arrived here, just in time to add a line to that effect,
+and get this off by to-morrow's English mail from New York. Catarrh
+rather better. Everything triumphant last night, except no sleep again.
+I suppose Dolby to be now on his way back to join me here. I am much
+mistaken if the political crisis do not damage the farewells by almost
+one half.
+
+I hope that I am certainly better altogether.
+
+My room well decorated with flowers, of course, and Mr. and Mrs. Fields
+coming to dinner. They are the most devoted of friends, and never in the
+way and never out of it.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Hogarth.]
+
+                                 BOSTON, _Wednesday, April 1st, 1868._
+
+I received your letter of from the 14th to the 17th of March, here, last
+night. My New York doctor has prescribed for me promptly, and I hope I
+am better. I am certainly no worse. We shall do (to the best of my
+belief) _very well_ with the farewells here and at New York, but not
+greatly. Everything is at a standstill, pending the impeachment and the
+next presidential election. I forgot whether I told you that the New
+York press are going to give me a public dinner, on Saturday, the 18th.
+
+I hear (but not from himself) that Wills has had a bad fall in hunting,
+and is, or has been, laid up. I am supposed, I take it, not to know this
+until I hear it from himself.
+
+
+_Thursday._
+
+My notion of the farewells is pretty certain now to turn out right. It
+is not at all probable that we shall do anything enormous. Every pulpit
+in Massachusetts will resound to violent politics to-day and to-night.
+You remember the Hutchinson family?[24] I have had a grateful letter
+from John Hutchinson. He speaks of "my sister Abby" as living in New
+York. The immediate object of his note is to invite me to the marriage
+of his daughter, twenty-one years of age.
+
+You will see by the evidence of this piece of paper that I am using up
+my stationery. Scott has just been making anxious calculations as to our
+powers of holding out in the articles of tooth-powder, etc. The
+calculations encourage him to believe that we shall just hold out, and
+no more. I think I am still better to-day than I was yesterday; but I am
+far from strong, and have no appetite. To see me at my little table at
+night, you would think me the freshest of the fresh. And this is the
+marvel of Fields' life.
+
+I don't forget that this is Forster's birthday.
+
+
+                                              _Friday Afternoon, 3rd._
+
+Catarrh worse than ever! And we don't know (at four) whether I can read
+to-night or must stop. Otherwise all well.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Dickens.]
+
+                                   BOSTON, _Tuesday, April 7th, 1868._
+
+I not only read last Friday, when I was doubtful of being able to do so,
+but read as I never did before, and astonished the audience quite as
+much as myself. You never saw or heard such a scene of excitement.
+
+Longfellow and all the Cambridge men urged me to give in. I have been
+very near doing so, but feel stronger to-day. I cannot tell whether the
+catarrh may have done me any lasting injury in the lungs or other
+breathing organs, until I shall have rested and got home. I hope and
+believe not. Consider the weather. There have been two snowstorms since
+I wrote last, and to-day the town is blotted out in a ceaseless whirl of
+snow and wind.
+
+I cannot eat (to anything like the ordinary extent), and have
+established this system: At seven in the morning, in bed, a tumbler of
+new cream and two tablespoonsful of rum. At twelve, a sherry cobbler and
+a biscuit. At three (dinner time), a pint of champagne. At five minutes
+to eight, an egg beaten up with a glass of sherry. Between the parts,
+the strongest beef tea that can be made, drunk hot. At a quarter-past
+ten, soup, and anything to drink that I can fancy. I don't eat more than
+half a pound of solid food in the whole four-and-twenty hours, if so
+much.
+
+If I hold out, as I hope to do, I shall be greatly pressed in leaving
+here and getting over to New York before next Saturday's mail from
+there. Do not, therefore, _if all be well_, expect to hear from me by
+Saturday's mail, but look for my last letter from America by the mail of
+the following Wednesday, the 15th. _Be sure_ that you shall hear,
+however, by Saturday's mail, if I should knock up as to reading. I am
+tremendously "beat," but I feel really and unaffectedly so much stronger
+to-day, both in my body and hopes, that I am much encouraged. I have a
+fancy that I turned my worst time last night.
+
+Dolby is as tender as a woman and as watchful as a doctor. He never
+leaves me during the reading now, but sits at the side of the platform
+and keeps his eye upon me all the time. Ditto George, the gasman,
+steadiest and most reliable man I ever employed. I am the more hopeful
+of my not having to relinquish a reading, because last night was
+"Copperfield" and "Bob"--by a quarter of an hour the longest, and, in
+consideration of the storm, by very much the most trying. Yet I was far
+fresher afterwards than I have been these three weeks.
+
+I have "Dombey" to do to-night, and must go through it carefully; so
+here ends my report. The personal affection of the people in this place
+is charming to the last.
+
+
+[Sidenote: The Hon. Mrs. Watson.]
+
+                           GAD'S HILL PLACE, _Monday, May 11th, 1868._
+
+MY DEAR MRS. WATSON,
+
+I am delighted to have your letter. It comes to me like a faithful voice
+from dear old Rockingham, and awakens many memories.
+
+The work in America has been so very hard, and the winter there has been
+so excessively severe, that I really have been very unwell for some
+months. But I had not been at sea three days on the passage home when I
+became myself again.
+
+If you will arrange with Mary Boyle any time for coming here, we shall
+be charmed to see you, and I will adapt my arrangements accordingly. I
+make this suggestion because she generally comes here early in the
+summer season. But if you will propose yourself _anyhow_, giving me a
+margin of a few days in case of my being pre-engaged for this day or
+that, we will (as my American friends say) "fix it."
+
+What with travelling, reading night after night, and speech-making day
+after day, I feel the peace of the country beyond all expression. On
+board ship coming home, a "deputation" (two in number, of whom only one
+could get into my cabin, while the other looked in at my window) came to
+ask me to read to the passengers that evening in the saloon. I
+respectfully replied that sooner than do it, I would assault the
+captain, and be put in irons.
+
+                                            Ever affectionately yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mrs. George Cattermole.]
+
+                    GAD'S HILL PLACE, HIGHAM BY ROCHESTER, KENT,
+                                           _Saturday, May 16th, 1868._
+
+MY DEAR MRS. CATTERMOLE,
+
+On my return from America just now, I accidentally heard that George had
+been ill. My sister-in-law had heard it from Forster, but vaguely. Until
+I received your letter of Wednesday's date, I had no idea that he had
+been very ill; and should have been greatly shocked by knowing it, were
+it not for the hopeful and bright assurance you give me that he is
+greatly better.
+
+My old affection for him has never cooled. The last time he dined with
+me, I asked him to come again that day ten years, for I was perfectly
+certain (this was my small joke) that I should not set eyes upon him
+sooner. The time being fully up, I hope you will remind him, with my
+love, that he is due. His hand is upon these walls here, so I should
+like him to see for himself, and _you_ to see for _yourself_, and in
+this hope I shall pursue his complete recovery.
+
+I heartily sympathise with you in your terrible anxiety, and in your
+vast relief; and, with many thanks for your letter, am ever, my dear
+Mrs. Cattermole,
+
+                                                 Affectionately yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. W. C. Macready.]
+
+                             GAD'S HILL, _Wednesday, June 10th, 1868._
+
+MY DEAREST MACREADY,
+
+Since my return from America, I have been so overwhelmed with business
+that I have not had time even to write to you. You may imagine what six
+months of arrear are to dispose of; added to this, Wills has received a
+concussion of the brain (from an accident in the hunting-field), and is
+sent away by the doctors, and strictly prohibited from even writing a
+note. Consequently all the business and money details of "All the Year
+Round" devolve upon me. And I have had to get them up, for I have never
+had experience of them. Then I am suddenly entreated to go to Paris, to
+look after the French version of "No Thoroughfare" on the stage. And I
+go, and come back, leaving it a great success.
+
+I hope Mrs. Macready and you have not abandoned the idea of coming here?
+The expression of this hope is the principal, if not the only, object of
+this present note. May the amiable secretary vouchsafe a satisfactory
+reply!
+
+Katie, Mary, and Georgina send their very best love to your Katie and
+Mrs. Macready. The undersigned is in his usual brilliant condition, and
+indeed has greatly disappointed them at home here, by coming back "so
+brown and looking so well." They expected a wreck, and were, at first,
+much mortified. But they are getting over it now.
+
+To my particular friends, the noble boy and Johnny, I beg to be warmly
+remembered.
+
+                                Ever, my dearest Macready,
+                                               Your most affectionate.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mrs. Henry Austin.]
+
+                    GAD'S HILL PLACE, HIGHAM BY ROCHESTER, KENT,
+                                           _Tuesday, July 21st, 1868._
+
+              ON THE DEATH OF MR. HENRY AUSTIN.[25]
+
+MY DEAR LETITIA,
+
+You will have had a telegram from me to-day. I received your sad news by
+this morning's post. They never, without express explanation, mind
+"Immediate" on a letter addressed to the office, because half the people
+who write there on business that does not press, or on no business at
+all, so mark their letters.
+
+On Thursday I have people to see and matters to attend to, both at the
+office and at Coutts', which, in Wills's absence, I cannot forego or
+depute to another. But, _between ourselves_, I must add something else:
+I have the greatest objection to attend a funeral in which my affections
+are not strongly and immediately concerned. I have no notion of a
+funeral as a matter of form or ceremony. And just as I should expressly
+prohibit the summoning to my own burial of anybody who was not very near
+or dear to me, so I revolt from myself appearing at that solemn rite
+unless the deceased were very near or dear to me. I cannot endure being
+dressed up by an undertaker as part of his trade show. I was not in this
+poor good fellow's house in his lifetime, and I feel that I have no
+business there when he lies dead in it. My mind is penetrated with
+sympathy and compassion for the young widow, but that feeling is a real
+thing, and my attendance as a mourner would not be--to myself. It would
+be to you, I know, but it would not be to myself. I know full well that
+you cannot delegate to me your memories of and your associations with
+the deceased, and the more true and tender they are the more invincible
+is my objection to become a form in the midst of the most awful
+realities.
+
+With love and condolence from Georgina, Mary, and Katie,
+
+                           Believe me, ever your affectionate Brother.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mrs. George Cattermole.]
+
+                             GAD'S HILL, _Wednesday, July 22nd, 1868._
+
+MY DEAR MRS. CATTERMOLE,
+
+Of course I will sign your memorial to the Academy. If you take either
+of the Landseers, certainly take Edwin (1, St. John's Wood Road, N.W.)
+But, if you would be content with Frith, I have already spoken to him,
+and believe that I can answer for him. I shall be at "All the Year
+Round" Office, 26, Wellington Street, London, to-morrow, from eleven to
+three. Frith will be here on Saturday, and I shall be here too. I spoke
+to him a fortnight ago, and I found him most earnest in the cause. He
+said he felt absolutely sure that the whole profession in its best and
+highest representation would do anything for George. I sounded him,
+having the opportunity of meeting him at dinner at Cartwright's.
+
+                                            Ever yours affectionately.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. W. H. Wills.]
+
+                                            _Friday, July 31st, 1868._
+
+MY DEAR WILLS,
+
+I had such a hard day at the office yesterday, that I had not time to
+write to you before I left. So I write to-day.
+
+I am very unwilling to abandon the Christmas number, though even in the
+case of my little Christmas books (which were immensely profitable) I
+let the idea go when I thought it was wearing out. Ever since I came
+home, I have hammered at it, more or less, and have been uneasy about
+it. I have begun something which is very droll, but it manifestly shapes
+itself towards a book, and could not in the least admit of even that
+shadowy approach to a congruous whole on the part of other contributors
+which they have ever achieved at the best. I have begun something else
+(aboard the American mail-steamer); but I don't like it, because the
+stories must come limping in after the old fashion, though, of course,
+what I _have_ done will be good for A. Y. R. In short, I have cast about
+with the greatest pains and patience, and I have been wholly unable to
+find what I want.
+
+And yet I cannot quite make up my mind to give in without another fight
+for it. I offered one hundred pounds reward at Gad's to anybody who
+could suggest a notion to satisfy me. Charles Collins suggested one
+yesterday morning, in which there is _something_, though not much. I
+will turn it over and over, and try a few more starts on my own account.
+Finally, I swear I will not give it up until August is out. Vow
+registered.
+
+I am clear that a number by "various writers" would not do. If we have
+not the usual sort of number, we must call the current number for that
+date the Christmas number, and make it as good as possible.
+
+I sit in the Chalet,[26] like Mariana in the Moated Grange, and to as
+much purpose.
+
+I am buying the freehold of the meadow at Gad's, and of an adjoining
+arable field, so that I shall now have about eight-and-twenty freehold
+acres in a ring-fence. No more now.
+
+I made up a very good number yesterday. You will see in it a very short
+article that I have called "Now!" which is a highly remarkable piece of
+description. It is done by a new man, from whom I have accepted another
+article; but he will never do anything so good again.
+
+                                                  Ever affectionately.
+
+
+[Sidenote: M. de Cerjat.]
+
+                    GAD'S HILL PLACE, HIGHAM BY ROCHESTER, KENT,
+                                         _Wednesday, Aug. 26th, 1868._
+
+MY DEAR CERJAT,
+
+I was happy to receive your esteemed letter a few days ago.
+
+The severity of the winter in America (which was quite exceptional even
+in that rigorous climate), combined with the hard work I had to do,
+tried me a good deal. Neuralgia and colds beset me, either by turns or
+both together, and I had often much to do to get through at night. But
+the sea voyage home again did wonders in restoring me, and I have been
+very well indeed, though a little fatigued, ever since. I am now
+preparing for a final reading campaign in England, Scotland, and
+Ireland. It will begin on the 6th of October, and will probably last,
+with short occasional intermissions, until June.
+
+The great subject in England for the moment is the horrible accident to
+the Irish mail-train. It is now supposed that the petroleum (known to be
+a powerful anaesthetic) rendered the unfortunate people who were burnt
+almost instantly insensible to any sensation. My escape in the
+Staplehurst accident of three years ago is not to be obliterated from my
+nervous system. To this hour I have sudden vague rushes of terror, even
+when riding in a hansom cab, which are perfectly unreasonable but quite
+insurmountable. I used to make nothing of driving a pair of horses
+habitually through the most crowded parts of London. I cannot now drive,
+with comfort to myself, on the country roads here; and I doubt if I
+could ride at all in the saddle. My reading secretary and companion
+knows so well when one of these odd momentary seizures comes upon me in
+a railway carriage, that he instantly produces a dram of brandy, which
+rallies the blood to the heart and generally prevails. I forget whether
+I ever told you that my watch (a chronometer) has never gone exactly
+since the accident? So the Irish catastrophe naturally revives the
+dreadful things I saw that day.
+
+The only other news here you know as well as I; to wit, that the country
+is going to be ruined, and that the Church is going to be ruined, and
+that both have become so used to being ruined, that they will go on
+perfectly well.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Dickens.]
+
+     OFFICE OF "ALL THE YEAR ROUND," NO. 26, WELLINGTON STREET,
+                                  STRAND, LONDON, W.C.,
+                                         _Saturday, Sept. 26th, 1868._
+
+MY DEAREST MAMIE,
+
+I will add a line to this at the Athenaeum, after seeing Plorn off, to
+tell you how he went away.
+
+
+                                           ATHENAEUM, _Quarter to Six._
+
+I can honestly report that he went away, poor dear fellow, as well as
+could possibly be expected. He was pale, and had been crying, and (Harry
+said) had broken down in the railway carriage after leaving Higham
+station; but only for a short time.
+
+Just before the train started he cried a good deal, but not painfully.
+(Tell dear Georgy that I bought him his cigars.) These are hard, hard
+things, but they might have to be done without means or influence, and
+then they would be far harder. God bless him!
+
+
+        PARLIAMENT. REPLY TO A PROPOSAL MADE THROUGH
+        ALEXANDER RUSSEL, OF "THE SCOTSMAN," THAT HE
+        SHOULD ALLOW HIMSELF TO BE PUT FORWARD AS A
+        CANDIDATE FOR THE REPRESENTATION OF EDINBURGH.
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. F. D. Finlay.]
+
+                    GAD'S HILL PLACE, HIGHAM BY ROCHESTER, KENT,
+                                             _Sunday, Oct. 4th, 1868._
+
+MY DEAR FINLAY,
+
+I am much obliged to you in all friendship and sincerity for your
+letter. I have a great respect for your father-in-law and his paper, and
+I am much attached to the Edinburgh people. You may suppose, therefore,
+that if my mind were not fully made up on the parliamentary question, I
+should waver now.
+
+But my conviction that I am more useful and more happy as I am than I
+could ever be in Parliament is not to be shaken. I considered it some
+weeks ago, when I had a stirring proposal from the Birmingham people,
+and I then set it up on a rock for ever and a day.
+
+Do tell Mr. Russel that I truly feel this mark of confidence, and that I
+hope to acknowledge it in person in Edinburgh before Christmas. There is
+no man in Scotland from whom I should consider his suggestion a greater
+honour.
+
+                                                           Ever yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: M. Charles Fechter.]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Poor Plorn is gone to Australia. It was a hard parting at the last. He
+seemed to me to become once more my youngest and favourite little child
+as the day drew near, and I did not think I could have been so shaken.
+You were his idol to the hour of his departure, and he asked me to tell
+you how much he wanted to bid you good-bye.
+
+Kindest love from all.
+
+                                                        Ever heartily.
+
+
+[Sidenote: The same.]
+
+                                  OFFICE OF "ALL THE YEAR ROUND,"
+                                          _Wednesday, Oct. 7th, 1868._
+
+MY DEAR FECHTER,
+
+I got your letter sent to Gad's Hill this morning. Until I received it,
+I supposed the piece to have been put into English from your French by
+young Ben. If I understand that the English is yours, then I say that it
+is extraordinarily good, written by one in another country.
+
+I do not read again in London until the 20th; and then "Copperfield."
+But by that time you will be at work yourself.
+
+Let us dine at six to-day, in order that we may not have to hurry for
+the comic dog.
+
+                                                      Ever faithfully.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Hogarth.]
+
+                 QUEEN'S HOTEL, MANCHESTER, _Sunday, Oct. 11th, 1868._
+
+MY DEAREST GEORGY,
+
+We had a fine audience last night in the Free Trade Hall, though not
+what we consider a large money-house. The let in Liverpool is extremely
+good, and we are going over there at half-past one. We got down here
+pleasantly enough and in good time; so all has gone well you see.
+
+Titiens, Santley, and an opera company of that class are at the theatre
+here. They have been doing very poorly in Manchester.
+
+There is the whole of my scanty news. I was in wonderful voice last
+night, but croak a little this morning, after so much speaking in so
+very large a place. Otherwise I am all right. I find myself constantly
+thinking of Plorn.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Dickens.]
+
+                  ADELPHI HOTEL, LIVERPOOL, _Monday, Oct. 12th, 1868._
+
+MY DEAREST MAMIE,
+
+Our lets here are excellent, and we shall have a great house to-night.
+We had a very fine and enthusiastic audience in the Free Trade Hall, at
+Manchester, on Saturday; but our first nights there never count up in
+money, as the rest do. Yesterday, "Charlotte," Sainton, and Piatti
+stayed with us here; and they went on to Hull this morning. It was
+pleasant to be alone again, though they were all very agreeable.
+
+The exertion of going on for two hours in that immense place at
+Manchester being very great, I was hoarse all day yesterday, though I
+was not much distressed on Saturday night. I am becoming melodious again
+(at three in the afternoon) rapidly, and count on being quite restored
+by a basin of turtle at dinner.
+
+I am glad to hear about Armatage, and hope that a service begun in a
+personal attachment to Plorn may go on well. I shall never be
+over-confident in such matters, I think, any more.
+
+The day is delicious here. We have had a blow on the Mersey this
+morning, and exulted over the American steamers. With kind regard to Sir
+William and Lady Humphery.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Hogarth.]
+
+                 ADELPHI HOTEL, LIVERPOOL, _Tuesday, Oct. 13th, 1868._
+
+As I sent a line to Mary yesterday, I enclose you Alfred's letter.
+Please send it on to her when you next write to Penton.
+
+I have just now written to Mrs. Forster, asking her to explain to Miss
+Forster how she could have an easy-chair or a sofa behind my side screen
+on Tuesday, without occasioning the smallest inconvenience to anybody.
+Also, how she would have a door close at hand, leading at once to cool
+passages and a quiet room, etc. etc. etc. It is a sad story.
+
+We had a fine house here last night, and a large turn-away. "Marigold"
+and "Trial" went immensely. I doubt if "Marigold" were ever more
+enthusiastically received. "Copperfield" and "Bob" to-night, and a large
+let. This notwithstanding election meetings and all sorts of things.
+
+My favourite room brought my voice round last night, and I am in
+considerable force.
+
+Dolby sends kindest regard, and the message: "Everton toffee shall not
+be forgotten."
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. Henry Fielding Dickens.]
+
+                ADELPHI HOTEL, LIVERPOOL, _Thursday, Oct. 15th, 1868._
+
+MY DEAR HARRY,
+
+I have your letter here this morning. I enclose you another cheque for
+twenty-five pounds, and I write to London by this post, ordering three
+dozen sherry, two dozen port, and three dozen light claret, to be sent
+down to you.
