NARRATIVE.

In the spring of this year Charles Dickens gave up the editorship of, and finally, all connection with The Daily News, and went again abroad with his family; the house in Devonshire Terrace being let for twelve months.  He made his summer residence at Lausanne, taking a villa (Rosemont) there, from May till November.  Here he wrote “The Battle of Life,” and the first number of “Dombey and Son.”  In November he removed to Paris, where he took a house in the Rue de Courcelles for the winter, and where he lived and was at work upon “Dombey” until March, 1847.  Among the English residents that summer at Lausanne he made many friendships, in proof of which he dedicated the Christmas book written there to his “English friends in Lausanne.”  The especially intimate friendships which he formed were with M. de Cerjat, who was always a resident of Lausanne with his family; Mr. Haldimand, whose name is identified with the place, and with the Hon. Richard and Mrs. Watson, of Rockingham Castle.  He maintained a constant correspondence with them, and to Mr. and Mrs. Watson he afterwards dedicated his own favourite of all his books, “David Copperfield.”  M. de Cerjat, from the time of Charles Dickens leaving Lausanne, began a custom, which he kept up almost without an interval to the time of his own death, of writing him a long letter every Christmas, to which he returned answers, which will be given in this and the following years.

In this year we have the commencement of his association and correspondence with Mr. W. H. Wills.  Their connection began in the short term of his editorship of The Daily News, when he at once fully appreciated Mr. Wills’s invaluable business qualities.  And when, some time later, he started his own periodical, “Household Words,” he thought himself very fortunate in being able to secure Mr. Wills’s co-operation as editor of that journal, and afterwards of “All the Year Round,” with which “Household Words” was incorporated.  They worked together on terms of the most perfect mutual understanding, confidence, and affectionate regard, until Mr. Wills’s health made it necessary for him to retire from the work in 1868.  Besides his first notes to Mr. Wills in this year, we have our first letters to his dear friends, the Rev. James White, Walter Savage Landor, and Miss Marion Ely, the niece of Lady Talfourd.

Mr. W. H. Wills.

DEVONSHIRE TERRACE, February 18th, 1846.

MY DEAR MR. WILLS,

Do look at the enclosed from Mrs. What’s-her-name.  For a surprising audacity it is remarkable even to me, who am positively bullied, and all but beaten, by these people.  I wish you would do me the favour to write to her (in your own name and from your own address), stating that you answered her letter as you did, because if I were the wealthiest nobleman in England I could not keep pace with one-twentieth part of the demands upon me, and because you saw no internal evidence in her application to induce you to single it out for any especial notice.  That the tone of this letter renders you exceedingly glad you did so; and that you decline, from me, holding any correspondence with her.  Something to that effect, after what flourish your nature will.

Faithfully yours always.

Rev. James White

1, DEVONSHIRE TERRACE, YORK GATE, REGENT’S PARK,
February 24th, 1846.

I cannot help telling you, my dear White, for I can think of no formal use of Mister to such a writer as you, that I have just now read your tragedy, “The Earl of Gowrie,” with a delight which I should in vain endeavour to express to you.  Considered with reference to its story, or its characters, or its noble poetry, I honestly regard it as a work of most remarkable genius.  It has impressed me powerfully and enduringly.  I am proud to have received it from your hand.  And if I have to tell you what complete possession it has taken of me ­that is, if I could tell you ­I do believe you would be glad to know it.

Always faithfully yours.

Mr. W. H. Wills.

DEVONSHIRE TERRACE, Monday Morning, March 2nd, 1846.

MY DEAR MR. WILLS,

I really don’t know what to say about the New Brunswicker.  The idea will obtrude itself on my mind, that he had no business to come here on such an expedition; and that it is a piece of the wild conceit for which his countrymen are so remarkable, and that I can hardly afford to be steward to such adventurers.  On the other hand, your description of him pleases me.  Then that purse which I could never keep shut in my life makes mouths at me, saying, “See how empty I am.”  Then I fill it, and it looks very rich indeed.

I think the best way is to say, that if you think you can do him any permanent good with five pounds (that is, get him home again) I will give you the money.  But I should be very much indisposed to give it him, merely to linger on here about town for a little time and then be hard up again.

