NARRATIVE.

The summer of this year was also spent at Boulogne, M. Beaucourt being again the landlord; but the house, though still on the same “property,” stood on the top of the hill, above the Moulineaux, and was called the Villa du Camp de Droite.

In the early part of the year Charles Dickens paid several visits to the English provinces, giving readings from his books at many of the large manufacturing towns, and always for some good and charitable purpose.

He was still at work upon “Hard Times,” which was finished during the summer, and was constantly occupied with “Household Words.”  Many of our letters for this year are to the contributors to this journal.  The last is an unusually interesting one.  He had for some time past been much charmed with the writings of a certain Miss Berwick, who, he knew, to be a contributor under a feigned name.  When at last the lady confided her real name, and he discovered in the young poetess the daughter of his dear friends, Mr. and Mrs. Procter, the “new sensation” caused him intense surprise, and the greatest pleasure and delight.  Miss Adelaide Procter was, from this time, a frequent contributor to “Household Words,” more especially to the Christmas numbers.

There are really very few letters in this year requiring any explanation from us ­many explaining themselves, and many having allusion to incidents in the past year, which have been duly noted by us for 1853.

The portrait mentioned in the letter to Mr. Collins, for which he was sitting to Mr. E. M. Ward, R.A., was to be one of a series of oil sketches of the then celebrated literary men of the day, in their studies.  We believe this portrait to be now in the possession of Mrs. Ward.

In explanation of the letter to Mr. John Saunders on the subject of the production of the latter’s play, called “Love’s Martyrdom,” we will give the dramatist’s own words: 

“Having printed for private circulation a play entitled ‘Love’s Martyrdom,’ and for which I desired to obtain the independent judgment of some of our most eminent literary men, before seeking the ordeal of the stage, I sent a copy to Mr. Dickens, and the letter in question is his acknowledgment.

“He immediately took steps for the introduction of the play to the theatre.  At first he arranged with Mr. Phelps, of Sadler’s Wells, but subsequently, with that gentleman’s consent, removed it to the Haymarket.  There it was played with Miss Helen Faucit in the character of Margaret, Miss Swanborough (who shortly after married and left the stage) as Julia, Mr. Barry Sullivan as Franklyn, and Mr. Howe as Laneham.

“As far as the play itself was concerned, it was received on all sides as a genuine dramatic and poetic success, achieved, however, as an eminent critic came to my box to say, through greater difficulties than he had ever before seen a dramatic work pass through.  The time has not come for me to speak freely of these, but I may point to two of them:  the first being the inadequate rehearsals, which caused Mr. Dickens to tell me on the stage, four or five days only before the first performance, that the play was not then in as good a state as it would have been in at Paris three weeks earlier.  The other was the breakdown of the performer of a most important secondary part; a collapse so absolute that he was changed by the management before the second representation of the piece.”

This ill-luck of the beginning, pursued the play to its close.

“The Haymarket Theatre was at the time in the very lowest state of prostration, through the Crimean War; the habitual frequenters were lovers of comedy, and enjoyers of farce and burlesque; and there was neither the money nor the faith to call to the theatre by the usual methods, vigorously and discriminatingly pursued, the multitudes that I believed could have been so called to a better and more romantic class of comedy.

“Even under these and other, similarly depressing circumstances, the nightly receipts were about L60, the expenses being L80; and on the last ­an author’s ­night, there was an excellent and enthusiastic house, yielding, to the best of my recollection, about L140, but certainly between L120 and L140.  And with that night ­the sixth or seventh ­the experiment ended.”

Mr. Walter Savage Landor.

TAVISTOCK HOUSE, January 7th, 1854.

MY DEAR LANDOR,

I heartily assure you that to have your name coupled with anything I have done is an honour and a pleasure to me.  I cannot say that I am sorry that you should have thought it necessary to write to me, for it is always delightful to me to see your hand, and to know (though I want no outward and visible sign as an assurance of the fact) that you are ever the same generous, earnest, gallant man.

Catherine and Georgina send their kind loves.  So does Walter Landor, who came home from school with high judicial commendation and a prize into the bargain.

Ever, my dear Landor, affectionately yours.

The Hon. Mrs. Watson.

TAVISTOCK HOUSE, Friday, January 13th, 1854.

MY DEAR MRS. WATSON,

On the very day after I sent the Christmas number to Rockingham, I heard of your being at Brighton.  I should have sent another there, but that I had a misgiving I might seem to be making too much of it.  For, when I thought of the probability of the Rockingham copy going on to Brighton, and pictured to myself the advent of two of those very large envelopes at once at Junction House at breakfast time, a sort of comic modesty overcame me.  I was heartily pleased with the Birmingham audience, which was a very fine one.  I never saw, nor do I suppose anybody ever did, such an interesting sight as the working people’s night.  There were two thousand five hundred of them there, and a more delicately observant audience it is impossible to imagine.  They lost nothing, misinterpreted nothing, followed everything closely, laughed and cried with most delightful earnestness, and animated me to that extent that I felt as if we were all bodily going up into the clouds together.  It is an enormous place for the purpose; but I had considered all that carefully, and I believe made the most distant person hear as well as if I had been reading in my own room.  I was a little doubtful before I began on the first night whether it was quite practicable to conceal the requisite effort; but I soon had the satisfaction of finding that it was, and that we were all going on together, in the first page, as easily, to all appearance, as if we had been sitting round the fire.

I am obliged to go out on Monday at five and to dine out; but I will be at home at any time before that hour that you may appoint.  You say you are only going to stay one night in town; but if you could stay two, and would dine with us alone on Tuesday, that is the plan that we should all like best.  Let me have one word from you by post on Monday morning.  Few things that I saw, when I was away, took my fancy so much as the Electric Telegraph, piercing, like a sunbeam, right through the cruel old heart of the Coliseum at Rome.  And on the summit of the Alps, among the eternal ice and snow, there it was still, with its posts sustained against the sweeping mountain winds by clusters of great beams ­to say nothing of its being at the bottom of the sea as we crossed the Channel.  With kindest loves,

                             Ever, my dear Mrs. Watson,
                                                Most faithfully yours.

Miss Mary Boyle.

TAVISTOCK HOUSE, Monday, January 16th, 1854.

MY DEAR MARY,

It is all very well to pretend to love me as you do.  Ah!  If you loved as I love, Mary!  But, when my breast is tortured by the perusal of such a letter as yours, Falkland, Falkland, madam, becomes my part in “The Rivals,” and I play it with desperate earnestness.