+
+Now, observe attentively. We must have no shadow of debt. Square up
+everything whatsoever that it has been necessary to buy. Let not a
+farthing be outstanding on any account, when we begin together with your
+allowance. Be particular in the minutest detail.
+
+I wish to have no secret from you in the relations we are to establish
+together, and I therefore send you Joe Chitty's letter bodily. Reading
+it, you will know exactly what I know, and will understand that I treat
+you with perfect confidence. It appears to me that an allowance of two
+hundred and fifty pounds a year will be handsome for all your wants, if
+I send you your wines. I mean this to include your tailor's bills as
+well as every other expense; and I strongly recommend you to buy nothing
+in Cambridge, and to take credit for nothing but the clothes with which
+your tailor provides you. As soon as you have got your furniture
+accounts in, let us wipe all those preliminary expenses clean out, and I
+will then send you your first quarter. We will count in it October,
+November, and December; and your second quarter will begin with the New
+Year. If you dislike, at first, taking charge of so large a sum as
+sixty-two pounds ten shillings, you can have your money from me
+half-quarterly.
+
+You know how hard I work for what I get, and I think you know that I
+never had money help from any human creature after I was a child. You
+know that you are one of many heavy charges on me, and that I trust to
+your so exercising your abilities and improving the advantages of your
+past expensive education, as soon to diminish _this_ charge. I say no
+more on that head.
+
+Whatever you do, above all other things keep out of debt and confide in
+me. If you ever find yourself on the verge of any perplexity or
+difficulty, come to me. You will never find me hard with you while you
+are manly and truthful.
+
+As your brothers have gone away one by one, I have written to each of
+them what I am now going to write to you. You know that you have never
+been hampered with religious forms of restraint, and that with mere
+unmeaning forms I have no sympathy. But I most strongly and
+affectionately impress upon you the priceless value of the New
+Testament, and the study of that book as the one unfailing guide in
+life. Deeply respecting it, and bowing down before the character of our
+Saviour, as separated from the vain constructions and inventions of men,
+you cannot go very wrong, and will always preserve at heart a true
+spirit of veneration and humility. Similarly I impress upon you the
+habit of saying a Christian prayer every night and morning. These things
+have stood by me all through my life, and remember that I tried to
+render the New Testament intelligible to you and lovable by you when you
+were a mere baby.
+
+And so God bless you.
+
+                                        Ever your affectionate Father.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. William Charles Kent.]
+
+                                  OFFICE OF "ALL THE YEAR ROUND,"
+                                            _Monday, Nov. 16th, 1868._
+
+MY DEAR KENT,
+
+I was on the eve of writing to you.
+
+We thought of keeping the trial private; but Oxenford has suggested to
+Chappell that he would like to take the opportunity of to-morrow night's
+reading, of saying something about "Oliver" in _Wednesday's paper_.
+Chappell has told Levy of this, and also Mr. Tompkin, of _The Post_,
+who was there. Consequently, on Wednesday evening your charming article
+can come out to the best advantage.
+
+You have no idea of the difficulty of getting in the end of Sikes. As to
+the man with the invaluable composition! my dear fellow, believe me, no
+audience on earth could be held for ten minutes after the girl's death.
+Give them time, and they would be revengeful for having had such a
+strain put upon them. Trust me to be right. I stand there, and I know.
+
+Concerning Harry, I like to guide the boys to a distinct choice, rather
+than to press it on them. That will be my course as to the Middle
+Temple, of which I think as you do.
+
+With cordial thanks for every word in your letter,
+
+                                          Affectionately yours always.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mrs. F. Lehmann.]
+
+                 KENNEDY'S HOTEL, EDINBURGH, _Sunday, Dec. 6th, 1868._
+
+MY DEAR MRS. LEHMANN,
+
+I hope you will see Nancy with the light of a great audience upon her
+some time between this and May; always supposing that she should not
+prove too weird and woeful for the general public.
+
+You know the aspect of this city on a Sunday, and how gay and bright it
+is. The merry music of the blithe bells, the waving flags, the
+prettily-decorated houses with their draperies of various colours, and
+the radiant countenances at the windows and in the streets, how charming
+they are! The usual preparations are making for the band in the open
+air, in the afternoon; and the usual pretty children (selected for that
+purpose) are at this moment hanging garlands round the Scott monument,
+preparatory to the innocent Sunday dance round that edifice, with which
+the diversions invariably close. It is pleasant to think that these
+customs were themselves of the early Christians, those early birds who
+_didn't_ catch the worm--and nothing else--and choke their young with
+it.
+
+                                              Faithfully yours always.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Hogarth.]
+
+                 KENNEDY'S HOTEL, EDINBURGH, _Sunday, Dec. 6th, 1868._
+
+We got down here to our time to the moment; and, considering the length
+of the journey, very easily. I made a calculation on the road, that the
+railway travelling over such a distance involves something more than
+thirty thousand shocks to the nerves. Dolby didn't like it at all.
+
+The signals for a gale were up at Berwick, and along the road between
+there and here. It came on just as we arrived, and blew tremendously
+hard all night. The wind is still very high, though the sky is bright
+and the sun shining. We couldn't sleep for the noise.
+
+We are very comfortably quartered. I fancy that the "business" will be
+on the whole better here than in Glasgow, where trade is said to be very
+bad. But I think I shall be pretty correct in both places as to the run
+being on the final readings.
+
+We are going up Arthur's Seat presently, which will be a pull for our
+fat friend.
+
+Scott, in a new Mephistopheles hat, baffles imagination and description.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. W. Wilkie Collins.]
+
+                KENNEDY'S HOTEL, EDINBURGH, _Tuesday, Dec. 8th, 1868._
+
+MY DEAR WILKIE,
+
+I am hard at it here as usual, though with an audience so finely
+perceptive that the labour is much diminished. I have got together in a
+very short space the conclusion of "Oliver Twist" that you suggested,
+and am trying it daily with the object of rising from that blank state
+of horror into a fierce and passionate rush for the end. As yet I cannot
+make a certain effect of it; but when I shall have gone over it as many
+score of times as over the rest of that reading, perhaps I may strike
+one out.
+
+I shall be very glad to hear when you have done your play, and I _am_
+glad to hear that you like the steamer. I agree with you about the
+reading perfectly. In No. 3 you will see an exact account of some places
+I visited at Ratcliffe. There are two little instances in it of
+something comic rising up in the midst of the direst misery, that struck
+me very humorously at the time.
+
+As I have determined not to do the "Oliver Murder" until after the 5th
+of January, when I shall ascertain its effect on a great audience, it is
+curious to notice how the shadow of its coming affects the Scotch mind.
+There was such a disposition to hold back for it here (until I return to
+finish in February) that we had next to no "let" when we arrived. It all
+came with a rush yesterday. They gave me a most magnificent welcome back
+from America last night.
+
+I am perpetually counting the weeks before me to be "read" through, and
+am perpetually longing for the end of them; and yet I sometimes wonder
+whether I shall miss something when they are over.
+
+It is a very, very bad day here, very dark and very wet. Dolby is over
+at Glasgow, and I am sitting at a side window looking up the length of
+Prince's Street, watching the mist change over the Castle and murdering
+Nancy by turns.
+
+                                                  Ever affectionately.
+
+P.S.--I have read the whole of Fitzgerald's "Zero," and the idea is
+exceedingly well wrought out.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Hogarth.]
+
+              KENNEDY'S HOTEL, EDINBURGH, _Saturday, Dec. 12th, 1868._
+
+I send another _Scotsman_ by this post, because it is really a good
+newspaper, well written, and well managed. We had an immense house here
+last night, and a very large turn-away.
+
+We have four guests to dinner to-day: Peter Fraser, Ballantyne, John
+Blackwood, and Mr. Russel. Immense preparations are making in the
+establishment, "on account," Mr. Kennedy says, "of a' four yon chiels
+being chiels wha' ken a guid dinner." I enquired after poor Doctor Burt,
+not having the least idea that he was dead.
+
+My voice holds out splendidly so far, and I have had no return of the
+American. But I sleep very indifferently indeed.
+
+It blew appallingly here the night before last, but the wind has since
+shifted northward, and it is now bright and cold. The _Star of Hope_,
+that picked up those shipwrecked people in the boat, came into Leith
+yesterday, and was received with tremendous cheers. Her captain must be
+a good man and a noble fellow.
+
+
+[Sidenote: The same.]
+
+                KENNEDY'S HOTEL, EDINBURGH, _Monday, Dec. 14th, 1868._
+
+The dinner-party of Saturday last was an immense success. Russel swore
+on the occasion that he would go over to Belfast expressly to dine with
+me at the Finlays'. Ballantyne informed me that he was going to send you
+some Scotch remembrance (I don't know what) at Christmas!
+
+The Edinburgh houses are very fine. The Glasgow room is a big wandering
+place, with five prices in it, which makes it the more aggravating, as
+the people get into knots which they can't break, as if they were afraid
+of one another.
+
+Forgery of my name is becoming popular. You sent me, this morning, a
+letter from Russell Sturgis, answering a supposed letter of mine
+(presented by "Miss Jefferies"), and assuring me of his readiness to
+give not only the ten pounds I asked for, but any contribution I wanted,
+towards sending that lady and her family back to Boston.
+
+I wish you would take an opportunity of forewarning Lady Tennent that
+the first night's reading she will attend is an experiment quite out of
+the way, and that she may find it rather horrible.
+
+The keeper of the Edinburgh Hall, a fine old soldier, presented me, on
+Friday night, with the finest red camellia for my button-hole that ever
+was seen. Nobody can imagine how he came by it, as the florists had had
+a considerable demand for that colour from ladies in the stalls, and
+could get no such thing.
+
+The day is dark, wet, and windy. The weather is likely to be vile indeed
+at Glasgow, where it always rains, and where the sun is never seen
+through the smoke. We go over there to-morrow at ten.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Dickens.]
+
+                                 CARRICK'S ROYAL HOTEL, GLASGOW,
+                                           _Tuesday, Dec. 15th, 1868._
+
+It occurs to me that my table at St. James's Hall might be appropriately
+ornamented with a little holly next Tuesday. If the two front legs were
+entwined with it, for instance, and a border of it ran round the top of
+the fringe in front, with a little sprig by way of bouquet at each
+corner, it would present a seasonable appearance.
+
+If you will think of this, and will have the materials ready in a little
+basket, I will call for you at the office at half-past twelve on
+Tuesday, and take you up to the hall, where the table will be ready for
+you.
+
+No news, except that we had a great crush and a wonderful audience in
+Edinburgh last night.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Hogarth.]
+
+                                 CARRICK'S ROYAL HOTEL, GLASGOW,
+                                         _Wednesday, Dec. 16th, 1868._
+
+This is to report all well, except that I have wretched nights. The
+weather is diabolical here, and times are very bad. I cut "Copperfield"
+with a bold dexterity that amazed myself and utterly confounded George
+at the wing; knocking off that and "Bob" by ten minutes to ten.
+
+I don't know anything about the Liverpool banquet, except from _The
+Times_. As I don't finish there in February (as they seem to have
+supposed), but in April, it may, perhaps, stand over or blow over
+altogether. Such a thing would be a serious addition to the work, and
+yet refusal on my part would be too ungracious.
+
+The density and darkness of this atmosphere are fearful. I shall be
+heartily glad to start for Edinburgh again on Friday morning.
+
+
+[Sidenote: The same.]
+
+                KENNEDY'S HOTEL, EDINBURGH, _Friday, Dec. 18th, 1868._
+
+I am heartily glad to get back here this afternoon. The day is bright
+and cheerful, and the relief from Glasgow inexpressible. The
+affectionate regard of the people exceeds all bounds, and is shown in
+every way. The manager of the railway being at the reading the other
+night, wrote to me next morning, saying that a large saloon should be
+prepared for my journey up, if I would let him know when I purposed
+making the journey. On my accepting the offer he wrote again, saying
+that he had inspected "our Northern saloons," and not finding them so
+convenient for sleeping in as the best English, had sent up to King's
+Cross for the best of the latter; which I would please consider my own
+carriage as long as I wanted it. The audiences do everything but
+embrace me, and take as much pains with the readings as I do.
+
+I find your Christmas present (just arrived) to be a haggis and
+shortbread!
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. J. C. Parkinson.]
+
+                    GAD'S HILL PLACE, HIGHAM BY ROCHESTER, KENT,
+                                                _Christmas Day, 1868._
+
+MY DEAR PARKINSON,
+
+When your letter was delivered at "All the Year Round" Office yesterday,
+I was attending a funeral. It comes to hand here consequently to-day.
+
+I am diffident of addressing Mr. Gladstone on the subject of your desire
+to be appointed to the vacant Commissionership of Inland Revenue,
+because, although my respect for him and confidence in him are second to
+those of no man in England (a bold word at this time, but a truthful
+one), my personal acquaintance with him is very slight. But you may
+make, through any of your friends, any use you please of this letter,
+towards the end of bringing its contents under Mr. Gladstone's notice.
+
+In expressing my conviction that you deserve the place, and are in every
+way qualified for it, I found my testimony upon as accurate a knowledge
+of your character and abilities as anyone can possibly have acquired. In
+my editorship both of "Household Words" and "All the Year Round," you
+know very well that I have invariably offered you those subjects of
+political and social interest to write upon, in which integrity,
+exactness, a remarkable power of generalising evidence and balancing
+facts, and a special clearness in stating the case, were indispensable
+on the part of the writer. My confidence in your powers has never been
+misplaced, and through all our literary intercourse you have never been
+hasty or wrong. Whatever trust you have undertaken has been so
+completely discharged, that it has become my habit to read your proofs
+rather for my own edification than (as in other cases) for the detection
+of some slip here or there, or the more pithy presentation of the
+subject.
+
+That your literary work has never interfered with the discharge of your
+official duties, I may assume to be at least as well known to your
+colleagues as it is to me. It is idle to say that if the post were in my
+gift you should have it, because you have had, for some years, most of
+the posts of high trust that have been at my disposal. An excellent
+public servant in your literary sphere of action, I should be heartily
+glad if you could have this new opportunity of distinguishing yourself
+in the same character. And this is at least unselfish in me, for I
+suppose I should then lose you?
+
+                                              Always faithfully yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. Edward Bulwer Lytton Dickens.]
+
+          LETTER TO HIS YOUNGEST SON ON HIS DEPARTURE FOR
+                       AUSTRALIA IN 1868.[27]
+
+MY DEAREST PLORN,
+
+I write this note to-day because your going away is much upon my mind,
+and because I want you to have a few parting words from me to think of
+now and then at quiet times. I need not tell you that I love you dearly,
+and am very, very sorry in my heart to part with you. But this life is
+half made up of partings, and these pains must be borne. It is my
+comfort and my sincere conviction that you are going to try the life for
+which you are beat fitted. I think its freedom and wildness more suited
+to you than any experiment in a study or office would ever have been;
+and without that training, you could have followed no other suitable
+occupation.
+
+What you have already wanted until now has been a set, steady, constant
+purpose. I therefore exhort you to persevere in a thorough determination
+to do whatever you have to do as well as you can do it. I was not so old
+as you are now when I first had to win my food, and do this out of this
+determination, and I have never slackened in it since.
+
+Never take a mean advantage of anyone in any transaction, and never be
+hard upon people who are in your power. Try to do to others, as you
+would have them do to you, and do not be discouraged if they fail
+sometimes. It is much better for you that they should fail in obeying
+the greatest rule laid down by our Saviour, than that you should.
+
+I put a New Testament among your books, for the very same reasons, and
+with the very same hopes that made me write an easy account of it for
+you, when you were a little child; because it is the best book that ever
+was or will be known in the world, and because it teaches you the best
+lessons by which any human creature who tries to be truthful and
+faithful to duty can possibly be guided. As your brothers have gone
+away, one by one, I have written to each such words as I am now writing
+to you, and have entreated them all to guide themselves by this book,
+putting aside the interpretations and inventions of men.
+
+You will remember that you have never at home been wearied about
+religious observances or mere formalities. I have always been anxious
+not to weary my children with such things before they are old enough to
+form opinions respecting them. You will therefore understand the better
+that I now most solemnly impress upon you the truth and beauty of the
+Christian religion, as it came from Christ Himself, and the
+impossibility of your going far wrong if you humbly but heartily respect
+it.
+
+Only one thing more on this head. The more we are in earnest as to
+feeling it, the less we are disposed to hold forth about it. Never
+abandon the wholesome practice of saying your own private prayers, night
+and morning. I have never abandoned it myself, and I know the comfort of
+it.
+
+I hope you will always be able to say in after life, that you had a kind
+father. You cannot show your affection for him so well, or make him so
+happy, as by doing your duty.
+
+                                             Your affectionate Father.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[20] The Agricultural College, Cirencester.
+
+[21] "No Thoroughfare."
+
+[22] The Mr. H. F. Chorley so often mentioned was the well-known musical
+critic, and a dear and intimate friend of Charles Dickens and his
+family. We have no letters to him, Mr. Chorley having destroyed all his
+correspondence before his death.
+
+[23] Mr. Chauncey Hare Townshend. He was one of the dearest friends of
+Charles Dickens and a very constant correspondent; but no letters
+addressed to him are in existence.
+
+[24] An American family of brothers and a sister who came to London to
+give a musical entertainment shortly after Charles Dickens's return from
+his first visit to America. He had a great interest in, and liking for,
+these young people.
+
+[25] Cousin and adopted child of Mr. and Mrs. Austin.
+
+[26] A model of a Swiss chalet, and a present from M. Charles Fechter,
+used by Charles Dickens as a summer writing-room.
+
+[27] This letter has been already published by Mr. Forster in his
+"Life."
+
+
+
+
+1869.
+
+NARRATIVE.
+
+
+The "Farewell Readings" in town and country were resumed immediately
+after the beginning of this year, and were to have been continued until
+the end of May. The work was even harder than it had ever been. Charles
+Dickens began his country tour in Ireland early in January, and read
+continuously in all parts of England and Scotland until the end of
+April. A public dinner (in commemoration of his last readings in the
+town) was given to him at Liverpool on the 10th April. Besides all this
+severe country work, he was giving a series of readings at St. James's
+Hall, and reading the "Murder" from "Oliver Twist," in London and in the
+country, frequently four times a week. In the second week of February, a
+sudden and unusually violent attack of the old trouble in his foot made
+it imperatively necessary to postpone a reading at St. James's Hall, and
+to delay for a day or two his departure for Scotland. The foot continued
+to cause him pain and inconvenience, but, as will be seen from his
+letters, he generally spoke of himself as otherwise well, until he
+arrived at Preston, where he was to read on the 22nd of April. The day
+before this appointed reading, he writes home of some grave symptoms
+which he had observed in himself, and had reported to his doctor, Mr. F.
+Carr Beard. That gentleman, taking alarm at what he considered
+"indisputable evidences of overwork," wisely resolved not to content
+himself with written consultations, but went down to Preston on the day
+appointed for the reading there, and, after seeing his patient,
+peremptorily stopped it, carried him off to Liverpool, and the next day
+to London. There he consulted Sir Thomas Watson, who entirely
+corroborated Mr. Beard's opinion. And the two doctors agreed that the
+course of readings must be stopped for this year, and that reading,
+_combined with travelling_, must be stopped _for ever_. Charles Dickens
+had no alternative but to acquiesce in this verdict; but he felt it
+keenly, not only for himself, but for the sake of the Messrs. Chappell,
+who showed the most disinterested kindness and solicitude on the
+occasion. He at once returned home to Gad's Hill, and the rest and quiet
+of the country restored him, for the time, to almost his usual condition
+of health and spirits. But it was observed, by all who loved him, that
+from this time forth he never regained his old vigour and elasticity.
+The attack at Preston was the "beginning of the end!"
+
+During the spring and summer of this year, he received visits from many
+dearly valued American friends. In May, he stayed with his daughter and
+sister-in-law for two or three weeks at the St. James's Hotel,
+Piccadilly, having promised to be in London at the time of the arrival
+of Mr. and Mrs. Fields, of Boston, who visited Europe, accompanied by
+Miss Mabel Lowell (the daughter of the famous American poet) this year.
+Besides these friends, Mr. and Mrs. Childs, of Philadelphia--from whom
+he had received the greatest kindness and hospitality, and for whom he
+had a hearty regard--Dr. Fordyce Barker and his son, Mr. Eytinge (an
+illustrator of an American edition of Charles Dickens's works), and Mr.
+Bayard Taylor paid visits to Gad's Hill, which were thoroughly enjoyed
+by Charles Dickens and his family. This last summer was a very happy
+one. He had the annual summer visitors and parties of his friends in the
+neighbourhood. He was, as usual, projecting improvements in his beloved
+country home; one, which he called the "crowning improvement of all,"
+was a large conservatory, which was to be added during the absence of
+the family in London in the following spring.