As to employment, I do in my soul believe that if I were Lord Chancellor of England, I should have been aground long ago, for the patronage of a messenger’s place.

Say all that is civil for me to the proprietor of The Illustrated London News, who really seems to be very liberal.  “Other engagements,” etc. etc., “prevent me from entertaining,” etc. etc.

Faithfully yours ever.

DEVONSHIRE TERRACE, March 4th, 1846.

MY DEAR MR. WILLS,

I assure you I am very truly and unaffectedly sensible of your earnest friendliness, and in proof of my feeling its worth I shall unhesitatingly trouble you sometimes, in the fullest reliance on your meaning what you say.  The letter from Nelson Square is a very manly and touching one.  But I am more helpless in such a case as that than in any other, having really fewer means of helping such a gentleman to employment than I have of firing off the guns in the Tower.  Such, appeals come to me here in scores upon scores.

The letter from Little White Lion Street does not impress me favourably.  It is not written in a simple or truthful manner, I am afraid, and is not a good reference.  Moreover, I think it probable that the writer may have deserted some pursuit for which he is qualified, for vague and laborious strivings which he has no pretensions to make.  However, I will certainly act on your impression of him, whatever it may be.  And if you could explain to the gentleman in Nelson Square, that I am not evading his request, but that I do not know of anything to which I can recommend him, it would be a great relief to me.

I trust this new printer is a Tartar; and I hope to God he will so proclaim and assert his Tartar breeding, as to excommunicate ­ from the “chapel” over which he presides.

Tell Powell (with my regards) that he needn’t “deal with” the American notices of the “Cricket.”  I never read one word of their abuse, and I should think it base to read their praises.  It is something to know that one is righted so soon; and knowing that, I can afford to know no more.

Ever faithfully yours.

Mr. Clarkson Stanfield.

DEVONSHIRE TERRACE, March 6th, 1846.

MY DEAR STANNY,

In reference to the damage of the candlesticks, I beg to quote (from “The Cricket on the Hearth,” by the highly popular and deservedly so Dick) this reply: 

“I’ll damage you if you enquire.”

Ever yours,
My block-reeving,
Main-brace splicing,
Lead-heaving,
Ship-conning,
Stun’sail-bending,
Deck-swabbing
Son of a sea-cook,
HENRY BLUFF,
H.M.S. Timber.

Mr. Charles Knight.

DEVONSHIRE TERRACE, Saturday, April 13th, 1846.

MY DEAR SIR,

Do you recollect sending me your biography of Shakespeare last autumn, and my not acknowledging its receipt?  I do, with remorse.

The truth is, that I took it out of town with me, read it with great pleasure as a charming piece of honest enthusiasm and perseverance, kept it by me, came home, meant to say all manner of things to you, suffered the time to go by, got ashamed, thought of speaking to you, never saw you, felt it heavy on my mind, and now fling off the load by thanking you heartily, and hoping you will not think it too late.

Always believe me,
Faithfully yours.

Miss Ely.

DEVONSHIRE TERRACE, Sunday, April 19th, 1846.

MY DEAR MISS ELY,

A mysterious emissary brought me a note in your always welcome handwriting at the Athenaeum last night.  I enquired of the servant in attendance whether the bearer of this letter was of my vast establishment.  To which he replied “Yezzir.”  “Then,” said I, “tell him not to wait.”

Maclise was with me.  It was then half-past seven.  We had been walking, and were splashed to the eyes.  We debated upon the possibility of getting to Russell Square in reasonable time ­decided that it would be in the worst taste to appear when the performance would be half over ­and very reluctantly decided not to come.  You may suppose how dirty and dismal we were when we went to the Thames Tunnel, of all places in the world, instead!

When I came home here at midnight I found another letter from you (I left off in this place to press it dutifully to my lips).  Then my mind misgave me that you must have sent to the Athenaeum.  At the apparent rudeness of my reply, my face, as Hadji Baba says, was turned upside down, and fifty donkeys sat upon my father’s grave ­or would have done so, but for his not being dead yet.

Therefore I send this humble explanation ­protesting, however, which I do most solemnly, against being invited under such untoward circumstances; and claiming as your old friend and no less old admirer to be instantly invited to the next performance, if such a thing is ever contemplated.

Ever, my dear Miss Ely,
Faithfully yours.