As thus: 

        FALKLAND (to Acres).  Then you see her, sir,
        sometimes?

        ACRES.  See her!  Odds beams and sparkles, yes. 
        See her acting!  Night after night.

FALKLAND (aside and furious).  Death and the devil!  Acting, and I not there!  Pray, sir (with constrained calmness), what does she act?

ACRES.  Odds, monthly nurses and babbies!  Sairey Gamp and Betsey Prig, “which, wotever it is, my dear (mimicking), I likes it brought reg’lar and draw’d mild!” That’s very like her.

FALKLAND.  Confusion!  Laceration!  Perhaps, sir, perhaps she sometimes acts ­ha! ha! perhaps she sometimes acts, I say ­eh! sir? ­a ­ha, ha, ha! a fairy? (With great bitterness.)

ACRES.  Odds, gauzy pinions and spangles, yes!  You should hear her sing as a fairy.  You should see her dance as a fairy.  Tol de rol lol ­la ­lol ­liddle diddle. (Sings and dances). That’s very like her.

FALKLAND.  Misery! while I, devoted to her image, can scarcely write a line now and then, or pensively read aloud to the people of Birmingham. (To him.) And they applaud her, no doubt they applaud her, sir.  And she ­I see her!  Curtsies and smiles!  And they ­curses on them! they laugh and ­ha, ha, ha! ­and clap their hands ­and say it’s very good.  Do they not say it’s very good, sir?  Tell me.  Do they not?

ACRES.  Odds, thunderings and pealings, of course they do! and the third fiddler, little Tweaks, of the county town, goes into fits.  Ho, ho, ho, I can’t bear it (mimicking); take me out!  Ha, ha, ha!  O what a one she is!  She’ll be the death of me.  Ha, ha, ha, ha! That’s very like her!

FALKLAND.  Damnation!  Heartless Mary! (Rushes
out.)

Scene opens, and discloses coals of fire, heaped up into form of letters, representing the following inscription: 

When the praise thou meetest
To thine ear is sweetest,
O then
REMEMBER JOE!
(Curtain falls.)

M. de Cerjat.

TAVISTOCK HOUSE, Monday, Jath, 1854.

MY DEAR CERJAT,

Guilty.  The accused pleads guilty, but throws himself upon the mercy of the court.  He humbly represents that his usual hour for getting up, in the course of his travels, was three o’clock in the morning, and his usual hour for going to bed, nine or ten the next night.  That the places in which he chiefly deviated from these rules of hardship, were Rome and Venice; and that at those cities of fame he shut himself up in solitude, and wrote Christmas papers for the incomparable publication known as “Household Words.”  That his correspondence at all times, arising out of the business of the said “Household Words” alone, was very heavy.  That his offence, though undoubtedly committed, was unavoidable, and that a nominal punishment will meet the justice of the case.

We had only three bad days out of the whole time.  After Naples, which was very hot, we had very cold, clear, bright weather.  When we got to Chamounix, we found the greater part of the inns shut up and the people gone.  No visitors whatsoever, and plenty of snow.  These were the very best circumstances under which to see the place, and we stayed a couple of days at the Hotel de Londres (hastily re-furbished for our entertainment), and climbed through the snow to the Mer de Glace, and thoroughly enjoyed it.  Then we went, in mule procession (I walking) to the old hotel at Martigny, where Collins was ill, and I suppose I bored Egg to death by talking all the evening about the time when you and I were there together.  Naples (a place always painful to me, in the intense degradation of the people) seems to have only three classes of inhabitants left in it ­priests, soldiers (standing army one hundred thousand strong), and spies.  Of macaroni we ate very considerable quantities everywhere; also, for the benefit of Italy, we took our share of every description of wine.  At Naples I found Layard, the Nineveh traveller, who is a friend of mine and an admirable fellow; so we fraternised and went up Vesuvius together, and ate more macaroni and drank more wine.  At Rome, the day after our arrival, they were making a saint at St. Peter’s; on which occasion I was surprised to find what an immense number of pounds of wax candles it takes to make the regular, genuine article.  From Turin to Paris, over the Mont Cenis, we made only one journey.  The Rhone, being frozen and foggy, was not to be navigated, so we posted from Lyons to Chalons, and everybody else was doing the like, and there were no horses to be got, and we were stranded at midnight in amazing little cabarets, with nothing worth mentioning to eat in them, except the iron stove, which was rusty, and the billiard-table, which was musty.  We left Turin on a Tuesday evening, and arrived in Paris on a Friday evening; where I found my son Charley, hot ­or I should rather say cold ­from Germany, with his arms and legs so grown out of his coat and trousers, that I was ashamed of him, and was reduced to the necessity of taking him, under cover of night, to a ready-made establishment in the Palais Royal, where they put him into balloon-waisted pantaloons, and increased my confusion.  Leaving Calais on the evening of Sunday, the 10th of December; fact of distinguished author’s being aboard, was telegraphed to Dover; thereupon authorities of Dover Railway detained train to London for distinguished author’s arrival, rather to the exasperation of British public.  D. A. arrived at home between ten and eleven that night, thank God, and found all well and happy.

I think you see The Times, and if so, you will have seen a very graceful and good account of the Birmingham readings.  It was the most remarkable thing that England could produce, I think, in the way of a vast intelligent assemblage; and the success was most wonderful and prodigious ­perfectly overwhelming and astounding altogether.  They wound up by giving my wife a piece of plate, having given me one before; and when you come to dine here (may it be soon!) it shall be duly displayed in the centre of the table.

Tell Mrs. Cerjat, to whom my love, and all our loves, that I have highly excited them at home here by giving them an account in detail of all your daughters; further, that the way in which Catherine and Georgina have questioned me and cross-questioned me about you all, notwithstanding, is maddening.  Mrs. Watson has been obliged to pass her Christmas at Brighton alone with her younger children, in consequence of her two eldest boys coming home to Rockingham from school with the whooping-cough.  The quarantine expires to-day, however; and she drives here, on her way back into Northamptonshire, to-morrow.

The sad affair of the Preston strike remains unsettled; and I hear, on strong authority, that if that were settled, the Manchester people are prepared to strike next.  Provisions very dear, but the people very temperate and quiet in general.  So ends this jumble, which looks like the index to a chapter in a book, I find, when I read it over.

Ever, my dear Cerjat, heartily your Friend.

Mr. Arthur Ryland.