+
+The state of Mr. Wills's health made it necessary for him now to retire
+altogether from the editorship of "All the Year Round." Charles
+Dickens's own letters express the regret which he felt at the
+dissolution of this long and always pleasant association. Mr. Wills's
+place at the office was filled by Charles Dickens's eldest son, now sole
+editor and proprietor of the journal.
+
+In September Charles Dickens went to Birmingham, accompanied by his son
+Harry, and presided at the opening of the session of (what he calls in
+his letter to Mr. Arthur Ryland, "_our_ Institution") the Midland
+Institute. He made a speech on education to the young students, and
+promised to go back early in the following year and distribute the
+prizes. In one of the letters which we give to Mr. Ryland, he speaks of
+himself as "being in full force again," and "going to finish his
+farewell readings soon after Christmas." He had obtained the sanction of
+Sir Thomas Watson to giving twelve readings, _in London only_, which he
+had fixed for the beginning of the following year.
+
+The letter to his friend Mr. Finlay, which opens the year, was in reply
+to a proposal for a public banquet at Belfast, projected by the Mayor of
+that town, and conveyed through Mr. Finlay. This gentleman was at that
+time proprietor of _The Northern Whig_ newspaper at Belfast, and he was
+son-in-law to Mr. Alexander Russel, editor of _The Scotsman_.
+
+Charles Dickens's letter this New Year to M. de Cerjat was his last.
+That faithful and affectionate friend died very shortly afterwards.
+
+To Miss Mary Boyle he writes to acknowledge a New Year's gift, which he
+had been much touched by receiving from her, at a time when he knew she
+was deeply afflicted by the sudden death of her brother, Captain
+Cavendish Boyle, for whom Charles Dickens had a true regard and
+friendship.
+
+While he was giving his series of London readings in the spring, he
+received a numerously signed circular letter from actors and actresses
+of the various London theatres. They were very curious about his new
+reading of the "Oliver Twist" murder, and representing to him the
+impossibility of their attending an evening, requested him to give a
+morning reading, for their especial benefit. We give his answer,
+complying with the request. And the occasion was, to him, a most
+gratifying and deeply interesting one.
+
+The letter to Mr. Edmund Ollier was in answer to an invitation to be
+present at the inauguration of a bust of Mr. Leigh Hunt, which was to be
+placed over his grave at Kensal Green.
+
+The letter to Mr. Shirley Brooks, the well-known writer, who succeeded
+Mr. Mark Lemon as editor of "Punch," and for whom Charles Dickens had a
+cordial regard, was on the subject of a memorial on behalf of Mrs. Peter
+Cunningham, whose husband had recently died.
+
+The "remarkable story," of which he writes to his daughter in August,
+was called "An Experience." It was written by a lady (who prefers to be
+anonymous) who had been a contributor to "Household Words" from its
+first starting, and was always highly valued in this capacity by Charles
+Dickens.
+
+Our latest letters for this year are in October. One to Mr. Charles
+Kent, sympathising with him on a disappointment which he had experienced
+in a business undertaking, and one to Mr. Macready, in which he tells
+him of his being in the "preliminary agonies" of a new book. The first
+number of "Edwin Drood" was to appear before the end of his course of
+readings in March; and he was at work so long beforehand with a view to
+sparing himself, and having some numbers ready before the publication of
+the first one.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. F. D. Finlay.]
+
+                          THE ATHENAEUM (CLUB), _New Year's Day, 1869._
+
+MY DEAR FINLAY,
+
+First my heartfelt wishes for many prosperous and happy years. Next, as
+to the mayor's kind intentions. I feel really grateful to him and
+gratified by the whole idea, but acceptance of the distinction on my
+part would be impracticable. My time in Ireland is all anticipated, and
+I could not possibly prolong my stay, because I _must_ be back in London
+to read on Tuesday fortnight, and then must immediately set forth for
+the West of England. It is not likely, besides, that I shall get through
+these farewells before the end of May. And the work is so hard, and my
+voice is so precious, that I fear to add an ounce to the fatigue, or I
+might be overweighted. The avoidance of gas and crowds when I am not in
+the act of being cooked before those lights of mine, is an essential
+part of the training to which (as I think you know) I strictly adhere,
+and although I have accepted the Liverpool invitation, I have done so as
+an exception; the Liverpool people having always treated me in our
+public relations with a kind of personal affection.
+
+I am sincerely anxious that the Mayor of Belfast should know how the
+case stands with me. If you will kindly set me straight and right, I
+shall be truly obliged to you.
+
+My sister-in-law has been very unwell (though she is now much better),
+and is recommended a brisk change. As she is a good sailor, I mean to
+bring her to Ireland with me; at which she is highly delighted.
+
+                                                Faithfully yours ever.
+
+
+[Sidenote: M. de Cerjat.]
+
+                    GAD'S HILL PLACE, HIGHAM BY ROCHESTER, KENT,
+                                             _Monday, Jan. 4th, 1869._
+
+MY DEAR CERJAT,
+
+I will answer your question first. Have I done with my farewell
+readings? Lord bless you, no; and I shall think myself well out of it if
+I get done by the end of May. I have undertaken one hundred and six, and
+have as yet only vanquished twenty-eight. To-morrow night I read in
+London for the first time the "Murder" from "Oliver Twist," which I have
+re-arranged for the purpose. Next day I start for Dublin and Belfast. I
+am just back from Scotland for a few Christmas holidays. I go back there
+next month; and in the meantime and afterwards go everywhere else.
+
+Take my guarantee for it, you may be quite comfortable on the subject of
+papal aspirations and encroachments. The English people are in
+unconquerable opposition to that church. They have the animosity in the
+blood, derived from the history of the past, though perhaps
+unconsciously. But they do sincerely want to win Ireland over if they
+can. They know that since the Union she has been hardly used. They know
+that Scotland has _her_ religion, and a very uncomfortable one. They
+know that Scotland, though intensely anti-papal, perceives it to be
+unjust that Ireland has not _her_ religion too, and has very
+emphatically declared her opinion in the late elections. They know that
+a richly-endowed church, forced upon a people who don't belong to it, is
+a grievance with these people. They know that many things, but
+especially an artfully and schemingly managed institution like the
+Romish Church, thrive upon a grievance, and that Rome has thriven
+exceedingly upon this, and made the most of it. Lastly, the best among
+them know that there is a gathering cloud in the West, considerably
+bigger than a man's hand, under which a powerful Irish-American body,
+rich and active, is always drawing Ireland in that direction; and that
+these are not times in which other powers would back our holding Ireland
+by force, unless we could make our claim good in proving fair and equal
+government.
+
+Poor Townshend charged me in his will "to publish without alteration his
+religious opinions, which he sincerely believed would tend to the
+happiness of mankind." To publish them without alteration is absolutely
+impossible; for they are distributed in the strangest fragments through
+the strangest note-books, pocket-books, slips of paper and what not, and
+produce a most incoherent and tautological result. I infer that he must
+have held some always-postponed idea of fitting them together. For these
+reasons I would certainly publish nothing about them, if I had any
+discretion in the matter. Having none, I suppose a book must be made.
+His pictures and rings are gone to the South Kensington Museum, and are
+now exhibiting there.
+
+Charley Collins is no better and no worse. Katie looks very young and
+very pretty. Her sister and Miss Hogarth (my joint housekeepers) have
+been on duty this Christmas, and have had enough to do. My boys are now
+all dispersed in South America, India, and Australia, except Charley,
+whom I have taken on at "All the Year Round" Office, and Henry, who is
+an undergraduate at Trinity Hall, and I hope will make his mark there.
+All well.
+
+The Thames Embankment is (faults of ugliness in detail apart) the finest
+public work yet done. From Westminster Bridge to near Waterloo it is now
+lighted up at night, and has a fine effect. They have begun to plant it
+with trees, and the footway (not the road) is already open to the
+Temple. Besides its beauty, and its usefulness in relieving the crowded
+streets, it will greatly quicken and deepen what is learnedly called
+the "scour" of the river. But the Corporation of London and some other
+nuisances have brought the weirs above Twickenham into a very bare and
+unsound condition, and they already begin to give and vanish, as the
+stream runs faster and stronger.
+
+Your undersigned friend has had a few occasional reminders of his "true
+American catarrh." Although I have exerted my voice very much, it has
+not yet been once touched. In America I was obliged to patch it up
+constantly.
+
+I like to read your patriarchal account of yourself among your Swiss
+vines and fig-trees. You wouldn't recognise Gad's Hill now; I have so
+changed it, and bought land about it. And yet I often think that if Mary
+were to marry (which she won't) I should sell it and go genteelly
+vagabondising over the face of the earth. Then indeed I might see
+Lausanne again. But I don't seem in the way of it at present, for the
+older I get, the more I do and the harder I work.
+
+                                            Yours ever affectionately.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Mary Boyle.]
+
+                                  OFFICE OF "ALL THE YEAR ROUND,"
+                                          _Wednesday, Jan. 6th, 1869._
+
+MY DEAR MARY,
+
+I was more affected than you can easily believe, by the sight of your
+gift lying on my dressing-table on the morning of the new year. To be
+remembered in a friend's heart when it is sore is a touching thing; and
+that and the remembrance of the dead quite overpowered me, the one being
+inseparable from the other.
+
+You may be sure that I shall attach a special interest and value to the
+beautiful present, and shall wear it as a kind of charm. God bless you,
+and may we carry the friendship through many coming years!
+
+My preparations for a certain murder that I had to do last night have
+rendered me unfit for letter-writing these last few days, or you would
+have heard from me sooner. The crime being completely off my mind and
+the blood spilled, I am (like many of my fellow-criminals) in a highly
+edifying state to-day.
+
+                            Ever believe me, your affectionate Friend.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Dickens.]
+
+                                TORQUAY, _Wednesday, Jan. 27th, 1869._
+
+MY DEAREST MAMIE,
+
+We have been doing immensely.
+
+This place is most beautiful, though colder now than one would expect.
+This hotel, an immense place, built among picturesque broken rocks out
+in the blue sea, is quite delicious. There are bright green trees in the
+garden, and new peas a foot high. Our rooms are _en suite_, all
+commanding the sea, and each with two very large plate-glass windows.
+Everything good and well served.
+
+A _pantomime_ was being done last night, in the place where I am to read
+to-night. It is something between a theatre, a circus, a riding-school,
+a Methodist chapel, and a cow-house. I was so disgusted with its
+acoustic properties on going in to look at it, that the whole
+unfortunate staff have been all day, and now are, sticking up baize and
+carpets in it to prevent echoes.
+
+I have rarely seen a more uncomfortable edifice than I thought it last
+night.
+
+At Clifton, on Monday night, we had a contagion of fainting. And yet the
+place was not hot. I should think we had from a dozen to twenty ladies
+borne out, stiff and rigid, at various times. It became quite
+ridiculous.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Hogarth.]
+
+                                      BATH, _Friday, Jan. 29th, 1869._
+
+MY DEAREST GEORGY,
+
+You must not trust blank places in my list, because many have been, and
+will be, gradually filled up. After the Tuesday's reading in London, I
+have TWO for that same week in the country--Nottingham and Leicester. In
+the following week I have none; but my arrangements are all at sea as
+yet, for I must somehow and somewhere do an "Uncommercial" in that week,
+and I also want to get poor Chauncey's "opinions" to the printer.
+
+This mouldy old roosting-place comes out mouldily as to let of course. I
+hate the sight of the bygone assembly-rooms, and the Bath chairs
+trundling the dowagers about the streets. As to to-morrow morning in the
+daylight!----
+
+I have no cold to speak of. Dolby sends kindest regard.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mrs. Lehmann.]
+
+                                  OFFICE, _Wednesday, Feb. 3rd, 1869._
+
+DEAR MRS. LEHMANN,
+
+Before getting your kind note, I had written to Lehmann, explaining why
+I cannot allow myself any social pleasure while my farewell task is yet
+unfinished. The work is so very hard, that every little scrap of rest
+_and silence_ I can pick up is precious. And even those morsels are so
+flavoured with "All the Year Round," that they are not quite the genuine
+article.
+
+Joachim[28] came round to see me at the hall last night, and I told him
+how sorry I was to forego the pleasure of meeting him (he is a noble
+fellow!) at your pleasant table.
+
+I am glad you are coming to the "Murder" on the 2nd of March. (The house
+will be prodigious.) Such little changes as I have made shall be
+carefully presented to your critical notice, and I hope will be crowned
+with your approval. But you are always such a fine audience that I have
+no fear on that head. I saw Chorley yesterday in his own room. A sad and
+solitary sight. The widowed Drake, with a certain _gin_coherence of
+manner, presented a blooming countenance and buxom form in the passage;
+so buxom indeed that she was obliged to retire before me like a modest
+stopper, before I could get into the dining decanter where poor Chorley
+reposed.
+
+                                              Faithfully yours always.
+
+P.S.--My love to Rudie.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Hogarth.]
+
+                                 GLASGOW, _Thursday, Feb. 25th, 1869._
+
+I received your letter at Edinburgh this morning. I did not write to you
+yesterday, as there had been no reading on the previous night.
+
+The foot bears the fatigue wonderfully well, and really occasions me no
+inconvenience beyond the necessity of wearing the big work of art. Syme
+saw me again this morning, and utterly scouted the gout notion
+altogether. I think the Edinburgh audience understood the "Murder"
+better last night than any audience that has heard it yet. "Business" is
+enormous, and Dolby jubilant.
+
+It is a most deplorable afternoon here, deplorable even for Glasgow. A
+great wind blowing, and sleet driving before it in a storm of heavy
+blobs. We had to drive our train dead in the teeth of the wind, and got
+in here late, and are pressed for time.
+
+Strange that in the North we have had absolutely no snow. There was a
+very thin scattering on the Pentlands for an hour or two, but no more.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Hogarth.]
+
+                                 EDINBURGH, _Friday, Feb. 26th, 1869._
+
+Writing to-morrow morning would be all but impracticable for me; would
+be quite so for Dolby, who has to go to the agents and "settle up" in
+the midst of his breakfast. So I write to-day, in reply to your note
+received at Glasgow this morning.
+
+The foot conducts itself splendidly. We had a most enormous cram at
+Glasgow. Syme saw me again yesterday (before I left here for Glasgow),
+and repeated "Gout!" with the greatest indignation and contempt, several
+times. The aching is going off as the day goes on, if it be worth
+mentioning again. The ride from Glasgow was charming this morning; the
+sun shining brilliantly, and the country looking beautiful.
+
+I told you what the Nortons were. Mabel Lowell is a charming little
+thing, and very retiring in manner and expression.
+
+We shall have a scene here to-night, no doubt. The night before last,
+Ballantyne, unable to get in, had a seat behind the screen, and was
+nearly frightened off it by the "Murder." Every vestige of colour had
+left his face when I came off, and he sat staring over a glass of
+champagne in the wildest way. I have utterly left off _my_ champagne,
+and, I think, with good results. Nothing during the readings but a very
+little weak iced brandy-and-water.
+
+I hope you will find me greatly improved on Tuesday.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Dickens.]
+
+                                BIRMINGHAM, _Friday, March 5th, 1869._
+
+This is to send you my best love, and to wish you many and many happy
+returns of to-morrow, which I miraculously remember to be your
+birthday.
+
+I saw this morning a very pretty fan here. I was going to buy it as a
+remembrance of the occasion, when I was checked by a dim misgiving that
+you had a fan not long ago from Chorley. Tell me what you would like
+better, and consider me your debtor in that article, whatever it may be.
+
+I have had my usual left boot on this morning, and have had an hour's
+walk. It was in a gale of wind and a simoom of dust, but I greatly
+enjoyed it. Immense enthusiasm at Wolverhampton last night over
+"Marigold." Scott made a most amazing ass of himself yesterday. He
+reported that he had left behind somewhere three books--"Boots,"
+"Murder," and "Gamp." We immediately telegraphed to the office. Answer,
+no books there. As my impression was that he must have left them at St.
+James's Hall, we then arranged to send him up to London at seven this
+morning. Meanwhile (though not reproached), he wept copiously and
+audibly. I had asked him over and over again, was he sure he had not put
+them in my large black trunk? Too sure, too sure. Hadn't opened that
+trunk after Tuesday night's reading. He opened it to get some clothes
+out when I went to bed, and there the books were! He produced them with
+an air of injured surprise, as if we had put them there.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Hogarth.]
+
+                 QUEEN'S HOTEL, MANCHESTER, _Sunday, March 7th, 1869._
+
+We have had our sitting-room chimney afire this morning, and have had to
+turn out elsewhere to breakfast; but the chamber has since been cleaned
+up, and we are reinstated. Manchester is (_for_ Manchester) bright and
+fresh.
+
+Tell Russell that a crop of hay is to be got off the meadow this year,
+before the club use it. They did not make such use of it last year as
+reconciles me to losing another hay-crop. So they must wait until the
+hay is in, before they commence active operations.
+
+Poor Olliffe! I am truly sorry to read those sad words about his
+suffering, and fear that the end is not far off.
+
+We are very comfortably housed here, and certainly that immense hall is
+a wonderful place for its size. Without much greater expenditure of
+voice than usual, I a little enlarged the action last night, and Dolby
+(who went to all the distant points of view) reported that he could
+detect no difference between it and any other place. As always happens
+now--and did not at first--they were unanimously taken by Noah
+Claypole's laugh. But the go, throughout, was enormous. Sims Reeves was
+doing Henry Bertram at the theatre, and of course took some of our
+shillings. It was a night of excitement for Cottonopolis.
+
+I received from Mrs. Keeley this morning a very good photograph of poor
+old Bob. Yesterday I had a letter from Harry, reminding me that our
+intended Cambridge day is the day next after that of the boat-race.
+Clearly it must be changed.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Hogarth.]
+
+              QUEEN'S HOTEL, MANCHESTER, _Saturday, March 20th, 1869._
+
+Getting yours and its enclosure, Mary's note, at two this afternoon, I
+write a line at once in order that you may have it on Monday morning.
+
+The Theatre Royal, Liverpool, will be a charming place to read in.
+Ladies are to dine at the dinner, and we hear it is to be a very grand
+affair. Dolby is doubtful whether it may not "hurt the business," by
+drawing a great deal of money in another direction, which I think
+possible enough. Trade is very bad _here_, and the gloom of the Preston
+strike seems to brood over the place. The Titiens Company have been
+doing wretchedly. I should have a greater sympathy with them if they
+were not practising in the next room now.
+
+My love to Letitia and Harriette,[29] wherein Dolby (highly gratified by
+being held in remembrance) joins with the same to you.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Hogarth.]
+
+                               MANCHESTER, _Sunday, March 21st, 1869._
+
+Will you tell Mary that I have had a letter from Frith, in which he says
+that he will be happy to show her his pictures "any day in the first
+week of April"? I have replied that she will be proud to receive his
+invitation. His object in writing was to relieve his mind about the
+"Murder," of which he cannot say enough.
+
+Tremendous enthusiasm here last night, calling in the most thunderous
+manner after "Marigold," and again after the "Trial," shaking the great
+hall, and cheering furiously.
+
+Love to all.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. John Clarke.]
+
+                    GAD'S HILL PLACE, HIGHAM BY ROCHESTER, KENT,
+                                        _Wednesday, March 24th, 1869._
+
+LADIES AND GENTLEMEN,
+
+I beg to assure you that I am much gratified by the desire you do me the
+honour to express in your letter handed to me by Mr. John Clarke.
+
+Before that letter reached me, I had heard of your wish, and had
+mentioned to Messrs. Chappell that it would be highly agreeable to me to
+anticipate it, if possible. They readily responded, and we agreed upon
+having three morning readings in London. As they are not yet publicly
+announced, I add a note of the days and subjects:
+
+Saturday, May 1st. "Boots at the Holly-Tree Inn," and "Sikes and Nancy"
+from "Oliver Twist."
+
+Saturday, May 8th. "The Christmas Carol."
+
+Saturday, May 22nd. "Sikes and Nancy" from "Oliver Twist," and "The
+Trial" from "Pickwick."
+
+With the warmest interest in your art, and in its claims upon the
+general gratitude and respect,
+
+                            Believe me, always faithfully your Friend.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Hogarth.]
+
+                  ADELPHI HOTEL, LIVERPOOL, _Sunday, April 4th, 1869._
+
+By this post I send to Mary the truly affecting account of poor dear
+Katie Macready's death. It is as sorrowful as anything so peaceful and
+trustful can be!
+
+Both my feet are very tender, and often feel as though they were in hot
+water. But I was wonderfully well and strong, thank God! and had no end
+of voice for the two nights running in that great Birmingham hall. We
+had enormous houses.
+
+So far as I understand the dinner arrangements here, they are much too
+long. As to the acoustics of that hall, and the position of the tables
+(both as bad as bad can be), my only consolation is that, if anybody can
+be heard, _I_ probably can be. The honorary secretary tells me that six
+hundred people are to dine. The mayor, being no speaker and out of
+health besides, hands over the toast of the evening to Lord Dufferin.