Mr. Douglas Jerrold.

DEVONSHIRE TERRACE, Tuesday, May 26th, 1846.

MY DEAR JERROLD,

I send you herewith some books belonging to you.  A thousand thanks for the “Hermit.”  He took my fancy mightily when I first saw him in the “Illuminated;” and I have stowed him away in the left-hand breast pocket of my travelling coat, that we may hold pleasant converse together on the Rhine.  You see what confidence I have in him!

I wish you would seriously consider the expediency and feasibility of coming to Lausanne in the summer or early autumn.  I must be at work myself during a certain part of every day almost, and you could do twice as much there as here.  It is a wonderful place to see ­and what sort of welcome you would find I will say nothing about, for I have vanity enough to believe that you would be willing to feel yourself as much at home in my household as in any man’s.

Do think it over.  I could send you the minutest particular of the journey.  It is really all railroad and steamboat, and the easiest in the world.

At Macready’s on Thursday, we shall meet, please God!

Always, my dear Jerrold,
Cordially yours.

Mr. W. C. Macready.

GENEVA, Saturday, October 24th, 1846.

MY DEAR MACREADY,

The welcome sight of your handwriting moves me (though I have nothing to say) to show you mine, and if I could recollect the passage in Virginius I would paraphrase it, and say, “Does it seem to tremble, boy?  Is it a loving autograph?  Does it beam with friendship and affection?” all of which I say, as I write, with ­oh Heaven! ­such a splendid imitation of you, and finally give you one of those grasps and shakes with which I have seen you make the young Icilius stagger again.

Here I am, running away from a bad headache as Tristram Shandy ran away from death, and lodging for a week in the Hotel de l’Ecu de Genève, wherein there is a large mirror shattered by a cannon-ball in the late revolution.  A revolution, whatever its merits, achieved by free spirits, nobly generous and moderate, even in the first transports of victory, elevated by a splendid popular education, and bent on freedom from all tyrants, whether their crowns be shaven or golden.  The newspapers may tell you what they please.  I believe there is no country on earth but Switzerland in which a violent change could have been effected in the Christian spirit shown in this place, or in the same proud, independent, gallant style.  Not one halfpennyworth of property was lost, stolen, or strayed.  Not one atom of party malice survived the smoke of the last gun.  Nothing is expressed in the Government addresses to the citizens but a regard for the general happiness, and injunctions to forget all animosities; which they are practically obeying at every turn, though the late Government (of whose spirit I had some previous knowledge) did load the guns with such material as should occasion gangrene in the wounds, and though the wounded do die, consequently, every day, in the hospital, of sores that in themselves were nothing.

You a mountaineer! You examine (I have seen you do it) the point of your young son’s baton de montagne before he went up into the snow!  And you talk of coming to Lausanne in March!  Why, Lord love your heart, William Tell, times are changed since you lived at Altorf.  There is not a mountain pass open until June.  The snow is closing in on all the panorama already.  I was at the Great St. Bernard two months ago, and it was bitter cold and frosty then.  Do you think I could let you hazard your life by going up any pass worth seeing in bleak March?  Never shall it be said that Dickens sacrificed his friend upon the altar of his hospitality!  Onward!  To Paris! (Cue for band.  Dickens points off with truncheon, first entrance P.S.  Page delivers gauntlets on one knee.  Dickens puts ’em on and gradually falls into a fit of musing.  Mrs. Dickens lays her hand upon his shoulder.  Business.  Procession.  Curtain.)

It is a great pleasure to me, my dear Macready, to hear from yourself, as I had previously heard from Forster, that you are so well pleased with “Dombey,” which is evidently a great success and a great hit, thank God!  I felt that Mrs. Brown was strong, but I was not at all afraid of giving as heavy a blow as I could to a piece of hot iron that lay ready at my hand.  For that is my principle always, and I hope to come down with some heavier sledge-hammers than that.

I know the lady of whom you write. ­ left there only yesterday.  The story may arise only in her manner, which is extraordinarily free and careless.  He was visiting her here, when I was here last, three weeks ago.  I knew her in Italy.  It is not her fault if scandal ever leaves her alone, for such a braver of all conventionalities never wore petticoats.  But I should be sorry to hear there was anything guilty in her conduct.  She is very clever, really learned, very pretty, much neglected by her husband, and only four-and-twenty years of age.