TAVISTOCK HOUSE, January 18th, 1854.

MY DEAR SIR,

I am quite delighted to find that you are so well satisfied, and that the enterprise has such a light upon it.  I think I never was better pleased in my life than I was with my Birmingham friends.

That principle of fair representation of all orders carefully carried out, I believe, will do more good than any of us can yet foresee.  Does it not seem a strange thing to consider that I have never yet seen with these eyes of mine, a mechanic in any recognised position on the platform of a Mechanics’ Institution?

Mr. Wills may be expected to sink, shortly, under the ravages of letters from all parts of England, Ireland, and Scotland, proposing readings.  He keeps up his spirits, but I don’t see how they are to carry him through.

Mrs. Dickens and Miss Hogarth beg their kindest regards; and I am, my dear sir, with much regard, too,

Very faithfully yours.

Mr. Charles Knight.

TAVISTOCK HOUSE, January 30th, 1854.

MY DEAR KNIGHT,

Indeed there is no fear of my thinking you the owner of a cold heart.  I am more than three parts disposed, however, to be ferocious with you for ever writing down such a preposterous truism.

My satire is against those who see figures and averages, and nothing else ­the representatives of the wickedest and most enormous vice of this time ­the men who, through long years to come, will do more to damage the real useful truths of political economy than I could do (if I tried) in my whole life; the addled heads who would take the average of cold in the Crimea during twelve months as a reason for clothing a soldier in nankeens on a night when he would be frozen to death in fur, and who would comfort the labourer in travelling twelve miles a day to and from his work, by telling him that the average distance of one inhabited place from another in the whole area of England, is not more than four miles.  Bah!  What have you to do with these?

I shall put the book upon a private shelf (after reading it) by “Once upon a Time.”  I should have buried my pipe of peace and sent you this blast of my war-horn three or four days ago, but that I have been reading to a little audience of three thousand five hundred at Bradford.

Ever affectionately yours.

Rev. James White.

TAVISTOCK HOUSE, Tuesday, March 7th, 1854.

MY DEAR WHITE,

I am tardy in answering your letter; but “Hard Times,” and an immense amount of enforced correspondence, are my excuse.  To you a sufficient one, I know.

As I should judge from outward and visible appearances, I have exactly as much chance of seeing the Russian fleet reviewed by the Czar as I have of seeing the English fleet reviewed by the Queen.

“Club Law” made me laugh very much when I went over it in the proof yesterday.  It is most capitally done, and not (as I feared it might be) too directly.  It is in the next number but one.

Mrs. ­ has gone stark mad ­and stark naked ­on the spirit-rapping imposition.  She was found t’other day in the street, clothed only in her chastity, a pocket-handkerchief and a visiting card.  She had been informed, it appeared, by the spirits, that if she went out in that trim she would be invisible.  She is now in a madhouse, and, I fear, hopelessly insane.  One of the curious manifestations of her disorder is that she can bear nothing black.  There is a terrific business to be done, even when they are obliged to put coals on her fire.

­ has a thing called a Psycho-grapher, which writes at the dictation of spirits.  It delivered itself, a few nights ago, of this extraordinarily lucid message: 

X. Y. Z!

upon which it was gravely explained by the true believers that “the spirits were out of temper about something.”  Said ­ had a great party on Sunday, when it was rumoured “a count was going to raise the dead.”  I stayed till the ghostly hour, but the rumour was unfounded, for neither count nor plebeian came up to the spiritual scratch.  It is really inexplicable to me that a man of his calibre can be run away with by such small deer.

A propos of spiritual messages comes in Georgina, and, hearing that I am writing to you, delivers the following enigma to be conveyed to Mrs. White: 

“Wyon of the Mint lives at the Mint.”

Feeling my brain going after this, I only trust it with loves from all to all.

Ever faithfully.

Mr. Charles Knight.

TAVISTOCK HOUSE, March 17th, 1854.

MY DEAR KNIGHT,

I have read the article with much interest.  It is most conscientiously done, and presents a great mass of curious information condensed into a surprisingly small space.

I have made a slight note or two here and there, with a soft pencil, so that a touch of indiarubber will make all blank again.

And I earnestly entreat your attention to the point (I have been working upon it, weeks past, in “Hard Times”) which I have jocosely suggested on the last page but one.  The English are, so far as I know, the hardest-worked people on whom the sun shines.  Be content if, in their wretched intervals of pleasure, they read for amusement and do no worse.  They are born at the oar, and they live and die at it.  Good God, what would we have of them!

Affectionately yours always.

Mr. W. H. Wills.

OFFICE OF “HOUSEHOLD WORDS,”
N, WELLINGTON STREET, NORTH STRAND,
Wednesday, April 12th, 1854.

I know all the walks for many and many miles round about Malvern, and delightful walks they are.  I suppose you are already getting very stout, very red, very jovial (in a physical point of view) altogether.

Mark and I walked to Dartford from Greenwich, last Monday, and found Mrs. ­ acting “The Stranger” (with a strolling company from the Standard Theatre) in Mr. Munn’s schoolroom.  The stage was a little wider than your table here, and its surface was composed of loose boards laid on the school forms.  Dogs sniffed about it during the performances, and the carpenter’s highlows were ostentatiously taken off and displayed in the proscenium.

We stayed until a quarter to ten, when we were obliged to fly to the railroad, but we sent the landlord of the hotel down with the following articles: 

1 bottle superior old port,
1 do. do. golden sherry,
1 do. do. best French brandy,
1 do. do. 1st quality old Tom gin,
1 bottle superior prime Jamaica rum,
1 do. do. small still Isla whiskey,
1 kettle boiling water, two pounds finest white lump sugar,
Our cards,
1 lemon,
and
Our compliments.

The effect we had previously made upon the theatrical company by being beheld in the first two chairs ­there was nearly a pound in the house ­was altogether electrical.

My ladies send their kindest regards, and are disappointed at your not saying that you drink two-and-twenty tumblers of the limpid element, every day.  The children also unite in “loves,” and the Plornishghenter, on being asked if he would send his, replies “Yes ­man,” which we understand to signify cordial acquiescence.

Forster just come back from lecturing at Sherborne.  Describes said lecture as “Blaze of Triumph.”

H. W. AGAIN.

Miss ­I mean Mrs. ­Bell’s story very nice.  I have sent it to the printer, and entitled it “The Green Ring and the Gold Ring.”

This apartment looks desolate in your absence; but, O Heavens, how tidy!