+The town is full of the festival. The Theatre Royal, touched up for the
+occasion, will look remarkably bright and well for the readings, and our
+lets are large. It is remarkable that our largest let as yet is for
+Thursday, not Friday. I infer that the dinner damages Friday, but Dolby
+does not think so. There appears to be great curiosity to hear the
+"Murder." (On Friday night last I read to two thousand people, and odd
+hundreds.)
+
+I hear that Anthony Trollope, Dixon, Lord Houghton, Lemon, Esquiros (of
+the _Revue des Deux Mondes_), and Sala are to be called upon to speak;
+the last, for the newspaper press. All the Liverpool notabilities are to
+muster. And Manchester is to be represented by its mayor with due
+formality.
+
+I had been this morning to look at St. George's Hall, and suggest what
+can be done to improve its acoustics. As usually happens in such cases,
+their most important arrangements are already made and unchangeable. I
+should not have placed the tables in the committee's way at all, and
+could certainly have placed the dais to much greater advantage. So all
+the good I could do was to show where banners could be hung with some
+hope of stopping echoes. Such is my small news, soon exhausted. We
+arrived here at three yesterday afternoon; it is now mid-day; Chorley
+has not yet appeared, but he had called at the local agent's while I was
+at Birmingham.
+
+It is a curious little instance of the way in which things fit together
+that there is a ship-of-war in the Mersey, whose flags and so forth are
+to be brought up to St. George's Hall for the dinner. She is the
+_Donegal_, of which Paynter told me he had just been captain, when he
+told me all about Sydney at Bath.
+
+One of the pleasantest things I have experienced here this time, is the
+manner in which I am stopped in the streets by working men, who want to
+shake hands with me, and tell me they know my books. I never go out but
+this happens. Down at the docks just now, a cooper with a fearful
+stutter presented himself in this way. His modesty, combined with a
+conviction that if he were in earnest I would see it and wouldn't repel
+him, made up as true a piece of natural politeness as I ever saw.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Hogarth.]
+
+             IMPERIAL HOTEL, BLACKPOOL, _Wednesday, April 21st, 1869._
+
+I send you this hasty line to let you know that I have come to this
+sea-beach hotel (charming) for a day's rest. I am much better than I was
+on Sunday, but shall want careful looking to, to get through the
+readings. My weakness and deadness are all _on the left side_, and if I
+don't look at anything I try to touch with my left hand, I don't know
+where it is. I am in (secret) consultation with Frank Beard; he
+recognises, in the exact description I have given him, indisputable
+evidences of overwork, which he would wish to treat immediately. So I
+have said: "Go in and win."
+
+I have had a delicious walk by the sea to-day, and I sleep soundly, and
+have picked up amazingly in appetite. My foot is greatly better too, and
+I wear my own boot.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Dickens.]
+
+                        PRESTON, _Thursday Evening, April 22nd, 1869._
+
+_Don't be in the least alarmed._ Beard has come down, and instantly
+echoes my impression (perfectly unknown to him), that the readings must
+be _stopped_. I have had symptoms that must not be disregarded. I go to
+Liverpool to-night with him (to get away from here), and proceed to the
+office to-morrow.
+
+
+[Sidenote: The Lord John Russell.]
+
+                    GAD'S HILL PLACE, HIGHAM BY ROCHESTER, KENT,
+                                          _Wednesday, May 26th, 1869._
+
+MY DEAR LORD RUSSELL,
+
+I have delayed answering your kind letter, in order that you might get
+home before I wrote. I am happy to report myself quite well again, and I
+shall be charmed to come to Pembroke Lodge on any day that may be most
+convenient to Lady Russell and yourself after the middle of June.
+
+You gratify me beyond expression by your reference to the Liverpool
+dinner. I made the allusion to you with all my heart at least, and it
+was most magnificently received.
+
+I beg to send my kind regard to Lady Russell, with many thanks for her
+remembrance, and am ever,
+
+                               My dear Lord Russell, faithfully yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. W. H. Wills.]
+
+                                  OFFICE OF "ALL THE YEAR ROUND,"
+                                          _Thursday, June 24th, 1869._
+
+MY DEAR WILLS,
+
+At a great meeting[30] compounded of your late "Chief," Charley, Morley,
+Grieve, and Telbin, your letter was read to-day, and a very sincere
+record of regret and thanks was placed on the books of the great
+institution.
+
+Many thanks for the suggestion about the condition of churches. I am so
+aweary of church questions of all sorts that I am not quite clear as to
+tackling this. But I am turning it in my mind. I am afraid of two
+things: firstly, that the thing would not be picturesquely done;
+secondly, that a general cucumber-coolness would pervade the mind of our
+circulation.
+
+Nothing new here but a speaking-pipe, a post-box, and a mouldy smell
+from some forgotten crypt--an extra mouldy smell, mouldier than of yore.
+Lillie sniffs, projects one eye into nineteen hundred and ninety-nine,
+and does no more.
+
+I have been to Chadwick's, to look at a new kind of cottage he has built
+(very ingenious and cheap).
+
+We were all much disappointed last Saturday afternoon by a neighbouring
+fire being only at a carpenter's, and not at Drury Lane Theatre.
+Ellen's[31] child having an eye nearly poked out by a young friend, and
+being asked whether the young friend was not very sorry afterwards,
+replied: "No. _She_ wasn't. _I_ was."
+
+London execrable.
+
+                                            Ever affectionately yours.
+
+P.S.--Love to Mrs. Wills.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. Shirley Brooks.]
+
+                    GAD'S HILL PLACE, HIGHAM BY ROCHESTER, KENT,
+                                           _Tuesday, July 12th, 1869._
+
+MY DEAR BROOKS,
+
+I have appended my sign manual to the memorial, which I think is very
+discreetly drawn up. I have a strong feeling of sympathy with poor Mrs.
+Cunningham, for I remember the pretty house she managed charmingly. She
+has always done her duty well, and has had hard trials. But I greatly
+doubt the success of the memorial, I am sorry to add.
+
+It was hotter here yesterday on this Kentish chalk than I have felt it
+anywhere for many a day. Now it is overcast and raining hard, much to
+the satisfaction of great farmers like myself.
+
+I am glad to infer from your companionship with the Cocked Hats, that
+there is no such thing as gout within several miles of you. May it keep
+its distance.
+
+                               Ever, my dear Brooks, faithfully yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. W. C. Macready.]
+
+                               GAD'S HILL, _Tuesday, July 20th, 1869._
+
+MY DEAREST MACREADY,
+
+I have received your letter here to-day, and deeply feel with you and
+for you the affliction of poor dear Katie's loss. I was not unprepared
+for the sad news, but it comes in such a rush of old remembrances and
+withered joys that strikes to the heart.
+
+God bless you! Love and youth are still beside you, and in that thought
+I take comfort for my dear old friend.
+
+I am happy to report myself perfectly well and flourishing. We are just
+now announcing the resumption and conclusion of the broken series of
+farewell readings in a London course of twelve, beginning early in the
+new year.
+
+Scarcely a day has gone by this summer in which we have not talked of
+you and yours. Georgina, Mary, and I continually speak of you. In the
+spirit we certainly are even more together than we used to be in the
+body in the old times. I don't know whether you have heard that Harry
+has taken the second scholarship (fifty pounds a year) at Trinity Hall,
+Cambridge. The bigwigs expect him to do a good deal there.
+
+Wills having given up in consequence of broken health (he has been my
+sub-editor for twenty years), I have taken Charley into "All the Year
+Round." He is a very good man of business, and evinces considerable
+aptitude in sub-editing work.
+
+This place is immensely improved since you were here, and really is now
+very pretty indeed. We are sorry that there is no present prospect of
+your coming to see it; but I like to know of your being at the sea, and
+having to do--_from the beach_, as Mrs. Keeley used to say in "The
+Prisoner of War"--with the winds and the waves and all their freshening
+influences.
+
+I dined at Greenwich a few days ago with Delane. He asked me about you
+with much interest. He looks as if he had never seen a printing-office,
+and had never been out of bed after midnight.
+
+Great excitement caused here by your capital news of Butty. I suppose
+Willy has at least a dozen children by this time.
+
+Our loves to the noble boy and to dear Mrs. Macready.
+
+                            Ever, my dearest Macready,
+                                       Your attached and affectionate.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. Edmund Ollier.]
+
+                    GAD'S HILL PLACE, HIGHAM BY ROCHESTER, KENT,
+                                            _Tuesday, Aug. 3rd, 1869._
+
+MY DEAR MR. OLLIER,
+
+I am very sensible of the feeling of the Committee towards me; and I
+receive their invitation (conveyed through you) as a most acceptable
+mark of their consideration.
+
+But I have a very strong objection to speech-making beside graves. I do
+not expect or wish my feeling in this wise to guide other men; still, it
+is so serious with me, and the idea of ever being the subject of such a
+ceremony myself is so repugnant to my soul, that I must decline to
+officiate.
+
+                                              Faithfully yours always.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Dickens.]
+
+      OFFICE OF "ALL THE YEAR ROUND," NO. 26, WELLINGTON STREET,
+                             STRAND, LONDON, W.C.,
+                                            _Tuesday, Aug. 3rd, 1869._
+
+MY DEAREST MAMIE,
+
+I send you the second chapter of the remarkable story. The printer is
+late with it, and I have not had time to read it, and as I altered it
+considerably here and there, I have no doubt there are some verbal
+mistakes in it. However, they will probably express themselves.
+
+But I offer a prize of six pairs of gloves--between you, and your aunt,
+and Ellen Stone, as competitors--to whomsoever will tell me what idea in
+this second part is mine. I don't mean an idea in language, in the
+turning of a sentence, in any little description of an action, or a
+gesture, or what not in a small way, but an idea, distinctly affecting
+the whole story _as I found it_. You are all to assume that I found it
+in the main as you read it, with one exception. If I had written it, I
+should have made the woman love the man at last. And I should have
+shadowed that possibility out, by the child's bringing them a little
+more together on that holiday Sunday.
+
+But I didn't write it. So, finding that it wanted something, I put that
+something in. What was it?
+
+Love to Ellen Stone.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. Arthur Ryland.]
+
+                    GAD'S HILL PLACE, HIGHAM BY ROCHESTER, KENT,
+                                            _Friday, Aug. 13th, 1869._
+
+MY DEAR MR. RYLAND,
+
+Many thanks for your letter.
+
+I have very strong opinions on the subject of speechification, and hold
+that there is, everywhere, a vast amount too much of it. A sense of
+absurdity would be so strong upon me, if I got up at Birmingham to make
+a flourish on the advantages of education in the abstract for all sorts
+and conditions of men, that I should inevitably check myself and present
+a surprising incarnation of the soul of wit. But if I could interest
+myself in the practical usefulness of the particular institution; in the
+ways of life of the students; in their examples of perseverance and
+determination to get on; in their numbers, their favourite studies, the
+number of hours they must daily give to the work that must be done for a
+livelihood, before they can devote themselves to the acquisition of new
+knowledge, and so forth, then I could interest others. This is the kind
+of information I want. Mere holding forth "I utterly detest, abominate,
+and abjure."
+
+I fear I shall not be in London next week. But if you will kindly send
+me here, at your leisure, the roughest notes of such points as I have
+indicated, I shall be heartily obliged to you, and will take care of
+their falling into shape and order in my mind. Meantime I "make a note
+of" Monday, 27th September, and of writing to you touching your kind
+offer of hospitality, three weeks before that date.
+
+I beg to send my kind regard to Mrs. and Miss Ryland, and am always,
+
+                                                Very faithfully yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. Frederic Ouvry.]
+
+                    GAD'S HILL PLACE, HIGHAM BY ROCHESTER, KENT,
+                                            _Sunday, Aug. 22nd, 1869._
+
+MY DEAR OUVRY,
+
+I will expect a call from you at the office, on Thursday, at your own
+most convenient hour. I admit the soft impeachment concerning Mrs. Gamp:
+I likes my payments to be made reg'lar, and I likewise likes my
+publisher to draw it mild.
+
+                                                           Ever yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. Arthur Ryland.]
+
+                    GAD'S HILL PLACE, HIGHAM BY ROCHESTER, KENT,
+                                            _Monday, Sept. 6th, 1869._
+
+MY DEAR MR. RYLAND,
+
+I am sorry to find--I had a foreshadowing of it some weeks ago--that I
+shall not be able to profit by your kind offer of hospitality when I
+come to Birmingham for _our_ Institution. I must come down in time for a
+quiet dinner at the hotel with my "Readings" secretary, Mr. Dolby, and
+must away next morning. Besides having a great deal in hand just now
+(the title of a new book among other things), I shall have visitors from
+abroad here at the time, and am severely claimed by my daughter, who
+indeed is disloyal to Birmingham in the matter of my going away at all.
+Pray represent me to Mrs. Ryland as the innocent victim of
+circumstances, and as sacrificing pleasure to the work I have to do, and
+to the training under which alone I can do it without feeling it.
+
+You will see from the enclosed that I am in full force, and going to
+finish my readings, please God, after Christmas. I am in the hope of
+receiving your promised notes in due course, and continue in the
+irreverent condition in which I last reported myself on the subject of
+speech-making. Now that men not only make the nights of the session
+hideous by what the Americans call "orating" in Parliament, but trouble
+the peace of the vacation by saying over again what they said there
+(with the addition of what they _didn't_ say there, and never will have
+the courage to say there), I feel indeed that silence, like gold across
+the Atlantic, is a rarity at a premium.
+
+                                              Faithfully yours always.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. William Charles Kent.]
+
+                                  OFFICE OF "ALL THE YEAR ROUND,"
+                                          _Thursday, Oct. 7th, 1869._
+
+MY DEAR KENT,
+
+I felt that you would be deeply disappointed. I thought it better not to
+make the first sign while you were depressed, but my mind has been
+constantly with you. And not mine alone. You cannot think with what
+affection and sympathy you have been made the subject of our family
+dinner talk at Gad's Hill these last three days. Nothing could exceed
+the interest of my daughters and my sister-in-law, or the earnestness of
+their feeling about it. I have been really touched by its warm and
+genuine expression.
+
+Cheer up, my dear fellow; cheer up, for God's sake. That is, for the
+sake of all that is good in you and around you.
+
+                                        Ever your affectionate Friend.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. W. C. Macready.]
+
+                                GAD'S HILL, _Monday, Oct. 18th, 1869._
+
+MY DEAREST MACREADY,
+
+I duly received your letter nearly a fortnight ago, with the greatest
+interest and pleasure. Above all things I am delighted with the prospect
+of seeing you here next summer; a prospect which has been received with
+nine times nine and one more by the whole house. You will hardly know
+the place again, it is so changed. You are not expected to admire, but
+there _is_ a conservatory building at this moment--be still, my soul!
+
+This leaves me in the preliminary agonies of a new book, which I hope to
+begin publishing (in twelve numbers, not twenty) next March. The coming
+readings being all in London, and being, after the first fortnight, only
+once a week, will divert my attention very little, I hope.
+
+Harry has just gone up to Cambridge again, and I hope will get a
+fellowship in good time.
+
+Wills is much gratified by your remembrance, and sends you his warm
+regard. He wishes me to represent that he is very little to be pitied.
+That he suffers no pain, scarcely inconvenience, even, so long as he is
+idle. That he likes idleness exceedingly. He has bought a country place
+by Welwyn in Hertfordshire, near Lytton's, and takes possession
+presently.
+
+My boy Sydney is now a second lieutenant, the youngest in the Service, I
+believe. He has the highest testimonials as an officer.
+
+You may be quite sure there will be no international racing in American
+waters. Oxford knows better, or I am mistaken. The Harvard crew were a
+very good set of fellows, and very modest.
+
+Ryland of Birmingham doesn't look a day older, and was full of interest
+in you, and asked me to remind you of him. By-the-bye, at Elkington's I
+saw a pair of immense tea-urns from a railway station (Stafford), sent
+there to be repaired. They were honeycombed within in all directions,
+and had been supplying the passengers, under the active agency of hot
+water, with decomposed lead, copper, and a few other deadly poisons, for
+heaven knows how many years!
+
+I must leave off in a hurry to catch the post, after a hard day's work.
+
+                  Ever, my dearest Macready,
+                                  Your most affectionate and attached.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[28] Herr Joseph Joachim, the renowned violinist.
+
+[29] His sister-in-law, Mrs. Augustus Dickens, always a welcome visitor
+at Gad's Hill.
+
+[30] Of the Guild of Literature and Art.
+
+[31] The housekeeper at the office.
+
+
+
+
+1870.
+
+NARRATIVE.
+
+
+Charles Dickens passed his last Christmas and New Year's Day at Gad's
+Hill, with a party of family and friends, in the usual way, except that
+he was suffering again from an attack of the foot trouble, particularly
+on Christmas Day, when he was quite disabled by it and unable to walk at
+all--able only to join the party in the evening by keeping his room all
+day. However, he was better in a day or two, and early in January he
+went to London, where he had taken the house of his friends, Mr. and
+Mrs. Milner Gibson, for the season.
+
+His series of "Farewell Readings" at St. James's Hall began in January,
+and ended on the 16th March. He was writing "Edwin Drood" also, and was,
+of course, constantly occupied with "All the Year Round" work. In the
+beginning of January, he fulfilled his promise of paying a second visit
+to Birmingham and making a speech, of which he writes in his last letter
+to Mr. Macready.
+
+For his last reading he gave the "Christmas Carol" and "The Trial" from
+"Pickwick," and at the end of the evening he addressed a few farewell
+words to his audience. It was a memorable and splendid occasion. He was
+very deeply affected by the loving enthusiasm of his greeting, and it
+was a real sorrow to him to give up for ever the personal associations
+with thousands of the readers of his books. But when the pain, mingled
+with pleasure, of this last reading was over, he felt greatly the relief
+of having undisturbed time for his own quieter pursuits, and looked
+forward to writing the last numbers of "Edwin Drood" at Gad's Hill,
+where he was to return in June.
+
+The last public appearance of any kind that he made was at the Royal
+Academy dinner in May. He was at the time far from well, but he made a
+great effort to be present and to speak, from his strong desire to pay a
+tribute to the memory of his dear old friend Mr. Maclise, who died in
+April.
+
+Her Majesty having expressed a wish, conveyed through Mr. Helps
+(afterwards Sir Arthur Helps), to have a personal interview with Charles
+Dickens, he accompanied Mr. Helps to Buckingham Palace one afternoon in
+March. He was most graciously and kindly received by her Majesty, and
+came away with a hope that the visit had been mutually agreeable. The
+Queen presented him with a copy of her "Journal in the Highlands," with
+an autograph inscription. And he had afterwards the pleasure of
+requesting her acceptance of a set of his books. He attended a levee
+held by the Prince of Wales in April, and the last time he dined out in
+London was at a party given by Lord Houghton for the King of the
+Belgians and the Prince of Wales, who had both expressed a desire to
+meet Charles Dickens. All through the season he had been suffering, at
+intervals, from the swollen foot, and on this occasion it was so bad,
+that up to the last moment it was very doubtful whether he could fulfil
+his engagement.
+
+We have very few letters for this year, and none of any very particular
+interest, but we give them all, as they are _the last_.
+
+Mr. S. L. Fildes was his "new illustrator," to whom he alludes in a note
+to Mr. Frith; we also give a short note to Mr. Fildes himself.
+
+The correspondence of Charles Dickens with Mrs. Dallas Glyn, the
+celebrated actress, for whom he had a great friendship, is so much on
+the subject of her own business, that we have only been able to select
+two notes of any public interest.
+
+In explanation of _the last letter_, we give an extract from a letter
+addressed to _The Daily News_ by Mr. J. M. Makeham, soon after the death
+of Charles Dickens, as follows: "That the public may exactly understand
+the circumstances under which Charles Dickens's letter to me was
+written, I am bound to explain that it is in reply to a letter which I
+addressed to him in reference to a passage in the tenth chapter of
+"Edwin Drood," respecting which I ventured to suggest that he had,
+perhaps, forgotten that the figure of speech alluded to by him, in a way
+which, to my certain knowledge, was distasteful to some of his admirers,
+was drawn from a passage of Holy Writ which is greatly reverenced by a
+large number of his countrymen as a prophetic description of the
+sufferings of our Saviour."
+
+The MS. of the little "History of the New Testament" is now in the
+possession of his eldest daughter. She has (together with her aunt)
+received many earnest entreaties, both from friends and strangers, that
+this history might be allowed to be published, for the benefit of other
+children.
+
+These many petitions have his daughter's fullest sympathy. But she knows
+that her father wrote this history ONLY for his own children, that it
+was his particular wish that it never should be published, and she
+therefore holds this wish as sacred and irrevocable.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. W. H. Wills.]
+
+            5, HYDE PARK PLACE, LONDON, W., _Sunday, Jan. 23rd, 1870._
+
+MY DEAR WILLS,
+
+In the note I had from you about Nancy and Sikes, you seem to refer to
+some other note you had written me. Therefore I think it well merely to
+mention that I have received no other note.