Kate and Georgy send their best loves to Mrs. and Miss Macready and all your house.

Your most affectionate Friend.

Mr. Haldimand.

PARIS, November, 1846.

Talking of which reminds me to say, that I have written to my printers, and told them to prefix to “The Battle of Life” a dedication that is printed in illuminated capitals on my heart.  It is only this: 

“This Christmas book is cordially inscribed to
my English friends in Switzerland.”

I shall trouble you with a little parcel of three or four copies to distribute to those whose names will be found written in them, as soon as they can be made ready, and believe me, that there is no success or approval in the great world beyond the Jura that will be more precious and delightful to me, than the hope that I shall be remembered of an evening in the coming winter time, at one or two friends’ I could mention near the Lake of Geneva.  It runs with a spring tide, that will always flow and never ebb, through my memory; and nothing less than the waters of Lethe shall confuse the music of its running, until it loses itself in that great sea, for which all the currents of our life are desperately bent.

Mr. Walter Savage Landor.

PARIS, Sunday, November 22nd, 1846.

YOUNG MAN,

I will not go there if I can help it.  I have not the least confidence in the value of your introduction to the Devil.  I can’t help thinking that it would be of better use “the other way, the other way,” but I won’t try it there, either, at present, if I can help it.  Your godson says is that your duty? and he begs me to enclose a blush newly blushed for you.

As to writing, I have written to you twenty times and twenty more to that, if you only knew it.  I have been writing a little Christmas book, besides, expressly for you.  And if you don’t like it, I shall go to the font of Marylebone Church as soon as I conveniently can and renounce you:  I am not to be trifled with.  I write from Paris.  I am getting up some French steam.  I intend to proceed upon the longing-for-a-lap-of-blood-at-last principle, and if you do offend me, look to it.

We are all well and happy, and they send loves to you by the bushel.  We are in the agonies of house-hunting.  The people are frightfully civil, and grotesquely extortionate.  One man (with a house to let) told me yesterday that he loved the Duke of Wellington like a brother.  The same gentleman wanted to hug me round the neck with one hand, and pick my pocket with the other.

Don’t be hard upon the Swiss.  They are a thorn in the sides of European despots, and a good wholesome people to live near Jesuit-ridden kings on the brighter side of the mountains.  My hat shall ever be ready to be thrown up, and my glove ever ready to be thrown down for Switzerland.  If you were the man I took you for, when I took you (as a godfather) for better and for worse, you would come to Paris and amaze the weak walls of the house I haven’t found yet with that steady snore of yours, which I once heard piercing the door of your bedroom in Devonshire Terrace, reverberating along the bell-wire in the hall, so getting outside into the street, playing Eolian harps among the area railings, and going down the New Road like the blast of a trumpet.

I forgive you your reviling of me:  there’s a shovelful of live coals for your head ­does it burn?  And am, with true affection ­does it burn now? ­

Ever yours.

The Hon. Richard Watson.

PARIS, 48, RUE DE COURCELLES, ST. HONORE,
Friday, Noth, 1846.

MY DEAR WATSON,

We were housed only yesterday.  I lose no time in despatching this memorandum of our whereabouts, in order that you may not fail to write me a line before you come to Paris on your way towards England, letting me know on what day we are to expect you to dinner.

We arrived here quite happily and well.  I don’t mean here, but at the Hotel Brighton, in Paris, on Friday evening, between six and seven o’clock.  The agonies of house-hunting were frightfully severe.  It was one paroxysm for four mortal days.  I am proud to express my belief, that we are lodged at last in the most preposterous house in the world.  The like of it cannot, and so far as my knowledge goes does not, exist in any other part of the globe.  The bedrooms are like opera-boxes.  The dining-rooms, staircases, and passages, quite inexplicable.  The dining-room is a sort of cavern, painted (ceiling and all) to represent a grove, with unaccountable bits of looking-glass sticking in among the branches of the trees.  There is a gleam of reason in the drawing-room.  But it is approached through a series of small chambers, like the joints in a telescope, which are hung with inscrutable drapery.  The maddest man in Bedlam, having the materials given him, would be likely to devise such a suite, supposing his case to be hopeless and quite incurable.