F. W.

Mrs. Wills supposed to have gone into a convent at Somers Town.

My dear Wills,
Ever faithfully yours.

Mr. B. W. Procter.

TAVISTOCK HOUSE, Saturday Night, April 15th, 1854.

MY DEAR PROCTER,

I have read the “Fatal Revenge.”  Don’t do what the minor theatrical people call “despi-ser” me, but I think it’s very bad.  The concluding narrative is by far the most meritorious part of the business.  Still, the people are so very convulsive and tumble down so many places, and are always knocking other people’s bones about in such a very irrational way, that I object.  The way in which earthquakes won’t swallow the monsters, and volcanoes in eruption won’t boil them, is extremely aggravating.  Also their habit of bolting when they are going to explain anything.

You have sent me a very different and a much better book; and for that I am truly grateful.  With the dust of “Maturin” in my eyes, I sat down and read “The Death of Friends,” and the dust melted away in some of those tears it is good to shed.  I remember to have read “The Backroom Window” some years ago, and I have associated it with you ever since.  It is a most delightful paper.  But the two volumes are all delightful, and I have put them on a shelf where you sit down with Charles Lamb again, with Talfourd’s vindication of him hard by.

We never meet.  I hope it is not irreligious, but in this strange London I have an inclination to adapt a portion of the Church Service to our common experience.  Thus: 

“We have left unmet the people whom we ought to have met, and we have met the people whom we ought not to have met, and there seems to be no help in us.”

But I am always, my dear Procter,
(At a distance),
Very cordially yours.

Mrs. Gaskell.

TAVISTOCK HOUSE, April 21st, 1854.

MY DEAR MRS. GASKELL,

I safely received the paper from Mr. Shaen, welcomed it with three cheers, and instantly despatched it to the printer, who has it in hand now.

I have no intention of striking.  The monstrous claims at domination made by a certain class of manufacturers, and the extent to which the way is made easy for working men to slide down into discontent under such hands, are within my scheme; but I am not going to strike, so don’t be afraid of me.  But I wish you would look at the story yourself, and judge where and how near I seem to be approaching what you have in your mind.  The first two months of it will show that.

I will “make my will” on the first favourable occasion.  We were playing games last night, and were fearfully clever.  With kind regards to Mr. Gaskell, always, my dear Mrs. Gaskell,

Faithfully yours.

Mr. Frank Stone‚ A.R.A.

TAVISTOCK HOUSE, May 30th, 1854.

MY DEAR STONE,

I can_not_ stand a total absence of ventilation, and I should have liked (in an amiable and persuasive manner) to have punched ­’s head, and opened the register stoves.  I saw the supper tables, sir, in an empty state, and was charmed with them.  Likewise I recovered myself from a swoon, occasioned by long contact with an unventilated man of a strong flavour from Copenhagen, by drinking an unknown species of celestial lemonade in that enchanted apartment.

I am grieved to say that on Saturday I stand engaged to dine, at three weeks’ notice, with one ­, a man who has read every book that ever was written, and is a perfect gulf of information.  Before exploding a mine of knowledge he has a habit of closing one eye and wrinkling up his nose, so that he seems perpetually to be taking aim at you and knocking you over with a terrific charge.  Then he looks again, and takes another aim.  So you are always on your back, with your legs in the air.

How can a man be conversed with, or walked with, in the county of Middlesex, when he is reviewing the Kentish Militia on the shores of Dover, or sailing, every day for three weeks, between Dover and Calais?

Ever affectionately.

P.S. ­“Humphry Clinker” is certainly Smollett’s best.  I am rather divided between “Peregrine Pickle” and “Roderick Random,” both extraordinarily good in their way, which is a way without tenderness; but you will have to read them both, and I send the first volume of “Peregrine” as the richer of the two.

Mr. Peter Cunningham.

TAVISTOCK HOUSE, June 7th, 1854.

MY DEAR CUNNINGHAM,

I cannot become one of the committee for Wilson’s statue, after entertaining so strong an opinion against the expediency of such a memorial in poor dear Talfourd’s case.  But I will subscribe my three guineas, and will pay that sum to the account at Coutts’s when I go there next week, before leaving town.

“The Goldsmiths” admirably done throughout.  It is a book I have long desired to see done, and never expected to see half so well done.  Many thanks to you for it.

Ever faithfully yours.

P.S. ­Please to observe the address at Boulogne:  “Villa du Camp de Droite.”

Mr. W. H. Wills.

VILLA DU CAMP DE DROITE, Thursday, June 22nd, 1854.

MY DEAR WILLS,

I have nothing to say, but having heard from you this morning, think I may as well report all well.

We have a most charming place here.  It beats the former residence all to nothing.  We have a beautiful garden, with all its fruits and flowers, and a field of our own, and a road of our own away to the Column, and everything that is airy and fresh.  The great Beaucourt hovers about us like a guardian genius, and I imagine that no English person in a carriage could by any possibility find the place.

Of the wonderful inventions and contrivances with which a certain inimitable creature has made the most of it, I will say nothing, until you have an opportunity of inspecting the same.  At present I will only observe that I have written exactly seventy-two words of “Hard Times,” since I have been here.

The children arrived on Tuesday night, by London boat, in every stage and aspect of sea-sickness.

The camp is about a mile off, and huts are now building for (they say) sixty thousand soldiers.  I don’t imagine it to be near enough to bother us.

If the weather ever should be fine, it might do you good sometimes to come over with the proofs on a Saturday, when the tide serves well, before you and Mrs. W. make your annual visit.  Recollect there is always a bed, and no sudden appearance will put us out.

Kind regards. 
Ever faithfully.

Mr. W. Wilkie Collins.

VILLA DU CAMP DE DROITE, BOULOGNE,
Wednesday Night, July 12th, 1854.

MY DEAR COLLINS,

Bobbing up, corkwise, from a sea of “Hard Times” I beg to report this tenement ­AMAZING!!!  Range of view and air, most free and delightful; hill-side garden, delicious; field, stupendous; speculations in haycocks already effected by the undersigned, with the view to the keeping up of a “home” at rounders.

I hope to finish and get to town by next Wednesday night, the 19th; what do you say to coming back with me on the following Tuesday?  The interval I propose to pass in a career of amiable dissipation and unbounded license in the metropolis.  If you will come and breakfast with me about midnight ­anywhere ­any day, and go to bed no more until we fly to these pastoral retreats, I shall be delighted to have so vicious an associate.