+
+I do not wonder at your not being up to the undertaking (even if you had
+had no cough) under the wearing circumstances. It was a very curious
+scene. The actors and actresses (most of the latter looking very pretty)
+mustered in extraordinary force, and were a fine audience. I set myself
+to carrying out of themselves and their observation, those who were bent
+on watching how the effects were got; and I believe I succeeded. Coming
+back to it again, however, I feel it was madness ever to do it so
+continuously. My ordinary pulse is seventy-two, and it runs up under
+this effort to one hundred and twelve. Besides which, it takes me ten or
+twelve minutes to get my wind back at all; I being, in the meantime,
+like the man who lost the fight--in fact, his express image. Frank Beard
+was in attendance to make divers experiments to report to Watson; and
+although, as you know, he stopped it instantly when he found me at
+Preston, he was very much astonished by the effects of the reading on
+the reader.
+
+So I hope you may be able to come and hear it before it is silent for
+ever. It is done again on the evenings of the 1st February, 15th
+February, and 8th March. I hope, now I have got over the mornings, that
+I may be able to work on my book. But up to this time the great
+preparation required in getting the subjects up again, and the twice a
+week besides, have almost exclusively occupied me.
+
+I have something the matter with my right thumb, and can't (as you see)
+write plainly. I sent a word to poor Robert Chambers,[32] and I send my
+love to Mrs. Wills.
+
+                            Ever, my dear Wills, affectionately yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mrs. Dallas.]
+
+                                  OFFICE OF "ALL THE YEAR ROUND,"
+                                         _Wednesday, Jan. 16th, 1870._
+
+MY DEAR MRS. DALLAS,
+
+It is perfectly delightful to me to get your fervent and sympathetic
+note this morning. A thousand thanks for it. I will take care that two
+places on the front row, by my daughter, are reserved for your occasion
+next time. I cannot see you in too good a seat, or too often.
+
+                               Believe me, ever very faithfully yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. S. L. Fildes.]
+
+                                  OFFICE OF "ALL THE YEAR ROUND,"
+                                         _Wednesday, Jan. 16th, 1870._
+
+DEAR SIR,
+
+I beg to thank you for the highly meritorious and interesting specimens
+of your art that you have had the kindness to send me. I return them
+herewith, after having examined them with the greatest pleasure.
+
+I am naturally curious to see your drawing from "David Copperfield," in
+order that I may compare it with my own idea. In the meanwhile, I can
+honestly assure you that I entertain the greatest admiration for your
+remarkable powers.
+
+                                                     Faithfully yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. Henry Fielding Dickens.]
+
+                  5, HYDE PARK PLACE, W., _Thursday, Feb. 17th, 1870._
+
+MY DEAR HARRY,
+
+I am extremely glad to hear that you have made a good start at the
+Union. Take any amount of pains about it; open your mouth well and
+roundly, speak to the last person visible, and give yourself time.
+
+Loves from all.
+
+                                                  Ever affectionately.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. W. C. Macready.]
+
+                                         _Wednesday, March 2nd, 1870._
+
+MY DEAREST MACREADY,
+
+This is to wish you and yours all happiness and prosperity at the
+well-remembered anniversary to-morrow. You may be sure that loves and
+happy returns will not be forgotten at _our_ table.
+
+I have been getting on very well with my book, and we are having immense
+audiences at St. James's Hall. Mary has been celebrating the first
+glimpses of spring by having the measles. She got over the disorder very
+easily, but a weakness remains behind. Katie is blooming. Georgina is in
+perfect order, and all send you their very best loves. It gave me true
+pleasure to have your sympathy with me in the second little speech at
+Birmingham. I was determined that my Radicalism should not be called in
+question. The electric wires are not very exact in their reporting, but
+at all events the sense was there. Ryland, as usual, made all sorts of
+enquiries about you.
+
+With love to dear Mrs. Macready and the noble boy my particular friend,
+and a hearty embrace to you,
+
+                          I am ever, my dearest Macready,
+                                               Your most affectionate.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. ----.]
+
+                                  OFFICE OF "ALL THE YEAR ROUND,"
+                                         _Wednesday, March 9th, 1870._
+
+MY DEAR ----,
+
+You make me very uneasy on the subject of your new long story here, by
+sowing your name broadcast in so many fields at once, and undertaking
+such an impossible amount of fiction at one time. Just as you are coming
+on with us, you have another story in progress in "The Gentleman's
+Magazine," and another announced in "Once a Week." And so far as I know
+the art we both profess, it cannot be reasonably pursued in this way. I
+think the short story you are now finishing in these pages obviously
+marked by traces of great haste and small consideration; and a long
+story similarly blemished would really do the publication irreparable
+harm.
+
+These considerations are so much upon my mind that I cannot forbear
+representing them to you, in the hope that they may induce you to take a
+little more into account the necessity of care and preparation, and some
+self-denial in the quantity done. I am quite sure that I write fully as
+much in your interest as in that of "All the Year Round."
+
+                                  Believe me, always faithfully yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: The same.]
+
+                   5, HYDE PARK PLACE, W., _Friday, March 11th, 1870._
+
+MY DEAR ----,
+
+Of course the engagement between us is to continue, and I am sure you
+know me too well to suppose that I have ever had a thought to the
+contrary. Your explanation is (as it naturally would be, being yours)
+manly and honest, and I am both satisfied and hopeful.
+
+                                                           Ever yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. William Charles Kent.]
+
+                 5, HYDE PARK PLACE, W., _Saturday, March 26th, 1870._
+
+MY DEAR KENT,
+
+I received both copies of _The Sun_, with the tenderest pleasure and
+gratification.
+
+Everything that I can let you have in aid of the proposed record[33]
+(which, _of course_, would be far more agreeable to me if done by you
+than by any other hand), shall be at your service. Dolby has all the
+figures relating to America, and you shall have for reference the books
+from which I read. They are afterwards going into Forster's
+collection.[34]
+
+                                                  Ever affectionately.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. Henry Fielding Dickens.]
+
+                  5, HYDE PARK PLACE, W., _Tuesday, March 29th, 1870._
+
+MY DEAR HARRY,
+
+Your next Tuesday's subject is a very good one. I would not lose the
+point that narrow-minded fanatics, who decry the theatre and defame its
+artists, are absolutely the advocates of depraved and barbarous
+amusements. For wherever a good drama and a well-regulated theatre
+decline, some distorted form of theatrical entertainment will infallibly
+arise in their place. In one of the last chapters of "Hard Times," Mr.
+Sleary says something to the effect: "People will be entertained
+thomehow, thquire. Make the betht of uth, and not the wortht."
+
+                                                  Ever affectionately.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. Shirley Brooks.]
+
+                    5, HYDE PARK PLACE, W., _Friday, April 1st, 1870._
+
+MY DEAR SHIRLEY BROOKS,
+
+I have written to Mr. Low, expressing my regret that I cannot comply
+with his request, backed as it is by my friend S. B. But I have told him
+what is perfectly true--that I leave town for the peaceful following of
+my own pursuits, at the end of next month; that I have excused myself
+from filling all manner of claims, on the ground that the public
+engagements I could make for the season were very few and were all made;
+and that I cannot bear hot rooms when I am at work. I have smoothed this
+as you would have me smooth it.
+
+With your longing for fresh air I can thoroughly sympathise. May you get
+it soon, and may you enjoy it, and profit by it half as much as I wish!
+
+                                                Ever faithfully yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. W. P. Frith, R.A.]
+
+                 5, HYDE PARK PLACE, W., _Saturday, April 16th, 1870._
+
+MY DEAR FRITH,
+
+I shall be happy to go on Wednesday evening, if convenient.
+
+You please me with what you say of my new illustrator, of whom I have
+great hopes.
+
+                                                Faithfully yours ever.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. William Charles Kent.]
+
+                                   _Monday Morning, April 25th, 1870._
+
+MY DEAR KENT,
+
+I received your book[35] with the greatest pleasure, and heartily thank
+you for it. It is a volume of a highly prepossessing appearance, and a
+most friendly look. I felt as if I should have taken to it at sight;
+even (a very large even) though I had known nothing of its contents, or
+of its author!
+
+For the last week I have been most perseveringly and ding-dong-doggedly
+at work, making headway but slowly. The spring always has a restless
+influence over me; and I weary, at any season, of this London dining-out
+beyond expression; and I yearn for the country again. This is my excuse
+for not having written to you sooner. Besides which, I had a baseless
+conviction that I should see you at the office last Thursday. Not having
+done so, I fear you must be worse, or no better? If you _can_ let me
+have a report of yourself, pray do.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mrs. Frederick Pollock.]
+
+                      5, HYDE PARK PLACE, W., _Monday, May 2nd, 1870._
+
+MY DEAR MRS. POLLOCK,
+
+Pray tell the illustrious Philip van Artevelde, that I will deal with
+the nefarious case in question if I can. I am a little doubtful of the
+practicability of doing so, and frisking outside the bounds of the law
+of libel. I have that high opinion of the law of England generally,
+which one is likely to derive from the impression that it puts all the
+honest men under the diabolical hoofs of all the scoundrels. It makes me
+cautious of doing right; an admirable instance of its wisdom!
+
+I was very sorry to have gone astray from you that Sunday; but as the
+earlier disciples entertained angels unawares, so the later often miss
+them haphazard.
+
+Your description of La Font's acting is the complete truth in one short
+sentence: Nature's triumph over art; reversing the copy-book axiom! But
+the Lord deliver us from Plessy's mechanical ingenuousness!!
+
+And your petitioner will ever pray.
+
+And ever be,
+
+                                                     Faithfully yours.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mrs. E. M. Ward.]
+
+                  5, HYDE PARK PLACE, W., _Wednesday, May 11th, 1870._
+
+MY DEAR MRS. WARD,
+
+I grieve to say that I am literally laid by the heels, and incapable of
+dining with you to-morrow. A neuralgic affection of the foot, which
+usually seizes me about twice a year, and which will yield to nothing
+but days of fomentation and horizontal rest, set in last night, and has
+caused me very great pain ever since, and will too clearly be no better
+until it has had its usual time in which to wear itself out. I send my
+kindest regard to Ward, and beg to be pitied.
+
+                                  Believe me, faithfully yours always.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. William Charles Kent.]
+
+                    5, HYDE PARK PLACE, W., _Tuesday, May 17th, 1870._
+
+MY DEAR KENT,
+
+Many, many thanks! It is only my neuralgic foot. It has given me such a
+sharp twist this time that I have not been able, in its extreme
+sensitiveness, to put any covering upon it except scalding fomentations.
+Having viciously bubbled and blistered it in all directions, I hope it
+now begins to see the folly of its ways.
+
+                                                  Affectionately ever.
+
+P.S.--I hope the Sun shines.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mrs. Bancroft.]
+
+                    GAD'S HILL PLACE, HIGHAM BY ROCHESTER, KENT,
+                                           _Thursday, May 31st, 1870._
+
+MY DEAR MRS. BANCROFT,[36]
+
+I am most heartily obliged to you for your kind note, which I received
+here only last night, having come here from town circuitously to get a
+little change of air on the road. My sense of your interest cannot be
+better proved than by my trying the remedy you recommend, and that I
+will do immediately. As I shall be in town on Thursday, my troubling you
+to order it would be quite unjustifiable. I will use your name in
+applying for it, and will report the result after a fair trial. Whether
+this remedy succeeds or fails as to the neuralgia, I shall always
+consider myself under an obligation to it for having indirectly procured
+me the great pleasure of receiving a communication from you; for I hope
+I may lay claim to being one of the most earnest and delighted of your
+many artistic admirers.
+
+                                         Believe me, faithfully yours.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[32] On the death of his second wife.
+
+[33] Of the Readings. The intention was carried out. Mr. Kent's book,
+"Charles Dickens as a Reader," was published in 1872.
+
+[34] No doubt Charles Dickens intended to add the Reading Books to the
+legacy of his MSS. to Mr. Forster. But he did not do so, therefore the
+"Readings" are not a part of the "Forster Collection" at the South
+Kensington Museum.
+
+[35] A new collective edition of "Kent's Poems," dedicated to his
+cousin, Colonel Kent, of the 77th Regiment.
+
+[36] Miss Marie Wilton.
+
+
+
+
+TWO LAST LETTERS.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. William Charles Kent.]
+
+
+[Illustration: Gad's Hill Place,
+                          Higham by Rochester, Kent.[37]
+
+        HW: Wednesday Eighth June 1870
+
+
+HW: Dear Kent
+
+Tomorrow is a very bad day for me to make a call, as, in addition to my
+usual office business, I have a mass of accounts to settle with Wills.
+But I hope I may be ready for you at 3 o'clock. If I can't be--why, then
+I shan't be.
+
+You must really get rid of those Opal enjoyments. They are too
+overpowering:
+
+"These violent delights have violent ends."
+
+I think it was a father of your churches who made the wise remark to a
+young gentleman who got up early (or stayed out late) at Verona?
+
+                                 Ever affectionately
+                                             Signature: ChD]
+
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. John M. Makeham.]
+
+                               =Gad's Hill Place,=
+                                          =Higham by Rochester, Kent.=
+
+[Illustration: HW: Wednesday Eighth June 1870
+
+Dear Sir
+
+It would be quite inconceivable I think--but for your
+letter--that any reasonable reader could possibly attach a scriptural
+reference to a passage in a book of mine, reproducing a much abused
+social figure of speech, impressed into all sorts of service on all
+sorts of inappropriate occasions, without the faintest connexion of it
+with its original source. I am truly shocked to find that any reader can
+make the mistake
+
+I have always striven in my writings to express veneration for the life
+and lessons of our Saviour; because I feel it; and because I re-wrote
+that history for my children--every one of whom knew it from having it
+repeated to them--long before they could read, and almost as soon as
+they could speak.
+
+But I have never made proclamation of this from the house tops
+
+                                          Faithfully Yours,
+                                                       Charles Dickens
+
+John M. Markham Esq.]
+
+All through this spring in London, Charles Dickens had been ailing in
+health, and it was remarked by many friends that he had a weary look,
+and was "aged" and altered. But he was generally in good spirits, and
+his family had no uneasiness about him, relying upon the country quiet
+and comparative rest at Gad's Hill to have their usual influence in
+restoring his health and strength. On the 2nd June he attended a private
+play at the house of Mr. and Mrs. Freake, where his two daughters were
+among the actresses. The next day he went back to Gad's Hill. His
+daughter Kate (whose home was there at all times when she chose, and
+almost always through the summer months) went down on Sunday, the 5th
+June, for a day's visit, to see the "great improvement of the
+conservatory." Her father laughingly assured her she had now seen "the
+last" improvement at Gad's Hill. At this time he was tolerably well, but
+she remarked to her sister and aunt how strangely he was tired, and what
+a curious grey colour he had in his face after a very short walk on that
+Sunday afternoon. However, he seemed quite himself again in the evening.
+The next day his daughter Kate went back, accompanied by her sister, who
+was to pay her a short visit, to London.
+
+Charles Dickens was very hard at work on the sixth number of "Edwin
+Drood." On the Monday and Tuesday he was well, but he was unequal to
+much exercise. His last walk was one of his greatest favourites--through
+Cobham Park and Wood--on the afternoon of Tuesday.
+
+On the morning of Wednesday, the 8th (one of the loveliest days of a
+lovely summer), he was very well; in excellent spirits about his book,
+of which he said he _must_ finish his number that day--the next
+(Thursday) being the day of his weekly visit to "All the Year Round"
+office. Therefore, he would write all day in the Chalet, and take no
+walk or drive until the evening. In the middle of the day he came to the
+house for an hour's rest, and smoked a cigar in the conservatory--out of
+which new addition to the house he was taking the greatest personal
+enjoyment--and seemed perfectly well, and exceedingly cheerful and
+hopeful. When he came again to the house, about an hour before the time
+fixed for the early dinner, he seemed very tired, silent, and absorbed.
+But this was so usual with him after a day of engrossing work, that it
+caused no alarm or surprise to his sister-in-law--the only member of his
+household who happened to be at home. He wrote some letters--among them,
+these last letters which we give--in the library of the house, and also
+arranged many trifling business matters, with a view to his departure
+for London the next morning. He was to be accompanied, on his return at
+the end of the week, by Mr. Fildes, to introduce the "new illustrator"
+to the neighbourhood in which many of the scenes of this last book of
+Charles Dickens, as of his first, were laid.
+
+It was not until they were seated at the dinner-table that a striking
+change in the colour and expression of his face startled his
+sister-in-law, and on her asking him if he was ill, he said, "Yes, very
+ill; I have been very ill for the last hour." But on her expressing an
+intention of sending instantly for a doctor, he stopped her, and said:
+"No, he would go on with dinner, and go afterwards to London." And then
+he made an effort to struggle against the fit that was fast coming on
+him, and talked, but incoherently, and soon very indistinctly. It being
+now evident that he _was_ ill, and very seriously ill, his sister-in-law
+begged him to come to his own room before she sent off for medical help.
+"Come and lie down," she entreated. "Yes, on the ground," he said, very
+distinctly--these were the last words he spoke--and he slid from her
+arm, and fell upon the floor.
+
+The servants brought a couch into the dining-room, where he was laid. A
+messenger was despatched for Mr. Steele, the Rochester doctor, and with
+a telegram to his doctor in London, and to his daughters. This was a few
+minutes after six o'clock.
+
+His daughters arrived, with Mr. Frank Beard, this same evening. His
+eldest son the next morning, and his son Henry and his sister Letitia in
+the evening of the 9th--too late, alas!
+
+All through the night, Charles Dickens never opened his eyes, or showed
+a sign of consciousness. In the afternoon of the 9th, Dr. Russell
+Reynolds arrived at Gad's Hill, having been summoned by Mr. Frank Beard
+to meet himself and Mr. Steele. But he could only confirm their hopeless
+verdict, and made his opinion known with much kind sympathy, to the
+family, before returning to London.
+
+Charles Dickens remained in the same unconscious state until the evening
+of this day, when, at ten minutes past six, the watchers saw a shudder
+pass over him, heard him give a deep sigh, saw one tear roll down his
+cheek, and he was gone from them. And as they saw the dark shadow steal
+across his calm, beautiful face, not one among them--could they have
+been given such a power--would have recalled his sweet spirit back to
+earth.
+
+As his family were aware that Charles Dickens had a wish to be buried
+near Gad's Hill, arrangements were made for his burial in the pretty
+churchyard of Shorne, a neighbouring village, of which he was very fond.
+But this intention was abandoned in consequence of a pressing request
+from the Dean and Chapter of Rochester Cathedral that his remains might
+be placed there. A grave was prepared and everything arranged, when it
+was made known to the family, through Dean Stanley, that there was a
+general and very earnest desire that Charles Dickens should find his
+resting-place in Westminster Abbey. To such a fitting tribute to his
+memory they could make no possible objection, although it was with great
+regret that they relinquished the idea of laying him in a place so
+closely identified with his life and his works. His name,
+notwithstanding, is associated with Rochester, a tablet to his memory
+having been placed by his executors on the wall of Rochester Cathedral.
+
+With regard to Westminster Abbey, his family only stipulated that the
+funeral might be made as private as possible, and that the words of his
+will, "I emphatically direct that I be buried in an inexpensive,
+unostentatious, and strictly private manner," should be religiously
+adhered to. And so they were. The solemn service in the vast cathedral
+being as private as the most thoughtful consideration could make it.
+
+The family of Charles Dickens were deeply grateful to all in authority
+who so carried out his wishes. And more especially to Dean Stanley and
+to the (late) Lady Augusta Stanley, for the tender sympathy shown by
+them to the mourners on this day, and also on Sunday, the 19th, when the
+Dean preached his beautiful funeral sermon.
+
+As during his life Charles Dickens's fondness for air, light, and gay
+colours amounted almost to a passion, so when he lay dead in the home he
+had so dearly loved, these things were not forgotten.
+
+The pretty room opening into the conservatory (from which he had never
+been removed since his seizure) was kept bright with the most beautiful
+of all kinds of flowers, and flooded with the summer sun:
+
+        "And nothing stirred in the room. The old, old
+        fashion. The fashion that came in with our
+        first garments, and will last unchanged until
+        our race has run its course, and the wide
+        firmament is rolled up like a scroll. The old,
+        old fashion--death!
+
+        "Oh, thank God, all who see it, for that older
+        fashion yet, of immortality!"
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[37] This letter has lately been presented by Mr. Charles Kent to the
+British Museum.
+
+
+
+
+INDEX.