Pray tell Mrs. Watson, with my best regards, that the dance of the two sisters in the little Christmas book is being done as an illustration by Maclise; and that Stanfield is doing the battle-ground and the outside of the Nutmeg Grater Inn.  Maclise is also drawing some smaller subjects for the little story, and they write me that they hope it will be very pretty, and they think that I shall like it.  I shall have been in London before I see you, probably, and I hope the book itself will then be on its road to Lausanne to speak for itself, and to speak a word for me too.  I have never left so many friendly and cheerful recollections in any place; and to represent me in my absence, its tone should be very eloquent and affectionate indeed.

Well, if I don’t turn up again next summer it shall not be my fault.  In the meanwhile, I shall often and often look that way with my mind’s eye, and hear the sweet, clear, bell-like voice of ­ with the ear of my imagination.  In the event of there being any change ­but it is not likely ­in the appearance of his cravat behind, where it goes up into his head, I mean, and frets against his wig ­I hope some one of my English friends will apprise me of it, for the love of the great Saint Bernard.

I have not seen Lord Normanby yet.  I have not seen anything up to this time but houses and lodgings.  There seems to be immense excitement here on the subject of ­ however, and a perfectly stupendous sensation getting up.  I saw the king the other day coming into Paris.  His carriage was surrounded by guards on horseback, and he sat very far back in it, I thought, and drove at a great pace.  It was strange to see the préfet of police on horseback some hundreds of yards in advance, looking to the right and left as he rode, like a man who suspected every twig in every tree in the long avenue.

The English relations look anything but promising, though I understand that the Count St. Aulaire is to remain in London, notwithstanding the newspaper alarms to the contrary.  If there be anything like the sensation in England about ­ that there is here, there will be a bitter resentment indeed.  The democratic society of Paris have announced, this morning, their intention of printing and circulating fifty thousand copies of an appeal in every European language.  It is a base business beyond question, and comes at an ill time.

Mrs. Dickens and her sister desire their best regards to be sent to you and their best loves to Mrs. Watson, in which I join, as nearly as I may.  Believe me, with great truth,

Very sincerely yours.

P.S. ­Mrs. Dickens is going to write to Mrs. Watson next week, she says.

M. Cerjat

PARIS, 48, RUE DE COURCELLES, ST. HONORE,
Friday, Noth, 1846.

MY DEAR CERJAT,

When we turned out of your view on that disconsolate Monday, when you so kindly took horse and rode forth to say good-bye, we went on in a very dull and drowsy manner, I can assure you.  I could have borne a world of punch in the rumble and been none the worse for it.  There was an uncommonly cool inn that night, and quite a monstrous establishment at Auxonne the next night, full of flatulent passages and banging doors.  The next night we passed at Montbard, where there is one of the very best little inns in all France.  The next at Sens, and so we got here.  The roads were bad, but not very for French roads.  There was no deficiency of horses anywhere; and after Pontarlier the weather was really not too cold for comfort.  They weighed our plate at the frontier custom-house, spoon by spoon, and fork by fork, and we lingered about there, in a thick fog and a hard frost, for three long hours and a half, during which the officials committed all manner of absurdities, and got into all sorts of disputes with my brave courier.  This was the only misery we encountered ­except leaving Lausanne, and that was enough to last us and did last us all the way here.  We are living on it now.  I felt, myself, much as I should think the murderer felt on that fair morning when, with his gray-haired victim (those unconscious gray hairs, soon to be bedabbled with blood), he went so far towards heaven as the top of that mountain of St. Bernard without one touch of remorse.  A weight is on my breast.  The only difference between me and the murderer is, that his weight was guilt and mine is regret.