Will you undertake to let Ward know that if he still wishes me to sit to him, he shall have me as long as he likes, at Tavistock House, on Monday, the 24th, from ten A.M.?

I have made it understood here that we shall want to be taken the greatest care of this summer, and to be fed on nourishing meats.  Several new dishes have been rehearsed and have come out very well.  I have met with what they call in the City “a parcel” of the celebrated 1846 champagne.  It is a very fine wine, and calculated to do us good when weak.

The camp is about a mile off.  Voluptuous English authors reposing from their literary fatigues (on their laurels) are expected, when all other things fail, to lie on straw in the midst of it when the days are sunny, and stare at the blue sea until they fall asleep. (About one hundred and fifty soldiers have been at various times billeted on Beaucourt since we have been here, and he has clinked glasses with them every one, and read a MS. book of his father’s, on soldiers in general, to them all.)

I shall be glad to hear what you say to these various proposals.  I write with the Emperor in the town, and a great expenditure of tricolour floating thereabouts, but no stir makes its way to this inaccessible retreat.  It is like being up in a balloon.  Lionising Englishmen and Germans start to call, and are found lying imbecile in the road halfway up.  Ha! ha! ha!

Kindest regards from all.  The Plornishghenter adds Mr. and Mrs. Goose’s duty.

Ever faithfully.

P.S. ­The cobbler has been ill these many months, and unable to work; has had a carbuncle in his back, and has it cut three times a week.  The little dog sits at the door so unhappy and anxious to help, that I every day expect to see him beginning a pair of top boots.

Miss Hogarth.

OFFICE OF “HOUSEHOLD WORDS,” Saturday, July 22nd, 1854.

MY DEAR GEORGINA,

Neither you nor Catherine did justice to Collins’s book. I think it far away the cleverest novel I have ever seen written by a new hand.  It is in some respects masterly.  “Valentine Blyth” is as original, and as well done as anything can be.  The scene where he shows his pictures is full of an admirable humour.  Old Mat is admirably done.  In short, I call it a very remarkable book, and have been very much surprised by its great merit.

Tell Kate, with my love, that she will receive to-morrow in a little parcel, the complete proofs of “Hard Times.”  They will not be corrected, but she will find them pretty plain.  I am just now going to put them up for her.  I saw Grisi the night before last in “Lucrezia Borgia” ­finer than ever.  Last night I was drinking gin-slings till daylight, with Buckstone of all people, who saw me looking at the Spanish dancers, and insisted on being convivial.  I have been in a blaze of dissipation altogether, and have succeeded (I think), in knocking the remembrance of my work out.

Loves to all the darlings, from the Plornish-Maroon upward.  London is far hotter than Naples.

Ever affectionately.

Mrs. Gaskell.

VILLA DU CAMP DE DROITE, BOULOGNE,
Thursday, Auth, 1854.

MY DEAR MRS. GASKELL,

I sent your MS. off to Wills yesterday, with instructions to forward it to you without delay.  I hope you will have received it before this notification comes to hand.

The usual festivity of this place at present ­which is the blessing of soldiers by the ten thousand ­has just now been varied by the baptising of some new bells, lately hung up (to my sorrow and lunacy) in a neighbouring church.  An English lady was godmother; and there was a procession afterwards, wherein an English gentleman carried “the relics” in a highly suspicious box, like a barrel organ; and innumerable English ladies in white gowns and bridal wreaths walked two and two, as if they had all gone to school again.

At a review, on the same day, I was particularly struck by the commencement of the proceedings, and its singular contrast to the usual military operations in Hyde Park.  Nothing would induce the general commanding in chief to begin, until chairs were brought for all the lady-spectators.  And a detachment of about a hundred men deployed into all manner of farmhouses to find the chairs.  Nobody seemed to lose any dignity by the transaction, either.

With kindest regards, my dear Mrs. Gaskell,
Faithfully yours always.

Rev. William Harness.

VILLA DU CAMP DE DROITE, BOULOGNE,
Saturday, Auth, 1854.

MY DEAR HARNESS,

Yes.  The book came from me.  I could not put a memorandum to that effect on the title-page, in consequence of my being here.

I am heartily glad you like it.  I know the piece you mention, but am far from being convinced by it.  A great misgiving is upon me, that in many things (this thing among the rest) too many are martyrs to our complacency and satisfaction, and that we must give up something thereof for their poor sakes.

My kindest regards to your sister, and my love (if I may send it) to another of your relations.

Always, very faithfully yours.

Mr. Henry Austin.

VILLA DU CAMP DE DROITE, BOULOGNE,
Wednesday, Septh, 1854.

Any Saturday on which the tide serves your purpose (next Saturday excepted) will suit me for the flying visit you hint at; and we shall be delighted to see you.  Although the camp is not above a mile from this gate, we never see or hear of it, unless we choose.  If you could come here in dry weather you would find it as pretty, airy, and pleasant a situation as you ever saw.  We illuminated the whole front of the house last night ­eighteen windows ­and an immense palace of light was seen sparkling on this hill-top for miles and miles away.  I rushed to a distance to look at it, and never saw anything of the same kind half so pretty.

The town looks like one immense flag, it is so decked out with streamers; and as the royal yacht approached yesterday ­the whole range of the cliff tops lined with troops, and the artillery matches in hand, all ready to fire the great guns the moment she made the harbour; the sailors standing up in the prow of the yacht, the Prince in a blazing uniform, left alone on the deck for everybody to see ­a stupendous silence, and then such an infernal blazing and banging as never was heard.  It was almost as fine a sight as one could see under a deep blue sky.  In our own proper illumination I laid on all the servants, all the children now at home, all the visitors (it is the annual “Household Words” time), one to every window, with everything ready to light up on the ringing of a big dinner-bell by your humble correspondent.  St. Peter’s on Easter Monday was the result.

                                    Best love from all. 
                                                  Ever affectionately.

Mr. W. Wilkie Collins.

BOULOGNE, Tuesday, Septh, 1854.

MY DEAR COLLINS,

First, I have to report that I received your letter with much pleasure.

Secondly, that the weather has entirely changed.  It is so cool that we have not only a fire in the drawing-room regularly, but another to dine by.  The delicious freshness of the air is charming, and it is generally bright and windy besides.