+
+
+  A'Beckett, Gilbert, i. 134
+
+  Actors, Dickens a friend to poor, ii. 134
+
+  Affidavit, a facetious, i. 101
+
+  Agassiz, Professor, ii. 226, 309
+
+  Agate, John, ii. 136;
+    letter to, ii. 154
+
+  Ainsworth, W. H., letters to, i. 43, 75, 92
+
+  Alison, Sir Archibald, i. 170
+
+  "All the Year Round," commencement of, ii. 83;
+    "The Uncommercial Traveller" in, ii. 107;
+    Christmas Numbers of: "The Haunted House," ii. 84;
+    "A Message from the Sea," ii. 108, 137;
+    "Tom Tiddler's Ground," ii. 136;
+    "Somebody's Luggage," ii. 171;
+    "Mrs. Lirriper's Lodgings," ii. 187;
+    "Mrs. Lirriper's Legacy," ii. 209, 210;
+    "Dr. Marigold's Prescriptions," ii. 224, 239, 246;
+    "Mugby Junction," ii. 244, 265;
+    "No Thoroughfare," ii. 268, 300, 327, 332, 334, 338, 350, 356,
+        361, 362, 384;
+    and see ii. 386,
+    and see Charles Dickens as an Editor
+
+  America, feeling for Dickens in the backwoods of, i. 40, 41;
+    Dickens's first visit to, i. 53;
+    his welcome in, i. 59;
+    his opinion of, i. 60-64;
+    freedom of opinion in, i. 61;
+    Dickens's levees in, i. 66;
+    change of temperature in, i. 66;
+    hotel charges in, i. 67;
+    midnight rambles in New York, i. 67;
+    descriptions of Niagara, i. 69, 70; ii. 372, 377;
+    a maid's views on Niagara, i. 72;
+    copyright in, i. 71, 73, 74;
+    Dickens's tribute to Mrs. Trollope's book on, i. 81;
+    press-ridden, i. 97;
+    absence of quiet in, i. 98;
+    criticisms of Dickens in, i. 151;
+    the great war in, ii. 142, 143;
+    feeling between England and, ii. 240;
+    Dickens's second visit to--the journey, ii. 302-306;
+    Dickens's letters on, ii. 306-382;
+    fires in, ii. 317, 320;
+    treatment of luggage in, ii. 321;
+    drinks in, ii. 329, 363;
+    literary piracy in, ii. 332;
+    walking-match between Dolby and Osgood in, ii. 346, 352, 353,
+        360, 361, 364, 366, 377;
+    changes and improvements in since Dickens's first visit,
+        ii. 348, 374;
+    the negroes in, ii. 349;
+    personal descriptions of Dickens in, ii. 369;
+    travelling in, ii. 375;
+    and see Readings
+
+  "American Notes," publication of, i. 54
+
+  Andersen, Hans Christian, ii. 3
+
+  "Animal Magnetism," tag to, written by Dickens, i. 238
+
+  Anne, Mrs. Dickens's maid, i. 72, 414; ii. 18, 25, 28, 343
+
+  "Apprentices, The Tour of the Two Idle," ii. 5, 32, 33
+
+  "Arabian Nights," a mistake in the, i. 88, 89
+
+  Armatage, Isaac, ii. 391
+
+  Armstrong, the Misses, letter to, ii. 175;
+    and see ii. 176
+
+  Astley's Theatre, description of a clown at, i. 116
+
+  Austin, Henry, i. 240; ii. 135, 157;
+    and see Letters
+
+  Austin, Mrs. Henry, ii. 447;
+    letters to, ii. 154, 180, 384
+
+  Author, the highest reward of an, i. 41
+
+  Autobiography, a concise, of Dickens, i. 437
+
+  Autograph of Dickens in 1833, i. 2;
+    Dickens leaves his in Shakespeare's room, i. 13;
+    of Boz, i. 43;
+    of Dickens as Bobadil, i. 195;
+    facsimile of Dickens's handwriting in 1856, i. 421;
+    facsimile letters of Dickens written the day before his death,
+        ii. 443-445
+
+
+  Babbage, Charles, letters to, i. 86, 87, 186
+
+  Ballantyne, ii. 415
+
+  Bancroft, Mrs., letter to, ii. 441
+
+  Banks, G., i. 273; letter to, i. 296
+
+  Barber, Dickens's gardener, ii. 102
+
+  Barker, Dr. Fordyce, ii. 378, 405
+
+  "Barnaby Rudge" written and published, i. 36;
+    Dickens's descriptions of the illustrations of:
+      the raven, i. 38;
+      the locksmith's house, i. 39;
+      rioters in The Maypole, i. 45;
+      scene in the ruins of the Warren, i. 46;
+      abduction of Dolly Varden, i. 48;
+      Lord George Gordon in the Tower, the duel, frontispiece, i. 50;
+      Hugh taken to gaol, i. 51
+
+  "Battle of Life, The," dedication of, i. 147, 157;
+    Dickens superintends rehearsals of the play of, i. 163, 165, 167;
+    sale of, i. 166, 176;
+    reception of the play of, i. 167
+
+  Baylis, Mr., ii. 170;
+    letter to, ii. 179
+
+  Beadle, a, in office, ii. 134
+
+  Beard, Frank, ii. 182, 405, 421, 434, 447
+
+  Beaucourt, M., i. 297, 357, 439
+
+  Bedstead, a German, i. 128
+
+  Beecher, Ward, ii. 341
+
+  Begging letters, Dickens's answers to, i. 148-150
+
+  Belgians, the King of the, ii. 432
+
+  Benzon, Miss Lily, letter to, ii. 258
+
+  Berry, one of Dickens's readings men, ii. 54, 159, 160
+
+  Bicknell, Henry, i. 215;
+    letter to, i. 229
+
+  Biographers, Dickens on, i. 190;
+    his opinion of John Forster as a biographer, i. 188-191
+
+  Birthday wishes, i. 51
+
+  "Black-eyed Susan," Dickens as T. P. Cooke in, i. 113;
+    a new version of, i. 114
+
+  Blackwood, Mr., ii. 165
+
+  Blair, General, ii. 355
+
+  Blanchard, Laman, letter to, i. 99
+
+  "Bleak House," commenced, i. 241;
+    publication of, i. 272;
+    Dickens's opinion of, i. 279;
+    circulation of, i. 289, 309, 317
+
+  Blessington, Lady, i. 171
+
+  Bobadil, Captain, Dickens plays, i. 134;
+    Dickens's remarks on, i. 144;
+    a letter after, i. 195
+
+  Book-backs, Dickens's imitation, i. 265, 266
+
+  Book Clubs, established, i. 94;
+    Dickens on, i. 104
+
+  Boucicault, Dion, ii. 260, 261
+
+  Boulogne, Dickens at, i. 271, 297, 304-312, 341, 414, 439-448;
+    a Shakespearian performance at, i. 308;
+    _en fete_, i. 315;
+    illuminations at, on the occasion of the Prince Consort's visit,
+        i. 362;
+    fire at, i. 364;
+    condition of, during the Crimean war, i. 365;
+    letters descriptive of, i. 305, 306, 309, 312, 357, 358, 360, 372
+
+  Bouncer, Mrs., Miss Dickens's dog, ii. 109, 126, 189, 356
+
+  Bow Street Runners, ii. 178
+
+  Boxall, Sir William, i. 233, 237
+
+  Boyle, Captain Cavendish, ii. 407
+
+  Boyle, Miss Mary, i. 211, 214, 227, 414; ii. 123, 145, 315, 406;
+    and see Letters
+
+  Breach of Promise, a new sort of, i. 179
+
+  Breakfast, a Yorkshire, i. 9
+
+  Broadstairs, Dickens at, i. 4, 6, 17, 28, 36, 53, 134, 170, 185,
+        213, 240; ii. 84, 99;
+    description of lodgings at, i. 33;
+    amusements of, i. 180, 182;
+    size of Fort House at, i. 254
+
+  Bromley, Sir Richard, ii. 126
+
+  Brookfield, Mrs., letter to, ii. 249
+
+  Brookfield, The Rev. W., letters to, ii. 199, 200
+
+  Brooks, Shirley, ii. 407;
+    letters to, ii. 423, 438
+
+  Brougham, Lord, i. 182; ii. 144
+
+  Browne, H. K., i. 6, 13
+
+  Buckstone, J. B., i. 360
+
+  Burnett, Mrs., i. 185
+
+
+  Cabin, a, on board ship, i. 56
+
+  Campbell, Lord, ii, 144
+
+  Capital punishment, Dickens's views on, i. 209
+
+  Carlisle, the Earl of, letters to, i. 253, 281; ii. 12, 118, 157
+
+  Carlyle, Thomas, ii. 112
+
+  Cartwright, Samuel, ii. 326;
+    letter to, ii. 348
+
+  Castlereagh, Lord, i. 245
+
+  Cat-hunting, i. 449
+
+  Cattermole, George, i. 42, 143; ii. 327, 383;
+    and see Letters
+
+  Cattermole, Mrs., letters to, ii. 383, 385
+
+  Celeste, Madame, ii. 106
+
+  Cerjat, M. de, i. 147; ii. 406;
+    and see Letters
+
+  Chambers, Robert, ii. 167, 434
+
+  Chancery, Dickens on the Court of, i. 450
+
+  Chapman and Hall, Messrs., i. 3;
+    letter to, i. 55
+
+  Chappell, Messrs., ii. 244, 245, 267, 309, 326, 405
+
+  Charities, Dickens's sufferings from public, ii. 47
+
+  Children, stories of, i. 223, 365, 420; ii. 196, 359, 423
+
+  Childs, Mr., ii. 337, 405
+
+  "Chimes, The," written, i. 95;
+    an attack on cant, i. 118, 129;
+    Dickens's opinion of, i. 129, 133;
+    Dickens gives a private reading of, i. 133
+
+  Chorley, H. F., ii. 338, 350
+
+  "Christmas Carol, The," publication of, i. 85;
+    criticisms on, i. 99
+
+  Christmas greetings, i. 167
+
+  Church, Dickens on the, ii. 221;
+    service on board ship, ii. 348;
+    Dickens on the Romish, ii. 409, 410
+
+  Circumlocution, Dickens on, ii. 241, 270
+
+  Clarke, John, letter to, ii. 418
+
+  Cockspur Street Society, the, i. 85-87
+
+  Cold, effects of a, i. 92, 93;
+    remedy for a, i. 168
+
+  Colden, David, i. 64
+
+  Collins, C. A., ii. 84, 100, 113, 221, 242, 387, 410
+
+  Collins, Wilkie, i. 241, 272, 297, 332, 359, 376, 385, 388, 413,
+        414, 447; ii. 33, 84, 108, 170, 268, 292;
+    and see Letters
+
+  Comedy, Mr. Webster's offer for a prize, Dickens an imaginary
+        competitor, i. 86, 90
+
+  Compton, Mrs., letter to, ii. 22
+
+  Conjuring feats, i. 96;
+    and see ii. 243
+
+  Cooke, T. P., i. 113; ii. 4;
+    letter to, ii. 21
+
+  Copyright, i. 13;
+    Dickens's struggles to secure English, in America, i. 71, 73, 74
+
+  Costello, Dudley, i. 241;
+    letters to, i. 104, 205
+
+  Cottage, a cheap, i. 18
+
+  Coutts, Miss, i. 410
+
+  Covent Garden Theatre, Macready retires from management of, i. 18;
+    ruins of, i. 430;
+    a scene at, ii. 133
+
+  "Cricket on the Hearth, The," i. 135, 145
+
+  Croker, J. Crofton, i. 272;
+    letter to, i. 275
+
+  Cruikshank, George, i. 170
+
+  Cunningham, Mrs., ii. 423
+
+  Cunningham, Peter, i. 186, 407;
+    letters to, i. 195, 270, 312, 356
+
+
+  Dacres, Sir Sydney, ii. 329
+
+  _Daily News, The_, started, i. 135
+
+  Dallas, Mrs., letters to, ii. 195, 434
+
+  Dallas, Mr., ii. 235
+
+  "David Copperfield," dedication of, i. 147;
+    purpose of Little Emily in, i. 211;
+    success of, i. 211;
+    reading of, i. 377, 382;
+    Dickens's favourite work, i. 382;
+    and see i. 204, 221, 227, 279
+
+  Deane, F. H., letter to, i. 68
+
+  Delane, John, i. 298; ii. 425;
+    letter to, i. 314
+
+  De la Rue, Mr., ii. 210
+
+  Devonshire, the Duke of, letters to, i. 437, 443, 457
+
+  Devrient, Emil, i. 277
+
+  Dickens, Charles, at Furnival's Inn, i. 1;
+    his marriage, i. 1;
+    employed as a parliamentary reporter, i. 1;
+    spends his honeymoon at Chalk, Kent, i. 1;
+    employed on _The Morning Chronicle_, i. 2;
+    removes to Doughty Street, i. 4;
+    writes for the stage, i. 4, 5, 7, 16, 17;
+    his visit to the Yorkshire schools, i. 6;
+    at Twickenham Park, i. 6;
+    his visits to Broadstairs, see Broadstairs;
+    his visit to Stratford-on-Avon and Kenilworth, i. 6, 12;
+    in Shakespeare's room, i. 13;
+    elected at the Athenaeum Club, i. 12;
+    removes to Devonshire Terrace, i. 17;
+    portraits of, see Portraits;
+    visits to Scotland, i. 36, ii. 39, and see ii. 395;
+    personal feeling of for his characters, i. 36, 37, 42;
+    declines to enter Parliament, i. 37, 44; ii. 389;
+    public dinners to, i. 36, 53, 273; ii. 268, 301, 404, 406, 417,
+        419, 420;
+    an enemy of cant, i. 88, 118, 129;
+    visits of to America, see America;
+    expedition of to Cornwall, i. 54;
+    his travels in Italy, see Italy;
+    political opinions of, i. 62, 63, 88, 104;
+    fancy signatures to letters of, i. 91, 146, 152, 181, 206,
+        237, 425; ii. 195;
+    takes the chair at the opening of the Liverpool Mechanics'
+        Institute, i. 94, and see i. 100-102;
+    his theatrical performances, see Theatrical Performances;
+    effects of work on, i. 121,; ii. 248, 266, 325;
+    _The Daily News_, started by, i. 135;
+    his visits to Lausanne and Switzerland, i. 147, 297, and
+        see Switzerland;
+    his visits to Paris, see Paris;
+    as a stage, manager, i. 163, 167, 231, 232, 237; ii. 26;
+    at Chester Place, Regent's Park, i. 169;
+    takes the chair at the opening of the Leeds Mechanics' Institute,
+        and of the Glasgow Athenaeum, i. 170;
+    at Brighton, i. 185, 213;
+    at Bonchurch, i, 204;
+    purchases Tavistock House, i. 240, and see Tavistock House;
+    as an editor, i. 246, 259, 269, 270, 285; ii. 127, 217, 262, 286,
+        292;
+    his readings, see Readings;
+    illnesses of, i. 14, 297; ii. 404, 405, 421, 446;
+    in America, ii. 338, 341, 347, 353, 355, 360, 365, 373, 377, 380,
+        381;
+    his visits to Boulogne, see Boulogne;
+    presentation of plate to, at Birmingham, i. 348;
+    purchases Gad's Hill, i. 377, 414, and see Gad's Hill;
+    delivers a speech on Administrative Reform, i. 377;
+    at Folkestone, i. 377, 378;
+    restlessness of, when at work, i. 402, 425;
+    tour of, in the North, ii. 5, 29-32;
+    his kindly criticisms of young writers, ii. 16, 34, 267, 277,
+        for other criticisms see i. 152, 188; ii. 14, 43, 215, 249;
+    elected a member of the Birmingham Institute, ii. 34;
+    religious views of, ii. 82, 202, 221, 394, 403, 444;
+    visit of, to Cornwall, ii. 108;
+    at Hanover Terrace, Regent's Park, ii. 135;
+    visits Lord Lytton at Knebworth, ii. 136;
+    at Hyde Park Gate South, ii. 170;
+    at 57, Gloucester Place, Hyde Park, ii. 208;
+    at Somer's Place, Hyde Park, ii. 224;
+    in the Staplehurst accident, ii. 224;
+    at Southwick Place, Hyde Park, ii. 224;
+    his energy, ii. 291;
+    one of the secrets of the success of, ii. 357, 392;
+    the Midland Institute at Birmingham opened by, ii. 406, and
+        see ii. 427;
+    his last speech, at the Royal Academy dinner, ii. 432;
+    his interview with the Queen, ii. 432;
+    attends a levee of the Prince of Wales, ii. 432;
+    his last illness, ii. 446;
+    his death, ii. 448;
+    funeral of, ii. 448, 449;
+    and see Letters of
+
+  Dickens, Mrs. Charles, marriage of, i. 1;
+    visit of, to America, i. 53;
+    at Rome, i. 135;
+    accident to, i. 215;
+    at Malvern, i. 239;
+    present to, at Birmingham, i. 298;
+    and see Letters
+
+  Dickens, Charles, jun., birth of, i. 4;
+    nickname of, i. 76;
+    at Eton, i. 212, 240, 243, 255, 258;
+    at Leipsic, i. 297, 310, 319;
+    at Barings', i. 455;
+    marriage of, ii. 208;
+    on "All the Year Round," ii. 406, 410, 424;
+    and see i. 169, 233, 237, 243, 255, 258, 290, 347, 378, 405, 426;
+        ii. 88, 114, 123, 140, 145, 176, 447;
+    letters to, ii. 310, 338
+
+  Dickens, Kate, nickname of, i. 76;
+    marriage of, ii. 107, 113;
+    illness of, ii. 266, 271; and see ii. 39, 75, 77, 84, 221, 410,