I haven’t a word of news to tell you.  I shouldn’t write at all if I were not the vainest man in the world, impelled by a belief that you will be glad to hear from me, even though you hear no more than that I have nothing to say.  “Dombey” is doing wonders.  It went up, after the publication of the second number, over the thirty thousand.  This is such a very large sale, so early in the story, that I begin to think it will beat all the rest.  Keeley and his wife are making great preparations for producing the Christmas story, and I have made them (as an old stage manager) carry out one or two expensive notions of mine about scenery and so forth ­in particular a sudden change from the inside of the doctor’s house in the midst of the ball to the orchard in the snow ­which ought to tell very well.  But actors are so bad, in general, and the best are spread over so many theatres, that the “cast” is black despair and moody madness.  There is no one to be got for Marion but a certain Miss ­, I am afraid ­a pupil of Miss Kelly’s, who acted in the private theatricals I got up a year ago.  Macready took her afterwards to play Virginia to his Virginius, but she made nothing of it, great as the chance was.  I have promised to show her what I mean, as near as I can, and if you will look into the English Opera House on the morning of the 17th, 18th, or 19th of next month, between the hours of eleven and four, you will find me in a very hot and dusty condition, playing all the parts of the piece, to the immense diversion of all the actors, actresses, scene-shifters, carpenters, musicians, chorus people, tailors, dressmakers, scene-painters, and general ragamuffins of the theatre.

Moore, the poet, is very ill ­I fear dying.  The last time I saw him was immediately before I left London, and I thought him sadly changed and tamed, but not much more so than such a man might be under the heavy hand of time.  I believe he suffered severe grief in the death of a son some time ago.  The first man I met in Paris was ­, who took hold of me as I was getting into a coach at the door of the hotel.  He hadn’t a button on his shirt (but I don’t think he ever has), and you might have sown what boys call “mustard and cress” in the dust on his coat.  I have not seen Lord Normanby yet, as we have only just got a house (the queerest house in Europe!) to lay our heads in; but there seems reason to fear that the growing dissensions between England and France, and the irritation of the French king, may lead to the withdrawal of the minister on each side of the Channel.

Have you cut down any more trees, played any more rubbers, propounded any more teasers to the players at the game of Yes and No?  How is the old horse?  How is the gray mare?  How is Crab (to whom my respectful compliments)?  Have you tried the punch yet; if yes, did it succeed; if no, why not?  Is Mrs. Cerjat as happy and as well as I would have her, and all your house ditto ditto?  Does Haldimand play whist with any science yet?  Ha, ha, ha! the idea of his saying I hadn’t any!  And are those damask-cheeked virgins, the Miss ­, still sleeping on dewy rose leaves near the English church?

Remember me to all your house, and most of all to its other head, with all the regard and earnestness that a “numble individual” (as they always call it in the House of Commons) who once travelled with her in a car over a smooth country may charge you with.  I have added two lines to the little Christmas book, that I hope both you and she may not dislike.  Haldimand will tell you what they are.  Kate and Georgy send their kindest loves, and Kate is “going” to write “next week.”  Believe me always, my dear Cerjat, full of cordial and hearty recollections of this past summer and autumn, and your part in my part of them,

Very faithfully your Friend.

Mrs. Charles Dickens.

58, LINCOLN’S INN FIELDS, Saturday, Deth, 1846.

MY DEAREST KATE,

I really am bothered to death by this confounded dramatization of the Christmas book.  They were in a state so horrible at Keeley’s yesterday (as perhaps Forster told you when he wrote), that I was obliged to engage to read the book to them this morning.  It struck me that Mrs. Leigh Murray, Miss Daly, and Vining seemed to understand it best.  Certainly Miss Daly knew best what she was about yesterday.  At eight to-night we have a rehearsal with scenery and band, and everything but dresses.  I see no possibility of escaping from it before one or two o’clock in the morning.  And I was at the theatre all day yesterday.  Unless I had come to London, I do not think there would have been much hope of the version being more than just tolerated, even that doubtful.  All the actors bad, all the business frightfully behindhand.  The very words of the book confused in the copying into the densest and most insufferable nonsense.  I must exempt, however, from the general slackness both the Keeleys.  I hope they will be very good.  I have never seen anything of its kind better than the manner in which they played the little supper scene between Clemency and Britain, yesterday.  It was quite perfect, even to me.

The small manager, Forster, Talfourd, Stanny, and Mac dine with me at the Piazza to-day, before the rehearsal.  I have already one or two uncommonly good stories of Mac.  I reserve them for narration.  I have also a dreadful cold, which I would not reserve if I could help it.  I can hardly hold up my head, and fight through from hour to hour, but had serious thoughts just now of walking off to bed.