Thirdly, that ­’s intellectual faculties appear to have developed suddenly.  He has taken to borrowing money; from which I infer (as he has no intention whatever of repaying) that his mental powers are of a high order.  Having got a franc from me, he fell upon Mrs. Dickens for five sous.  She declining to enter into the transaction, he beleaguered that feeble little couple, Harry and Sydney, into paying two sous each for “tickets” to behold the ravishing spectacle of an utterly-non-existent-and-there-fore-impossible-to-be-produced toy theatre.  He eats stony apples, and harbours designs upon his fellow-creatures until he has become light-headed.  From the couch rendered uneasy by this disorder he has arisen with an excessively protuberant forehead, a dull slow eye, a complexion of a leaden hue, and a croaky voice.  He has become a horror to me, and I resort to the most cowardly expedients to avoid meeting him.  He, on the other hand, wanting another franc, dodges me round those trees at the corner, and at the back door; and I have a presentiment upon me that I shall fall a sacrifice to his cupidity at last.

On the Sunday night after you left, or rather on the Monday morning at half-past one, Mary was taken very ill.  English cholera.  She was sinking so fast, and the sickness was so exceedingly alarming, that it evidently would not do to wait for Elliotson.  I caused everything to be done that we had naturally often thought of, in a lonely house so full of children, and fell back upon the old remedy; though the difficulty of giving even it was rendered very great by the frightful sickness.  Thank God, she recovered so favourably that by breakfast time she was fast asleep.  She slept twenty-four hours, and has never had the least uneasiness since.  I heard ­of course afterwards ­that she had had an attack of sickness two nights before.  I think that long ride and those late dinners had been too much for her.  Without them I am inclined to doubt whether she would have been ill.

Last Sunday as ever was, the theatre took fire at half-past eleven in the forenoon.  Being close by the English church, it showered hot sparks into that temple through the open windows.  Whereupon the congregation shrieked and rose and tumbled out into the street; ­ benignly observing to the only ancient female who would listen to him, “I fear we must part;” and afterwards being beheld in the street ­in his robes and with a kind of sacred wildness on him ­handing ladies over the kennel into shops and other structures, where they had no business whatever, or the least desire to go.  I got to the back of the theatre, where I could see in through some great doors that had been forced open, and whence the spectacle of the whole interior, burning like a red-hot cavern, was really very fine, even in the daylight.  Meantime the soldiers were at work, “saving” the scenery by pitching it into the next street; and the poor little properties (one spinning-wheel, a feeble imitation of a water-mill, and a basketful of the dismalest artificial flowers very conspicuous) were being passed from hand to hand with the greatest excitement, as if they were rescued children or lovely women.  In four or five hours the whole place was burnt down, except the outer walls.  Never in my days did I behold such feeble endeavours in the way of extinguishment.  On an average I should say it took ten minutes to throw half a gallon of water on the great roaring heap; and every time it was insulted in this way it gave a ferocious burst, and everybody ran off.  Beaucourt has been going about for two days in a clean collar; which phenomenon evidently means something, but I don’t know what.  Elliotson reports that the great conjuror lives at his hotel, has extra wine every day, and fares expensively.  Is he the devil?

I have heard from the Kernel. Wa’al, sir, sayin’ as he minded to locate himself with us for a week, I expected to have heard from him again this morning, but have not.  Beard comes to-morrow.

Kindest regards and remembrances from all.  Ward lives in a little street between the two Tintilleries.  The Plornish-Maroon desires his duty.  He had a fall yesterday, through overbalancing himself in kicking his nurse.

Ever faithfully.

Mr. Frank Stone‚ A.R.A.

BOULOGNE, Friday, Octh, 1854.

MY DEAR STONE,

Having some little matters that rather press on my attention to see to in town, I have made up my mind to relinquish the walking project, and come straight home (by way of Folkestone) on Tuesday.  I shall be due in town at midnight, and shall hope to see you next day, with the top of your coat-collar mended.

Everything that happens here we suppose to be an announcement of the taking of Sebastopol.  When a church-clock strikes, we think it is the joy-bell, and fly out of the house in a burst of nationality ­to sneak in again.  If they practise firing at the camp, we are sure it is the artillery celebrating the fall of the Russian, and we become enthusiastic in a moment.  I live in constant readiness to illuminate the whole house.  Whatever anybody says I believe; everybody says, every day, that Sebastopol is in flames.  Sometimes the Commander-in-Chief has blown himself up, with seventy-five thousand men.  Sometimes he has “cut” his way through Lord Raglan, and has fallen back on the advancing body of the Russians, one hundred and forty-two thousand strong, whom he is going to “bring up” (I don’t know where from, or how, or when, or why) for the destruction of the Allies.  All these things, in the words of the catechism, “I steadfastly believe,” until I become a mere driveller, a moonstruck, babbling, staring, credulous, imbecile, greedy, gaping, wooden-headed, addle-brained, wool-gathering, dreary, vacant, obstinate civilian.

Ever, my fellow-countryman, affectionately.

Mr. John Saunders.

TAVISTOCK HOUSE, October 26th, 1854.

DEAR SIR,

I have had much gratification and pleasure in the receipt of your obliging communication.  Allow me to thank you for it, in the first place, with great cordiality.

Although I cannot say that I came without any prepossessions to the perusal of your play (for I had favourable inclinings towards it before I began), I can say that I read it with the closest attention, and that it inspired me with a strong interest, and a genuine and high admiration.  The parts that involve some of the greatest difficulties of your task appear to me those in which you shine most.  I would particularly instance the end of Julia as a very striking example of this.  The delicacy and beauty of her redemption from her weak rash lover, are very far, indeed beyond the range of any ordinary dramatist, and display the true poetical strength.

As your hopes now centre in Mr. Phelps, and in seeing the child of your fancy on his stage, I will venture to point out to you not only what I take to be very dangerous portions of “Love’s Martyrdom” as it stands, for presentation on the stage, but portions which I believe Mr. Phelps will speedily regard in that light when he sees it before him in the persons of live men and women on the wooden boards.  Knowing him, I think he will be then as violently discouraged as he is now generously exalted; and it may be useful to you to be prepared for the consideration of those passages.