+        436, 446;
+    letters to, i. 178; ii. 99
+
+  Dickens, Mamie, nickname of, i. 76;
+    illnesses of, i. 363, 436;
+    accident to, ii. 129;
+    and see ii. 39, 49, 55, 75, 77, 84, 87, 114, 116, 120, 145, 179,
+        234, 411, 447, and Letters
+
+  Dickens, Walter, nickname of, i. 76;
+    goes to India, ii. 19, 21;
+    attached to the 42nd Highlanders, ii. 114, 176;
+    death of, ii. 208, 212; and see i. 268, 314, 378, 443; ii. 4
+
+  Dickens, Frank, nickname of, i. 126;
+    letter of, to Dickens, ii. 93;
+    in India, ii. 208, 212; and see ii. 114, 131, 140, 177
+
+  Dickens, Alfred, at Wimbledon School, ii. 122;
+    settles in Australia, ii. 327; and see ii. 177, 371
+
+  Dickens, Sydney, birth of, i. 169;
+    nickname of, i. 170;
+    death of, i. 171;
+    story of, i. 223;
+    a naval cadet, ii. 125, 126, 145, 167;
+    on board H.M.S. _Orlando_, ii. 169; and see i. 363; ii. 114,
+        118, 122, 177, 202, 236, 260, 296, 430
+
+  Dickens, Henry, entered at Trinity Hall, Cambridge, ii. 327;
+    wins a scholarship, ii. 424, 430;
+      and see i. 363; ii. 177, 190, 254, 255, 329, 371, 389, 395,
+        406, 410, 447;
+    letters to, ii. 356, 392, 435, 438
+
+  Dickens, Edward, nicknames of, i. 322, 338;
+    goes to Australia, ii. 327, 329;
+    Dickens's love for, ii. 389-391;
+      and see i. 353, 359, 365, 403, 420, 426, 439; ii. 53, 76, 79,
+        92, 95, 153, 190, 199;
+    letter to, ii. 402
+
+  Dickens, Dora, birth of, i. 213;
+    death of, i. 240
+
+  Dickens, Alfred, sen., i. 184, 410; ii. 199
+
+  Dickens, Mrs. Augustus, ii. 418
+
+  Dickens, Fanny, see Mrs. Burnett
+
+  Dickens, Frederick, i. 9
+
+  Dickens, John, i. 240, 437; ii. 240
+
+  Dickens, Mrs. John, ii. 333
+
+  Dickens, Letitia, see Mrs. Henry Austin
+
+  Dickenson, Captain, ii. 224, 232
+
+  Dickson, David, letter to, i. 89
+
+  Diezman, S. A., letter to, i. 32
+
+  Dilke, C. W., ii. 5;
+    letter to, ii. 12
+
+  Dillon, C., ii. 42
+
+  Dinner, a search for a, i. 326;
+    ladies at public dinners, i. 103
+
+  Dogs, Dickens's, i. 67, 109, 110; ii. 50, 96, 101; ii. 203, 237,
+        242, 245, 264, 269;
+    a plague of, i. 292;
+    stories of, i. 109, 352, 354, 455
+
+  Dolby, George, ii. 245, 252-255, 267, 273, 280, 295, 296, 308, 310,
+        311, 317-323, 328, 330, 335, 336, 340, 345-347, 352-360, 363,
+        367, 381
+
+  "Dombey and Son," i. 147;
+    success of, i. 156, 176;
+    sale of, i. 162
+
+  D'Orsay, Comte, i. 171, 244
+
+  Driver, Dickens's estimate of himself as a, i. 2
+
+  Drury Lane Theatre, the saloon at, i. 37;
+    suggestions for the saloon at, i. 52, 53
+
+  Dufferin, Lord, ii. 419
+
+  Dwarf, the Tartar, ii. 255
+
+
+  Earthquake, an, in England, ii. 206
+
+  Edinburgh on a Sunday, ii. 395
+
+  Education, Dickens an advocate of, for the people, i. 104
+
+  "Edwin Drood," ii. 407, 431, 432, 446
+
+  Eeles, Mr., letters to, i. 265, 269
+
+  Egg, Augustus, i. 170, 172, 226, 297, 320, 332; ii. 198
+
+  Eliot, Sir John, Dickens on Forster's life of, ii. 215
+
+  Elliotson, Dr., i. 37, 149, ii. 99
+
+  Elton, Mr., i. 85, 92
+
+  Elwin, Rev. W., ii. 136, 151
+
+  Ely, Miss, letter to, i. 153
+
+  Emerson, Mr., ii. 306
+
+  Emery, Mr., i. 429
+
+  England, state of, in 1855, i. 391;
+    politically, i. 406
+
+  Epitaph, Dickens's, on a little child, i. 68
+
+  Executions, Dickens on public, i. 209, 212
+
+  Exhibition, an infant school at the, i. 257
+
+  Eytinge, Mr., ii. 405
+
+
+  Fairy Tales, Dickens on, i. 307
+
+  "Faust," Gounod's, ii. 191, 193
+
+  Fechter, Charles, ii. 171, 177, 187, 193, 201, 219, 270, 386; and
+        see Letters
+
+  Felton, Mr., ii. 85
+
+  Ferguson, Sir William, ii. 246, 247
+
+  Feval, Paul, ii. 183, 192
+
+  Fielding, Henry, i. 394
+
+  Fields, Cyrus W., ii. 85, 308, 344, 361, 364, 379, 405
+
+  Fields, Mrs., ii. 306, 308, 319, 344, 361, 364, 367, 379, 405
+
+  Fildes, S. L., ii. 432, 447;
+    letter to, ii. 435
+
+  Finlay, F. D., ii. 406;
+    letters to, ii. 297, 389, 408
+
+  Fitzgerald, Mrs., ii. 285
+
+  Fitzgerald, Percy, ii. 187, 397;
+    and see Letters
+
+  Flunkeydom, scholastic, ii. 68
+
+  Forgues, M., i. 415, 421
+
+  Forster, Miss, ii. 327
+
+  Forster, John, i. 7, 10, 134, 143, 225, 240, 268, 428; ii. 108, 130,
+        265;
+    and see Letters
+
+  Franklin, Sir John, i. 373
+
+  Freake, Mr. and Mrs., ii. 446
+
+  French portraits of the English, i. 175
+
+  Friday, Dickens's lucky day, i. 414, 429
+
+  Frith, W. P., ii. 84, 93, 385, 418;
+    letters to, i. 79; ii. 439
+
+  Frost, the great, of 1861, ii. 139
+
+  Funerals, Dickens on state, i. 290; ii. 385
+
+
+  Gad's Hill, purchase of, i. 377, 378, 414;
+    Dickens takes possession of, ii. 3;
+    his childish impressions of, ii. 8;
+    improvements in, ii. 107, 373, 406, 446;
+    sports at, ii. 205;
+    cricket club at, ii. 356;
+    letters concerning, i. 384, 410, 429; ii. 15, 18, 25, 28, 49, 106,
+        119, 227
+
+  Gaskell, Mrs., i. 214;
+    and see Letters
+
+  Germany, esteem felt for Dickens in, i. 32
+
+  Ghost, stalking a, ii. 131
+
+  Gibson, M., i. 315; ii. 121
+
+  Gibson, Mr. and Mrs. Milner, ii. 431
+
+  Gladstone, Right Hon. W. E., ii. 401
+
+  Goldsmith, Oliver, Dickens on Forster's Life of, i. 188;
+    on the works of, i. 380
+
+  Gordon, Andrew, ii. 131
+
+  Gordon, Mr. Sheriff, ii. 164
+
+  "Great Expectations," commenced, ii. 108, 136;
+    letters concerning, ii. 128, 133, 140, 142, 143, 151
+
+  Grief, the perversity of, exemplified, i. 18
+
+  Grimaldi, Life of, edited by Dickens, i. 4
+
+  Guild of Literature and Art, i. 239;
+    theatrical performances in aid of the, i. 239, 241, 248, 252, 268,
+        271;
+    and see ii. 41
+
+
+  Haldimand, Mr., i. 147, 169, 212, 380;
+    letters to, i. 157, 254
+
+  Halleck, Fitz-Greene, i. 59
+
+  "Hard Times," i. 341;
+    satire of, explained, i. 349;
+    letters concerning, i. 355, 371
+
+  Harley, J. P., letters to, i. 5, 23
+
+  Harness, Rev. W., ii. 253;
+    letters to, i. 37, 76, 361
+
+  "Haunted Man, The," i. 170, 185, 241;
+    subjects for illustrations in, described, i. 200, 201;
+    dramatisation of, i. 203
+
+  Headland, Mr., ii. 135, 149, 158, 160
+
+  Helps, Sir Arthur, ii. 432
+
+  Henderson, Mrs., letter to, ii. 293
+
+  Hewett, Captain, i. 57
+
+  "History of England, The Child's," i. 297
+
+  Hogarth, Mary, i. 4, 9
+
+  Hogarth, Georgina, i. 425; ii. 50, 114, 145, 179, 202, 408, 436;
+    and see Letters
+
+  Hogge, Mrs., letter to, ii. 46
+
+  Holland, Lady, i. 11
+
+  Holmes, Mr., ii. 306
+
+  Home, longings for, i. 64, 70
+
+  Hood, Tom, i. 287;
+    letter to, i. 80
+
+  Horne, Mrs., letter to, i. 456
+
+  Horne, R. H., letter to, i. 93
+
+  Hospital, a dinner at a, i. 88;
+    Great Ormond Street, ii. 40, 46
+
+  Houghton, Lord, ii. 432;
+    letter to, i. 41
+
+  "Household Words," i. 148;
+    scheme of, i. 216;
+    suggested titles for, i. 219;
+    success of, i. 221;
+    Christmas numbers of, i. 241, 288;
+    "The Golden Mary," i. 414; ii. 11,
+    "A House to Let," ii. 40;
+    incorporated with "All the Year Round," ii. 83;
+    letters concerning, i. 219, 221, 250, 285, 286, 291-293, 295, 299,
+        301, 334, 335, 353, 423, 452; ii. 68
+
+  Hughes, Master Hastings, letter to, i. 14
+
+  Hulkes, Mrs., ii. 224, 315, 329;
+    letter to, ii. 232
+
+  Hullah, John, i. 5; ii. 131
+
+  Humphery, Mr. and Mrs., afterwards Sir W. and Lady, ii. 187
+
+  Hunt, Leigh, ii. 407
+
+  Hutchinson, John, ii. 380
+
+
+  _Illustrated London News_, offers to Dickens from, i. 150
+
+  Illustrations of Dickens's works, his descriptions for, i. 38-40,
+        45, 46, 50, 51, 200-203; ii. 237
+
+  Impeachment of the Five Members, Dickens on Forster's, ii. 14
+
+  Ireland, a dialogue in, ii. 61;
+    feeling for Dickens in, ii. 65;
+    Fenianism in, ii. 282-286;
+    proposed banquet to Dickens in, ii. 406;
+    Dickens on the Established Church in, ii. 409;
+    and see ii. 57, 60, 64
+
+  Italy, Dickens's first visit to, i. 94;
+    the sky of, i. 106;
+    the colouring of, i. 106;
+    a sunset in, i. 106;
+    twilight in, i. 107;
+    frescoes in, i. 107;
+    churches in, i. 108;
+    fruit in, i. 109;
+    climate of, i. 111;
+    a coastguard in, i. 116;
+    Dickens at Albaro, i. 105-117;
+    at Genoa, i. 120-122, 134, 321;
+    at Venice and Verona, i. 119-121, 337;
+    at Naples, i. 134-141, 322;
+    an ascent of Vesuvius, i. 137-141;
+    at Rome, i. 134, 135, 325-333;
+    Dickens on the unity of, ii. 84, 89, 90, 140, 211;
+    and see i. 297, 346
+
+
+  Jamaica, the insurrection in, ii. 241
+
+  Jeffrey, Lord, i. 184, 218
+
+  Jerrold, Douglas, i. 134, 225, 268, 390; ii. 3, 4, 19;
+    and see Letters
+
+  Jews, Dickens's friendly feeling for, ii. 204, 223, 280
+
+  Joachim, Joseph, ii. 413
+
+  John, Dickens's manservant, ii. 54, 56, 57, 72, 153, 187, 188, 255
+
+  Joll, Miss, letter to, i. 209
+
+  Jones, Walter, letter to, ii. 232
+
+
+  Keeley, Mrs., ii. 417
+
+  Keeley, Robert, i. 165;
+    letter to, i. 105
+
+  Kelly, Miss, i. 302, 303
+
+  Kelly, one of Dickens's readings men, ii. 305, 306, 342
+
+  Kemble, Fanny, ii. 344, 346
+
+  Kent, W. Charles, i. 186; ii. 225, 268, 407;
+    and see Letters
+
+  Kinkel, Dr., i. 230
+
+  Knight, Charles, i. 94; ii. 208;
+    and see Letters
+
+  Knowles, Sheridan, i. 214;
+    letter to, i. 215
+
+
+  "Lady of Lyons, The," ii. 298
+
+  La Font, ii. 440
+
+  Lamartine, i. 187
+
+  Landor, Walter Savage, i. 268, 337; ii. 66;
+    and see Letters
+
+  Landseer, Edwin, letter to, i. 103
+
+  Landseer, Tom, i. 27
+
+  Lansdowne, Lord, i. 275
+
+  Law, Dickens's opinion of English, ii. 440
+
+  Layard, A. H., i. 377; ii. 108;
+    letters to, i. 390, 391
+
+  Leclercq, Miss, ii. 246
+
+  Lectures, Dickens on public, i. 97
+
+  Leech, John, i. 134, 186, 225, 226, 239
+
+  Le Gros, Mr., i. 140, 332
+
+  Lehmann, Mrs., ii. 39, 75;
+    and see Letters
+
+  Lehmann, F., ii. 39, 75
+
+  Lemaitre, M., i. 386
+
+  Lemon, Mark, i. 134, 186, 225, 226, 376, 390;
+    and see Letters
+
+  Lemon, Mrs., i. 419
+
+  Leotard, ii. 142
+
+  LETTERS OF CHARLES DICKENS TO:
+    Agate, John, ii. 154
+    Ainsworth, W. H., i. 43, 75, 92
+    Anonymous, i. 277; ii. 276
+    Armstrong, the Misses, ii. 175
+    Austin, Henry, i. 2, 69-73, 76, 262-264, 266, 361; ii. 18, 25, 28
+    Austin, Mrs., ii. 154, 180, 384
+    Babbage, Charles, i. 86, 87, 186
+    Bancroft, Mrs., ii. 441
+    Banks, G., i. 296
+    Baylis, Mr., ii. 179
+    Benzon, Miss, ii. 258
+    Bicknell, H., i. 229
+    Blanchard, Laman, i. 99
+    Boyle, Miss, i. 224, 225, 227, 245, 265, 279, 345, 381, 423;
+        ii. 10, 132, 157, 169, 186, 245, 315, 411
+    Brookfield, Mrs., ii. 249
+    Brookfield, Rev. W., ii. 199, 200
+    Brooks, Shirley, ii. 423, 438
+    Carlisle, the Earl of, i. 253, 281; ii. 12, 118, 157
+    Cartwright, Samuel, ii. 348
+    Cattermole, Mrs., ii. 383, 385
+    Cattermole, George, i. 22, 28-30, 31, 33-36, 38, 39, 42, 43,
+        45-48, 50, 51, 81, 143
+    Cerjat, M. de, i. 161, 210, 346, 378; ii. 7, 48, 86, 113, 138,
+        176, 200, 220, 240, 268, 387, 409
+    Chapman and Hall, i. 55
+    Clarke, John, ii. 418
+    Collins, Wilkie, i. 294, 358, 362, 397, 400, 403, 419, 437, 448;
+        ii. 40, 67, 101, 110, 129, 146, 182, 198, 209, 332, 397
+    Compton, Mrs., ii. 22
+    Cooke, T. P., ii. 21
+    Costello, Dudley, i. 104, 205
+    Croker, J. Crofton, i. 275
+    Cunningham, Peter, i. 195, 270, 312, 356
+    Dallas, Mrs., ii. 195, 434
+    Deane, F. H., i. 68
+    Delane, John, i. 314
+    Devonshire, the Duke of, i. 437, 443, 457
+    Dickens, Mrs. Charles, i. 12, 100, 123, 127, 130, 132, 165, 166,
+        206, 223, 244, 249, 267, 330, 406, 433
+    Dickens, Charles, ii. 310, 338
+    Dickens, Edward, ii. 402
+    Dickens, Henry, ii. 356, 392, 435, 438
+    Dickens, Miss Kate, i. 178; ii. 99
+    Dickens, Miss, i. 176, 178, 182, 199, 205, 453; ii. 52, 53, 56,
+        63, 72, 78, 95, 99, 124, 150, 161, 163, 165, 188, 190, 243,
+        252, 254, 256, 273, 275, 276, 278, 279, 283, 285, 299, 302,
+        306, 313, 316, 321, 324, 337, 341, 343, 350, 351, 354, 363,
+        366, 372, 377, 380, 389, 391, 399, 412, 415, 421, 426
+    Dickson, David, i. 89
+    Diezman, S. A., i. 32
+    Dilke, C. W., ii. 12
+    Eeles, Mr., i. 265, 269
+    Ely, Miss, i. 153
+    Fechter, Charles, ii. 183, 185, 191, 260, 297, 361, 368, 390
+    Fildes, S. L., ii. 435
+    Finlay, F. D., ii. 297, 389, 408
+    Fitzgerald, Percy, ii. 203, 217, 234, 237, 247, 263, 293, 294
+    Forster, John, i. 167, 188, 393; ii. 14, 42, 76, 97, 111, 128,
+        142, 215
+    Frith, W. P., i. 79; ii. 439
+    Gaskell, Mrs., i. 216, 269, 270, 292, 293, 301, 355, 360, 381
+    Haldimand, Mr., i. 157
+    Halleck, Fitz-Greene, i. 59
+    Harley, J. P., i. 5, 23
+    Harness, Rev. W., i. 37, 76, 361
+    Henderson, Mrs., ii. 293
+    Hogarth, Catherine, i. 3
+    Hogarth, Miss, i. 135, 177, 183, 319, 320, 322, 325, 337, 359, 385,
+        426, 428, 429, 435; ii. 28, 31, 33, 51, 55, 58, 61, 65, 70, 74,
+        75, 79, 126, 132, 137, 151, 152, 156, 158, 162, 165, 172-174,
+        190, 206, 248, 251, 253, 255, 257, 272, 274, 277, 279, 281,
+        282, 284-286, 295, 298, 303, 304, 307, 315, 317, 319, 327, 330,
+        334, 341, 345, 353, 358, 360, 364, 370, 371, 379, 391, 392, 396,
+        398, 400, 413-419, 421
+    Hogge, Mrs., ii. 46
+    Hood, Tom, i. 80
+    Horne, Mrs., i. 456
+    Horne, R. H., i. 93
+    Hughes, Master, i. 14
+    Hulkes, Mrs., ii. 232
+    Jerrold, Douglas, i. 87, 90, 118, 154, 427
+    Jewish Lady, a, ii. 204, 223, 280
+    Joll, Miss, i. 209
+    Jones, Walter, ii. 232
+    Keeley, Robert, i. 105
+    Kent, W. Charles, i. 188, 461; ii. 225, 239, 246, 299, 394, 429,
+        437, 439, 441, 443
+    Knight, Charles, i. 104, 152, 218, 259, 277, 280, 349, 351; ii.