Christmas book published to-day ­twenty-three thousand copies already gone!!!  Browne’s plates for next “Dombey” much better than usual.

I have seen nobody yet, of course.  But I sent Roche up to your mother this morning, to say I am in town and will come shortly.  There is a great thaw here to-day, and it is raining hard.  I hope you have the advantage (if it be one, which I am not sure of) of a similar change in Paris.  Of course I start again on Thursday.  We are expecting (Roche and I) a letter from the malle poste people, to whom we have applied for places.  The journey here was long and cold ­twenty-four hours from Paris to Boulogne.  Passage not very bad, and made in two hours.

I find I can’t write at all, so I had best leave off.  I am looking impatiently for your letter on Monday morning.  Give my best love to Georgy, and kisses to all the dear children.  And believe me, my love,

Most affectionately.

Mrs. Charles Dickens.

PIAZZA COFFEE-HOUSE, COVENT GARDEN,
Monday, Dest, 1846.

MY DEAREST KATE,

In a quiet interval of half an hour before going to dine at Macready’s, I sit down to write you a few words.  But I shall reserve my letter for to-morrow’s post, in order that you may hear what I hear of the “going” of the play to-night.  Think of my being there on Saturday, with a really frightful cold, and working harder than ever I did at the amateur plays, until two in the morning.  There was no supper to be got, either here or anywhere else, after coming out; and I was as hungry and thirsty as need be.  The scenery and dresses are very good indeed, and they have spent money on it liberally.  The great change from the ball-room to the snowy night is most effective, and both the departure and the return will tell, I think, strongly on an audience.  I have made them very quick and excited in the passionate scenes, and so have infused some appearance of life into those parts of the play.  But I can’t make a Marion, and Miss ­ is awfully bad.  She is a mere nothing all through.  I put Mr. Leigh Murray into such a state, by making him tear about, that the perspiration ran streaming down his face.  They have a great let.  I believe every place in the house is taken.  Roche is going.

Tuesday Morning. ­The play went, as well as I can make out ­I hoped to have had Stanny’s report of it, but he is ill ­with great effect.  There was immense enthusiasm at its close, and great uproar and shouting for me.  Forster will go on Wednesday, and write you his account of it.  I saw the Keeleys on the stage at eleven o’clock or so, and they were in prodigious spirits and delight.

Mr. John Forster

48, RUE DE COURCELLES, PARIS,
Sunday Night, Deth, 1846.

MY VERY DEAR FORSTER,

Amen, amen.  Many merry Christmases, many happy new years, unbroken friendship, great accumulation of cheerful recollections, affection on earth, and heaven at last, for all of us.

I enclose you a letter from Jeffrey, which you may like to read. Bring it to me back when you come over. I have told him all he wants to know.  Is it not a strange example of the hazards of writing in numbers that a man like him should form his notion of Dombey and Miss Tox on three months’ knowledge?  I have asked him the same question, and advised him to keep his eye on both of them as time rolls on.

We had a cold journey here from Boulogne, but the roads were not very bad.  The malle poste, however, now takes the trains at Amiens.  We missed it by ten minutes, and had to wait three hours ­from twelve o’clock until three, in which interval I drank brandy and water, and slept like a top.  It is delightful travelling for its speed, that malle poste, and really for its comfort too.  But on this occasion it was not remarkable for the last-named quality.  The director of the post at Boulogne told me a lamentable story of his son at Paris being ill, and implored me to bring him on.  The brave doubted the representations altogether, but I couldn’t find it in my heart to say no; so we brought the director, bodkinwise, and being a large man, in a great number of greatcoats, he crushed us dismally until we got to the railroad.  For two passengers (and it never carries more) it is capital.  For three, excruciating.

Write to ­ what you have said to me.  You need write no more.  He is full of vicious fancies and wrong suspicions, even of Hardwick, and I would rather he heard it from you than from me, whom he is not likely to love much in his heart.  I doubt it may be but a rusty instrument for want of use, the ­ish heart.

My most important present news is that I am going to take a jorum of hot rum and egg in bed immediately, and to cover myself up with all the blankets in the house.  Love from all.  I have a sensation in my head, as if it were “on edge.”  It is still very cold here, but the snow had disappeared on my return, both here and on the road, except within ten miles or so of Boulogne.

Ever affectionately.