I do not regard it as a great stumbling-block that the play of modern times best known to an audience proceeds upon the main idea of this, namely, that there was a hunchback who, because of his deformity, mistrusted himself.  But it is certainly a grain in the balance when the balance is going the wrong way, and therefore it should be most carefully trimmed.  The incident of the ring is an insignificant one to look at over a row of gaslights, is difficult to convey to an audience, and the least thing will make it ludicrous.  If it be so well done by Mr. Phelps himself as to be otherwise than ludicrous, it will be disagreeable.  If it be either, it will be perilous, and doubly so, because you revert to it.  The quarrel scene between the two brothers in the third act is now so long that the justification of blind passion and impetuosity ­which can alone bear out Franklyn, before the bodily eyes of a great concourse of spectators, in plunging at the life of his own brother ­is lost.  That the two should be parted, and that Franklyn should again drive at him, and strike him, and then wound him, is a state of things to set the sympathy of an audience in the wrong direction, and turn it from the man you make happy to the man you leave unhappy.  I would on no account allow the artist to appear, attended by that picture, more than once.  All the most sudden inconstancy of Clarence I would soften down.  Margaret must act much better than any actress I have ever seen, if all her lines fall in pleasant places; therefore, I think she needs compression too.

All this applies solely to the theatre.  If you ever revise the sheets for readers, will you note in the margin the broken laughter and the appeals to the Deity?  If, on summing them up, you find you want them all, I would leave them as they stand by all means.  If not, I would blot accordingly.

It is only in the hope of being slightly useful to you by anticipating what I believe Mr. Phelps will discover ­or what, if ever he should pass it, I have a strong conviction the audience will find out ­that I have ventured on these few hints.  Your concurrence with them generally, on reconsideration, or your preference for the poem as it stands, can not in the least affect my interest in your success.  On the other hand, I have a perfect confidence in your not taking my misgivings ill; they arise out of my sincere desire for the triumph of your work.

With renewed thanks for the pleasure you have afforded me,

I am, dear Sir, faithfully yours.

Mr. W. C. Macready.

TAVISTOCK HOUSE, November 1st, 1854.
(And a constitutionally foggy day.)

MY DEAREST MACREADY,

I thought it better not to encumber the address to working men with details.  Firstly, because they would detract from whatever fiery effect the words may have in them; secondly, because writing and petitioning and pressing a subject upon members and candidates are now so clearly understood; and thirdly, because the paper was meant as an opening to a persistent pressure of the whole question on the public, which would yield other opportunities of touching on such points.

In the number for next week ­not this ­is one of those following-up articles called “A Home Question.”  It is not written by me, but is generally of my suggesting, and is exceedingly well done by a thorough and experienced hand.  I think you will find in it, generally, what you want.  I have told the printers to send you a proof by post as soon as it is corrected ­that is to say, as soon as some insertions I made in it last night are in type and in their places.

My dear old Parr, I don’t believe a word you write about King John!  That is to say, I don’t believe you take into account the enormous difference between the energy summonable-up in your study at Sherborne and the energy that will fire up in you (without so much as saying “With your leave” or “By your leave”) in the Town Hall at Birmingham.  I know you, you ancient codger, I know you!  Therefore I will trouble you to be so good as to do an act of honesty after you have been to Birmingham, and to write to me, “Ingenuous boy, you were correct.  I find I could have read ’em ‘King John’ with the greatest ease.”

In that vast hall in the busy town of Sherborne, in which our illustrious English novelist is expected to read next month ­though he is strongly of opinion that he is deficient in power, and too old ­I wonder what accommodation there is for reading! because our illustrious countryman likes to stand at a desk breast-high, with plenty of room about him, a sloping top, and a ledge to keep his book from tumbling off.  If such a thing should not be there, however, on his arrival, I suppose even a Sherborne carpenter could knock it up out of a deal board. Is there a deal board in Sherborne though?  I should like to hear Katey’s opinion on that point.

In this week’s “Household Words” there is an exact portrait of our Boulogne landlord, which I hope you will like.  I think of opening the next long book I write with a man of juvenile figure and strong face, who is always persuading himself that he is infirm.  What do you think of the idea?  I should like to have your opinion about it.  I would make him an impetuous passionate sort of fellow, devilish grim upon occasion, and of an iron purpose.  Droll, I fancy?

­ is getting a little too fat, but appears to be troubled by the great responsibility of directing the whole war.  He doesn’t seem to be quite clear that he has got the ships into the exact order he intended, on the sea point of attack at Sebastopol.  We went to the play last Saturday night with Stanfield, whose “high lights” (as Maclise calls those knobs of brightness on the top of his cheeks) were more radiant than ever.  We talked of you, and I told Stanny how they are imitating his “Acis and Galatea” sea in “Pericles,” at Phelps’s.  He didn’t half like it; but I added, in nautical language, that it was merely a piratical effort achieved by a handful of porpoise-faced swabs, and that brought him up with a round turn, as we say at sea.

We are looking forward to the twentieth of next month with great pleasure.  All Tavistock House send love and kisses to all Sherborne House.  If there is anything I can bring down for you, let me know in good course of time.

Ever, my dearest Macready,
Most affectionately yours.

The Hon. Mrs. Watson.

TAVISTOCK HOUSE, Wednesday, Nost, 1854.

MY DEAR MRS. WATSON,

I take upon myself to answer your letter to Catherine, as I am referred to in it.

The “Walk” is not my writing.  It is very well done by a close imitator.  Why I found myself so “used up” after “Hard Times” I scarcely know, perhaps because I intended to do nothing in that way for a year, when the idea laid hold of me by the throat in a very violent manner, and because the compression and close condensation necessary for that disjointed form of publication gave me perpetual trouble.  But I really was tired, which is a result so very incomprehensible that I can’t forget it.  I have passed an idle autumn in a beautiful situation, and am dreadfully brown and big.  For further particulars of Boulogne, see “Our French Watering Place,” in this present week of “Household Words,” which contains a faithful portrait of our landlord there.

If you carry out that bright Croydon idea, rely on our glad co-operation, only let me know all about it a few days beforehand; and if you feel equal to the contemplation of the moustache (which has been cut lately) it will give us the heartiest pleasure to come and meet you.  This in spite of the terrific duffery of the Crystal Palace.  It is a very remarkable thing in itself; but to have so very large a building continually crammed down one’s throat, and to find it a new page in “The Whole Duty of Man” to go there, is a little more than even I (and you know how amiable I am) can endure.

You always like to know what I am going to do, so I beg to announce that on the 19th of December I am going to read the “Carol” at Reading, where I undertook the presidency of the Literary Institution on the death of poor dear Talfourd.  Then I am going on to Sherborne, in Dorsetshire, to do the like for another institution, which is one of the few remaining pleasures of Macready’s life.  Then I am coming home for Christmas Day.  Then I believe I must go to Bradford, in Yorkshire, to read once more to a little fireside party of four thousand.  Then I am coming home again to get up a new little version of “The Children in the Wood” (yet to be written, by-the-bye), for the children to act on Charley’s birthday.