+        195, 212
+    Knowles, Sheridan, i. 215
+    Landor, Walter Savage, i. 157, 230, 313, 343, 441
+    Landseer, Edwin, i. 103
+    Layard, A. H., i. 390, 391
+    Lehmann, Mrs. F., ii. 196, 234, 395, 413
+    Lemon, Mark, i. 192, 203, 207, 243, 281, 394, 396, 416, 439, 440
+    Longman, Thomas, i. 73; ii. 106
+    Longman, William, i. 24
+    Lovejoy, G., i. 44
+    Lytton, Sir E. B., ii. 116
+    Maclise, Daniel, i. 33, 105
+    Macready, W. C., i. 5, 16, 17, 18, 24, 26, 27, 49, 52, 60, 77, 79,
+        95, 117, 129, 141, 144, 146, 154, 183, 187, 194, 195, 198, 247,
+        252, 273, 283, 300, 307, 368, 399, 404, 430, 431, 446, 451, 459;
+        ii. 10, 19, 22, 46, 109, 141, 150, 192, 197, 226, 227, 229, 265,
+        373, 383, 424, 429, 436
+    Major, Mrs., ii. 196
+    Makeham, John, ii. 444
+    Marston, Dr. Westland, ii. 43
+    Milnes, R. Monckton, i. 41
+    Mitton, Thomas, i. 10, 19, 56, 58, 65, 121, 136, 458; ii. 229
+    Morpeth, Viscount, i. 92, 146,
+      and see Carlisle, The Earl of Ollier, Edmund, ii. 213, 425
+    Ouvry, F., ii. 205, 427
+    Owen, Professor, ii. 235
+    Panizzi, Antonio, ii. 89, 90, 92
+    Pardoe, Miss, i. 73
+    Parkinson, J. C., ii. 401
+    Pollock, Mrs. F., ii. 440
+    Pollock, Sir F., ii. 214
+    Poole, John, i. 236
+    Power, Miss, i. 179, 181, 460; ii. 127, 194
+    Power, Mrs., ii. 300
+    Procter, Adelaide, i. 374
+    Procter, B. W., i. 354; ii. 5, 82, 90, 223, 259
+    Procter, Mrs., ii. 226, 238
+    Reade, Charles, ii. 206
+    Regnier, Monsieur, i. 302, 303, 383, 411; ii. 44, 45, 102, 105, 189
+    Roberts, David, i. 215, 246, 248, 389
+    Russell, Lord John, i. 277, 316; ii. 118, 235, 422
+    Ryland, Arthur, i. 349, 382, 388; ii. 34, 233, 426, 428
+    Sandys, William, i. 178
+    Saunders, John, i. 366
+    Sculthorpe, W. R., ii. 104
+    Smith, Arthur, ii. 85, 147
+    Smith, H. P., i. 74, 179, 181
+    Stanfield, Clarkson, i. 92, 102, 113, 144, 151, 205, 299, 373, 394,
+        395, 398; ii. 184, 219, 287
+    Stanfield, George, ii. 289
+    Stone, Marcus, i. 340; ii. 211, 236
+    Stone, Frank, i. 199-201, 206, 259, 261, 295, 305, 355, 365, 396,
+        397; ii. 16, 24, 25, 27, 35, 82, 103
+    Storrar, Mrs., ii. 216
+    "_Sun, The_," the editor of, i. 187
+    Tagart, Edward, i. 111, 173
+    Talfourd, Miss Mary, i. 51
+    Talfourd, Serjeant, i. 10
+    Tennent, Sir James Emerson, i. 329; ii. 6, 218, 259
+    Thackeray, W. M., ii. 41
+    Thornbury, Walter, ii. 178, 262, 286
+    Tomlin, John, i. 40
+    Toole, J. L., ii. 300
+    Trollope, Mrs., i. 81, 397
+    Viardot, Madame, i. 412
+    Ward, E. M., ii. 141
+    Ward, Mrs., ii. 441
+    Watkins, John, i. 287; ii. 148
+    Watson, Hon. Mrs., i. 171, 196, 209, 226, 228, 231, 234, 237, 242,
+        254, 276, 282, 289, 309, 317, 343, 370, 402, 412, 453; ii. 93,
+        121, 144, 301, 382
+    Watson, Hon. R., i. 159
+    White, Mrs., ii. 94
+    White, Miss, ii. 92
+    White, Rev. James, i. 149, 193, 208, 217, 220, 288, 291, 292, 350;
+        ii. 11, 15, 81, 97
+    Wills, W. H., i. 148-150, 219, 221, 222, 244, 250, 285, 286, 292,
+        295, 299, 303, 304, 307, 315, 333, 334, 352, 357, 384, 387,
+        401, 407, 408, 410, 415, 433, 450, 452; ii. 119, 167, 168, 171,
+        207, 290, 292, 295, 301, 386, 422, 433
+    Wilson, Effingham, i. 199
+    Yates, Edmund, ii. 20, 34, 41, 47, 91, 123, 149, 238
+    Yates, Mrs., ii. 48
+
+  Lewes, G. H., i. 170
+
+  "Lighthouse, The," the play of, i. 337;
+    Dickens's prologue to, i. 461;
+    Dickens's "Song of the Wreck" in, i. 461;
+    and see ii. 198
+
+  Linton, Mrs., ii. 207
+
+  Lion, a chained, i. 144
+
+  Literary Fund, the, ii. 5, 12
+
+  "Little Dorrit," i. 378, 413, 415;
+    proposed name of, i. 402;
+    sale of, i. 426;
+    letters concerning, i. 402, 403, 406, 426
+
+  Lockhart, Mr., ii. 207
+
+  London, the Mayor of, from a French point of view, i. 175;
+    in September, i. 318;
+    Dickens's opinion of the Corporation of, i. 389; ii. 411;
+    facetious advice to country visitors to, i. 252
+
+  Longfellow, W. H., ii. 306, 308, 312, 326, 333, 361, 375
+
+  Longman, Thomas, letters to, i. 73; ii. 106
+
+  Longman, William, letter to, i. 24
+
+  Lovejoy, G., i. 44
+
+  Lowell, Miss Mabel, ii. 405, 415
+
+  Lyceum Theatre under Fechter, ii. 187, 191, 245;
+    and see Fechter
+
+  Lyndhurst, Lord, i. 147; ii. 144
+
+  Lynn, Miss, i. 378
+
+  Lyttelton, Hon. Spencer, i. 239, 245
+
+  Lytton, the first Lord, i. 214, 239; ii. 108, 135, 143, 247, 268;
+    letter to, ii. 116
+
+  Lytton, Lord, ii. 108
+
+
+  Maclise, Daniel, i. 18, 23, 80, 177, 370; ii. 432;
+    letters to, i. 33, 105
+
+  Macready, W. C., i. 94, 133, 239, 413; ii. 169, 172, 173;
+    and see Letters
+
+  Macready, Benvenuta, i. 431; ii. 194
+
+  Macready, Kate, i. 415; ii. 193
+
+  Macready, Mrs., ii. 172, 288
+
+  Macready, Jonathan, ii. 376
+
+  Macready, Nina, i. 195
+
+  Macready, W., ii. 425
+
+  Major, Mrs., letter to, ii. 196
+
+  Makeham, J. M., ii. 432;
+    Dickens's last letter written to, ii. 444
+
+  Malleson, Mr. and Mrs., ii. 315
+
+  Marsh, Dickens's coachman, a story of, ii. 181
+
+  Marston, Dr. Westland, ii. 42, 44, 45;
+    letter to, ii. 43
+
+  Martineau, i. 61, 229
+
+  "Martin Chuzzlewit," i. 53;
+    dramatised, i. 95, 105;
+    a story of Mrs. Harris, ii. 41
+
+  "Master Humphrey's Clock," i. 28;
+    the plan of, described, i. 29;
+    letters concerning illustrations for, i. 29-31, 33-36, 38-40,
+        45-47, 50-51
+
+  "Memoires du Diable, Les," i. 444
+
+  Mesmerism, a seance of, ii. 100
+
+  Missionaries, Dickens on, i. 227; ii. 241
+
+  Mitton, Thomas, see Letters
+
+  Molesworth, Lady, ii. 187, 189
+
+  Monuments, Dickens on, i. 287, 356
+
+  Moore, Tom, i. 163
+
+  Morgan, Captain, ii. 136, 143
+
+  Morgan, W., ii. 308, 336
+
+  Morley, Mr., i. 399
+
+  Morpeth, Viscount, letters to, i. 92, 146;
+    and see Carlisle, The Earl of
+
+  Motley, Mr., ii. 142
+
+  Mountain, a hazardous ascent of a, ii. 29
+
+  Mulgrave, Earl of, i. 57
+
+
+  Narrative, i. 1, 4, 6, 17, 28, 36, 53, 57, 85, 94, 134, 147, 169,
+      185, 204, 213, 239, 271, 296, 341, 376, 413; ii. 3, 39, 83,
+      107, 135, 169, 187, 208, 224, 244, 266, 325, 404, 431, 446
+
+  Nathan, Messrs. H. and L., i. 232, 233, 235
+
+  Neville, Mr., ii. 186
+
+  Newsvendors' Benevolent Institution, ii. 232
+
+  New Testament, Dickens's love for the, ii. 394, 403;
+    Dickens writes a history of the, for his children, ii. 433
+
+  "Nicholas Nickleby," publication of, i. 6;
+    rewards and punishments of characters in, i. 14;
+    Dickens at work on, i. 16;
+    dedication of, i, 26;
+    the Kenwigs in, i, 25;
+    and see ii. 200
+
+  Nicknames, Dickens's, of George Cattermole, i. 42, 143;
+    of his children, i. 76, 126, 170, 322, 338, 453;
+    nautical, i. 152;
+    of himself, i. 198, 206, 307, 362;
+    of Frank Stone, i. 214, 305
+
+  Norton, C. E., ii. 326
+
+  Noviomagians, the, i. 272
+
+
+  "Old Curiosity Shop, The," Dickens engaged on, i. 28;
+    scenes in, described by Dickens for illustration, i. 21, 33-37, 42;
+    Dickens heartbroken over the story, i. 36, 37, 42
+
+  "Oliver Twist," publication of, i. 4;
+    Dickens at work on, i. 11;
+    the reading of "The Murder" from, ii. 326, 395, 397, 399
+
+  Ollier, Edmund, ii. 209, 407;
+    letters to, ii. 213, 425
+
+  Olliffe, Lady, ii. 187, 190
+
+  Olliffe, Sir J., ii. 417
+
+  Olliffe, the Misses, ii. 190
+
+  Organs, street, i. 104
+
+  Osgood, Mr., ii. 310, 336, 337, 340, 346, 352, 356, 366
+
+  "Our Mutual Friend," ii. 208, 210, 224;
+    and as to illustrations for, see ii. 211, 237
+
+  Ouvry, Frederic, ii. 188, 300;
+    letters to, ii. 205, 427
+
+  Overs, i. 37, 49
+
+  Owen, Professor, ii. 235
+
+
+  Panizzi, Antonio, ii. 84;
+    letters to, ii. 89, 90, 92
+
+  Pardoe, Miss, letter to, i. 73
+
+  Paris, Dickens at, i. 130, 131, 147, 157-161, 169, 174, 239, 376,
+        378, 385-387, 413, 406-425, 430, 431; ii. 171, 187;
+    house-hunting in, i. 158;
+    description of Dickens's house in, i. 159;
+    state of, in 1846, i. 160, 161;
+    feeling of people of, for Dickens, i. 411;
+    Dickens's reading at, ii. 187-190, 192
+
+  Parkinson, J. C., ii. 327;
+    letter to, ii. 401
+
+  Parrots, human, i. 87, 121
+
+  "Patrician's Daughter, The," prologue to, written by Dickens,
+      i. 55, 77
+
+  Patronage, the curse of England, ii. 213, 356
+
+  Paxton, Sir Joseph, i. 446
+
+  Phelps, J., i. 366
+
+  "Pickwick," origin and publication of, i. 1, 3;
+    first mention of Jingle, i. 3;
+    conclusion of, celebrated, i. 5;
+    the design of the Shepherd in, explained, i. 85, 89
+
+  Picnic, a, of the elements, i, 116;
+    with Eton boys, i. 255, 258
+
+  "Picnic Papers," Dickens's share of the, ii. 91
+
+  Plessy, Madame, i. 412; ii. 440
+
+  Pollock, Sir F., ii. 97, 144, 209;
+    letter to, ii. 10, 214
+
+  Pollock, Mrs. F., letter to, ii. 440
+
+  Poole, John, i. 298, 317; ii. 228;
+    letter to, i. 236
+
+  "Poor Travellers, The," i. 378;
+    sale of, i. 379
+
+  Portraits of Dickens, by Maclise, i. 18, 23;
+    by Frith, ii. 84, 93;
+    by Ary Scheffer, i. 414, 434;
+    by John Watkins, ii. 148;
+    a caricature, ii. 146
+
+  Postman, an Albaro, i. 112, 117
+
+  Power, Miss, i. 442; ii. 82, 293, 300;
+    and see Letters
+
+  Power, Nelly, i. 443
+
+  Power, Mrs., letter to, ii. 300
+
+  Presence of mind of Dickens, ii. 161, 224, 230
+
+  Press, the, freedom of, i. 49;
+    in America, i. 97;
+    taxation of the, i. 274
+
+  Procter, Adelaide, i. 341; ii. 238;
+    letter to, i. 374
+
+  Procter, B. W., i. 341; ii. 83, 91;
+    and see Letters
+
+  Procter, Mrs., letter to, ii. 226, 238
+
+  Publishing system, how to improve the, i. 86
+
+  Purse, the power of the, i. 88
+
+  Putnam, Mr., ii. 312
+
+
+  Queen, the, Dickens's theatrical performance before, i. 239;
+    his feeling for, ii. 168;
+    his interview with, ii. 432
+
+
+  Rae, Dr., i. 373
+
+  Railways, ii. 242
+
+  Reade, Charles, ii. 188;
+    letter to, ii. 206
+
+  Reader, Charles Dickens as a, ii. 437
+
+  Readings, Dickens's public, for charities, i. 297, 341, 377; ii. 4,
+        169, 170;
+    first reading for his own benefit, ii. 39;
+    at Paris, ii. 187, 189, 192;
+    in America, ii. 267;
+    farewell series of readings in England, ii. 326, 404, 405;
+    trial reading of "The Murder" from "Oliver Twist," ii. 326;
+    reading to the actors, ii. 407, 418;
+    farewell reading, ii. 431;
+    effects of "The Murder" reading on Dickens, ii. 434;
+    books of the, ii. 438;
+    letters concerning the readings in England, Scotland, and Ireland,
+        i. 344, 348, 369, 371, 379, 382, 388, 413, 424; ii. 20, 49,
+        51-67, 70-80, 87, 103, 145, 147, 151-168, 174, 178, 197, 200,
+        251-258, 272-286;
+    letters concerning American, ii. 83, 85, 290, 294, 298, 299,
+        306-382;
+    letters concerning the farewell series of, ii. 391, 392, 395-400,
+        412-421
+
+  Reform, Dickens speaks on Administrative, i. 377, 399;
+    association for, i. 399;
+    Dickens on Parliamentary, ii. 87, 269
+
+  Refreshment rooms, i. 424
+
+  Regnier, M., i. 298;
+    and see Letters
+
+  Reynolds, Dr. Russell, ii. 448
+
+  Richardson, Samuel, Dickens's opinion of, i. 175
+
+  "Rivals, The," a scene from, rewritten, i. 345
+
+  Roberts, David, i. 214; ii. 75;
+    letters to, i. 215, 246, 248, 389
+
+  "Robinson Crusoe," Dickens on, i. 443
+
+  Robson, F., i. 451
+
+  Roche, Dickens's courier, i. 95, 122-126, 139
+
+  Rochester Cathedral, proposed burial of Dickens in, ii. 448
+
+  Royal Academy, female students at the, ii. 121;
+    Dickens's last public appearance, at the dinner of the, ii. 431
+
+  Russel, Alexander, ii. 389, 390, 398, 406
+
+  Russell, Lord John, i. 272; ii. 85;
+    and see Letters
+
+  Russell, W. H., ii. 4
+
+  Ryland, Arthur, ii. 4, 430;
+    and see Letters
+
+
+  Sainton-Dolby, Madame, ii. 295, 391
+
+  Sanatorium for art-students, i. 102
+
+  Sand, Georges, i. 420
+
+  Sandys, William, letter to, i. 178
+
+  Saunders, John, i. 341;
+    letter to, i. 366
+
+  Savage, i. 271
+
+  Saville, Miss, ii. 186
+
+  Scheffer, Ary, i. 414, 434; ii. 149
+
+  Schoolmistress, a Yorkshire, i. 8
+
+  Scott, Sir Walter, i. 22, 254
+
+  Scott, Dickens's dresser, ii. 272, 305, 306, 317, 321, 342, 370, 416
+
+  Scribe, Eugene, i. 430, 432
+
+  Sculthorpe, W. R., letter to, ii. 104
+
+  Seaside, the, in wet weather, i. 90
+
+  Sea voyage, a, i. 322
+
+  Shaftesbury, Lord, ii. 242
+
+  Shakespeare, Dickens in room of, i. 13;
+    Dickens's criticisms of Charles Knight's biography of, i. 152;
+    and see i. 178
+
+  Shea, Mr. Justice, ii. 247
+
+  Shower-bath, a perpetual, i. 207
+
+  "Sketches," publication of the, i. 1
+
+  Smith, Arthur, ii. 4, 39, 52, 53, 56-60, 64-67, 71, 72, 78, 80,
+      104, 109, 135, 145, 149-153;
+    letters to, ii. 85, 147
+
+  Smith, H. P., letters to, i. 74, 179, 181
+
+  Smith, Sydney, i. 24
+
+  Smollett, Dickens on the works of, i. 356
+
+  Snevellicci, Miss, in real life, i. 13
+
+  Snore, a mighty, i. 158
+
+  Songs by Dickens: on Mark Lemon, i. 207;
+    of "The Wreck" in "The Lighthouse," i. 461
+
+  Speaking, Dickens on public, ii. 426, 428;
+    advice to his son Henry on public, ii. 435
+
+  Spencer, Lord, i. 242
+
+  Spider, a fearful, i. 180
+
+  Spiritualism, Dickens on, i. 350, 397
+
+  Stage-coach, American story of a, ii. 292
+
+  Stage suggestions, i. 79;
+    a stage mob, i. 174;
+    a piece of stage business, i. 156
+
+  Stanfield, Clarkson, i. 370, 377, 429, 435, 454; ii. 75, 194, 267;
+    and see Letters
+
+  Stanfield, George, letter to, ii. 289
+
+  Stanley, Dean, ii. 448, 449
+
+  Stanley, Lady Augusta, ii. 449
+
+  Staplehurst, Dickens in the railway accident at, ii. 224;
+    description of the accident, ii. 229-233;
+    effects of the accident on Dickens, ii. 388
+
+  Staunton, Mr. Secretary, ii. 351
+
+  Steele, Sir Richard, Dickens on Forster's essay on, i. 393
+
+  Steele, Mr., ii. 447, 448
+
+  Stone, Arthur, i. 436
+
+  Stone, Ellen, ii. 81
+
+  Stone, Frank, i. 134, 143, 225, 240; ii. 84;
+    and see Letters
+
+  Stone, Marcus, i. 299; ii. 84, 106, 208;
+    letters to, i. 340; ii. 211, 236
+
+  Storrar, Mrs., ii. 209;
+    letter to, ii. 216
+
+  "Strange Gentleman, The," farce written by Dickens and produced, i. 4;
+    price of, i. 5;
+    sent to Macready, i. 16
+
+  Strikes, Dickens on, i. 416
+
+  Sumner, Charles, ii. 351, 355
+
+  _Sun, The_, newspaper, ii. 225;
+    letter to editor of, i. 187
+
+  Switzerland, the Simplon Pass in, i. 127;
+    pleasant recollections of, i. 197, 218;
+    Dickens at Lausanne in, i. 147;
+    a revolution in, i. 155, 175;
+    friends in, i. 157;
+    Dickens's love for, i. 158;
+    letters concerning Lausanne in, i. 147, 154, 160, 172, 179
+
+  Sympathy, letters of, i. 193, 265, 282, 283, 394; ii. 94, 97,
+      123, 154, 180, 289, 293
+
+
+  Tagart, Edward, letters to, i. 111, 173
+
+  "Tale of Two Cities, A," ii. 83, 84, 158;
+    letters concerning, ii. 98, 102, 105, 106, 116
+
+  Talfourd, Miss Mary, letter to, i. 51
+
+  Talfourd, Mr. Justice, i. 7;
+    letter to, i. 10
+
+  Tauechnitz, Baron, i. 188, 195
+
+  Tavistock House, purchase of, i. 240;
+    sale of, ii. 107;
+    letters concerning, i. 259, 261-266
+
+  Taxation, Dickens on, i. 218;
+    of newspapers, i. 273
+
+  Taylor, Bayard, ii. 405
+
+  Telegraph, the dramatic side of the, i. 417
+
+  Tennent, Sir James Emerson, i. 298; ii. 209, 224;
+    letters to, i. 329; ii. 218, 259
+
+  Tenniel, John, i. 241
+
+  Tennyson, Alfred, Dickens's admiration for, ii. 98
+
+  Terry, Miss Kate, ii. 193
+
+  Thackeray, W. M., ii. 4, 39, 137, 208, 210, 214;
+    letter to, ii. 41
+
+  Thames, drainage of the, ii. 50;
+    embankment of the, ii. 410
+
+  Theatre, Dickens at the, i. 13;
+    Phiz's laughter at the, i. 13;
+    the saloon at Drury Lane, i. 37, 52;
+    scents of a, i. 96;
+    story of a, i. 144;
+    proposal for a national, i. 199;
+    Dickens on the, ii. 271, 438
+
+  Theatrical Fund, the, ii. 35
+
+  Theatrical performances of Charles Dickens:
+    at Montreal, i. 72;
+    at Miss Kelly's Theatre, i. 134;
+    "Fortunio" at Tavistock House, i. 376, 381;
+    "The Lighthouse," i. 377, 394-397;
+    "The Frozen Deep," i. 414;
+    for the Jerrold Memorial Fund, ii. 19, 23;
+    before the Queen, i. 239;
+    and see i. 170, 185, 239, 241, 271, 376, 377, 414; ii. 3;
+    letters concerning the, i. 141, 143, 144, 146, 181, 192, 196,
+        224-228, 231, 232, 234, 244, 268, 398, 433, 453, 454, 457,
+        459, 460; ii. 6, 11, 198
+
+  Thornbury, Walter, ii. 170, 292;
+    letters to, ii. 178, 262, 286
+
+  Tomlin, John, letter to, i. 40
+
+  Toole, J. L., ii. 54, 268;
+    letter to, ii. 300
+
+  Topham, F. W., i. 241, 269
+
+  Townshend, Chauncey Hare, ii. 7, 86, 96, 115, 136, 140, 371, 410
+
+  Trollope, Mrs., letters to, i. 80, 397
+
+
+  "Uncle Tom's Cabin," Dickens on, i. 289
+
+  "Uncommercial Traveller, The," ii. 107
+
+
+  Viardot, Madame, ii. 193;
+    letter to, i. 412
+
+  "Village Coquettes, The," operetta written by Dickens, i. 5;
+    and see i. 93
+
+  Volunteers, Dickens on the, ii. 115
+
+
+  Waistcoat, a wonderful, i. 102;
+    the loan by Dickens of Macready's, i. 146
+
+  Wales, the Prince of, popularity of, ii. 203;
+    Dickens attends levee of, ii. 432
+
+  Wales, the Princess of, her arrival in England, ii. 195;
+    the illuminations in honour of, ii. 198;
+    popularity of, ii. 203
+
+  War, Dickens on the Russian, i. 379
+
+  Ward, E. M., i. 341;
+    letter to, ii. 141
+
+  Ward, Mrs., letter to, ii. 441
+
+  Watkins, John, i. 415;
+    letters to, i. 287; ii. 148
+
+  Watson, Hon. R., i. 147, 280;
+    letter to, i. 159
+
+  Watson, Hon. Mrs., i. 147; ii. 9, 70;
+    and see Letters
+
+  Watson, Sir Thomas, ii. 405, 407
+
+  Watson, Wentworth, ii. 79
+
+  Watts's refuge for poor travellers, ii. 259
+
+  Webster, Benjamin, i. 85, 90, 434; ii. 361
+
+  Webster, a story of the murderer, ii. 333
+
+  Welcome home, a, i. 117
+
+  Westminster Abbey, burial of Dickens in, ii. 448
+
+  Whewell, Dr., i. 372
+
+  White, Clara, ii. 142, 181, 208
+
+  White, Rev. James, i. 149, 413; ii. 209;
+    and see Letters
+
+  White, Mrs., ii. 212;
+    letter to, ii. 94
+
+  White, Miss, ii. 81, 84, 96;
+    letter to, ii. 92
+
+  White, Richard Grant, ii. 85
+
+  Wigan, Alfred, i. 429
+
+  Williams, Mr. and Mrs. Barney, ii. 337, 359
+
+  Wills, W. H., i. 148, 241, 375; ii. 83, 379, 383, 406, 430;
+    and see Letters
+
+  Wills, Mrs., ii. 75, 96, 120
+
+  Wilson, Effingham, letter to, i. 199
+
+  Working men, clubs for, ii. 209, 213;
+    Dickens on the management of such clubs, ii. 356;
+    feeling of, for Dickens, ii. 420
+
+
+  Yates, Edmund, i. 414, 426; ii. 5, 129;
+    and see Letters
+
+  Yates, Mrs., ii. 129;
+    letter to, ii. 48
+
+
+THE END.
+
+CHARLES DICKENS AND EVANS, CRYSTAL PALACE
+PRESS.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Transcriber's Notes:
+
+Page 142, "Leotard" changed to "Leotard" twice (Palace and Leotard) and
+(into seeing Leotard)
+
+Page 181, "shefound" changed to "she found" (she found Marsh)
+
+Page 432, "levee" changed to "levee" (a levee held)
+
+Page 453, "Celeste" changed to "Celeste" (Celeste, Madame)
+
+Page 454-455, entries for "Dickens, Mamie" and "Dickens, Kate" were
+originally not in alphabetically order. This was corrected.
+
+Page 456, "Fitzgreene" changed to "Fitz-Greene" (Halleck, Fitz-Greene)
+
+Page 458, "Fitzgreene" changed to "Fitz-Greene" (Halleck, Fitz-Greene)
+
+Page 460, "Lyttleton" changed to "Lyttelton" (Lyttleton, Hon. Spencer)
+
+Page 462, "Shee" changed to "Shea" (Shea, Mr. Justice)
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's The Letters of Charles Dickens, by Charles Dickens
+
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