I am full of mixed feeling about the war ­admiration of our valiant men, burning desires to cut the Emperor of Russia’s throat, and something like despair to see how the old cannon-smoke and blood-mists obscure the wrongs and sufferings of the people at home.  When I consider the Patriotic Fund on the one hand, and on the other the poverty and wretchedness engendered by cholera, of which in London alone, an infinitely larger number of English people than are likely to be slain in the whole Russian war have miserably and needlessly died ­I feel as if the world had been pushed back five hundred years.  If you are reading new books just now, I think you will be interested with a controversy between Whewell and Brewster, on the question of the shining orbs about us being inhabited or no.  Whewell’s book is called, “On the Plurality of Worlds;” Brewster’s, “More Worlds than One.”  I shouldn’t wonder if you know all about them.  They bring together a vast number of points of great interest in natural philosophy, and some very curious reasoning on both sides, and leave the matter pretty much where it was.

We had a fine absurdity in connection with our luggage, when we left Boulogne.  The barometer had within a few hours fallen about a foot, in honour of the occasion, and it was a tremendous night, blowing a gale of wind and raining a little deluge.  The luggage (pretty heavy, as you may suppose), in a cart drawn by two horses, stuck fast in a rut in our field, and couldn’t be moved.  Our man, made a lunatic by the extremity of the occasion, ran down to the town to get two more horses to help it out, when he returned with those horses and carter B, the most beaming of men; carter A, who had been soaking all the time by the disabled vehicle, descried in carter B the acknowledged enemy of his existence, took his own two horses out, and walked off with them!  After which, the whole set-out remained in the field all night, and we came to town, thirteen individuals, with one comb and a pocket-handkerchief.  I was upside-down during the greater part of the passage.

Dr. Rae’s account of Franklin’s unfortunate party is deeply interesting; but I think hasty in its acceptance of the details, particularly in the statement that they had eaten the dead bodies of their companions, which I don’t believe.  Franklin, on a former occasion, was almost starved to death, had gone through all the pains of that sad end, and lain down to die, and no such thought had presented itself to any of them.  In famous cases of shipwreck, it is very rare indeed that any person of any humanising education or refinement resorts to this dreadful means of prolonging life.  In open boats, the coarsest and commonest men of the shipwrecked party have done such things; but I don’t remember more than one instance in which an officer had overcome the loathing that the idea had inspired.  Dr. Rae talks about their cooking these remains too.  I should like to know where the fuel came from.

Kindest love and best regards. 
Ever, my dear Mrs. Watson, affectionately yours.

Mr. Clarkson Stanfield‚ R.A.

TAVISTOCK HOUSE, Friday Night, Nord, 1854.

MY DEAR STANNY,

First of all, here is enclosed a letter for Mrs. Stanfield, which, if you don’t immediately and faithfully deliver, you will hear of in an unpleasant way from the station-house at the curve of the hill above you.

Secondly, this is not to remind you that we meet at the Athenaeum next Monday at five, because none but a mouldy swab as never broke biscuit or lay out on the for’sel-yard-arm in a gale of wind ever forgot an appointment with a messmate.

But what I want you to think of at your leisure is this:  when our dear old Macready was in town last, I saw it would give him so much interest and pleasure if I promised to go down and read my “Christmas Carol” to the little Sherborne Institution, which is now one of the few active objects he has in the life about him, that I came out with that promise in a bold ­I may say a swaggering way.  Consequently, on Wednesday, the 20th of December, I am going down to see him, with Kate and Georgina, returning to town in good time for Christmas, on Saturday, the 23rd.  Do you think you could manage to go and return with us?  I really believe there is scarcely anything in the world that would give him such extraordinary pleasure as such a visit; and if you would empower me to send him an intimation that he may expect it, he will have a daily joy in looking forward to the time (I am seriously sure) which we ­whose light has not gone out, and who are among our old dear pursuits and associations ­can scarcely estimate.

I don’t like to broach the idea in a careless way, and so I propose it thus, and ask you to think of it.

Ever most affectionately yours.

Miss Procter.

TAVISTOCK HOUSE, Sunday, Deth, 1854.

MY DEAR MISS PROCTER,

You have given me a new sensation.  I did suppose that nothing in this singular world could surprise me, but you have done it.

You will believe my congratulations on the delicacy and talent of your writing to be sincere.  From the first, I have always had an especial interest in that Miss Berwick, and have over and over again questioned Wills about her.  I suppose he has gone on gradually building up an imaginary structure of life and adventure for her, but he has given me the strangest information!  Only yesterday week, when we were “making up” “The Poor Travellers,” as I sat meditatively poking the office fire, I said to him, “Wills, have you got that Miss Berwick’s proof back, of the little sailor’s song?” “No,” he said.  “Well, but why not?” I asked him.  “Why, you know,” he answered, “as I have often told you before, she don’t live at the place to which her letters are addressed, and so there’s always difficulty and delay in communicating with her.”  “Do you know what age she is?” I said.  Here he looked unfathomably profound, and returned, “Rather advanced in life.”  “You said she was a governess, didn’t you?” said I; to which he replied in the most emphatic and positive manner, “A governess.”

He then came and stood in the corner of the hearth, with his back to the fire, and delivered himself like an oracle concerning you.  He told me that early in life (conveying to me the impression of about a quarter of a century ago) you had had your feelings desperately wounded by some cause, real or imaginary ­“It does not matter which,” said I, with the greatest sagacity ­and that you had then taken to writing verses.  That you were of an unhappy temperament, but keenly sensitive to encouragement.  That you wrote after the educational duties of the day were discharged.  That you sometimes thought of never writing any more.  That you had been away for some time “with your pupils.”  That your letters were of a mild and melancholy character, and that you did not seem to care as much as might be expected about money.  All this time I sat poking the fire, with a wisdom upon me absolutely crushing; and finally I begged him to assure the lady that she might trust me with her real address, and that it would be better to have it now, as I hoped our further communications, etc. etc. etc.  You must have felt enormously wicked last Tuesday, when I, such a babe in the wood, was unconsciously prattling to you.  But you have given me so much pleasure, and have made me shed so many tears, that I can only think of you now in association with the sentiment and grace of your verses.

So pray accept the blessing and forgiveness of Richard Watts, though I am afraid you come under both his conditions of exclusion.

Very faithfully yours.