Volume Ii Part 26 (1/2)
A little packet will come to you from Hunt and Roskell's, almost at the same time, I think, as this note.
The packet will contain a claret-jug. I hope it is a pretty thing in itself for your table, and I know that you and Mrs. Wills will like it none the worse because it comes from me.
It is not made of a perishable material, and is so far expressive of our friends.h.i.+p. I have had your name and mine set upon it, in token of our many years of mutual reliance and trustfulness. It will never be so full of wine as it is to-day of affectionate regard.
Ever faithfully yours.
[Sidenote: Miss Hogarth.]
CHELTENHAM, _Friday, Jan. 3rd, 1862._
MY DEAREST GEORGY,
Mrs. Macready in voice is very like poor Mrs. Macready dead and gone; not in the least like her otherwise. She is perfectly satisfactory, and exceedingly winning. Quite perfect in her manner with him and in her ease with his children, sensible, gay, pleasant, sweet-tempered; not in the faintest degree stiff or pedantic; accessible instantly. I have very rarely seen a more agreeable woman. The house is (on a smaller scale) any house we have known them in. Furnished with the old furniture, pictures, engravings, mirrors, tables, and chairs. b.u.t.ty is too tall for strength, I am afraid, but handsome, with a face of great power and character, and a very nice girl. Katie you know all about. Macready, decidedly much older and infirm. Very much changed. His old force has gone out of him strangely. I don't think I left off talking a minute from the time of my entering the house to my going to bed last night, and he was as much amused and interested as ever I saw him; still he was, and is, unquestionably aged.
And even now I am obliged to cut this letter short by having to go and look after Headland. It would never do to be away from the rest of them.
I have no idea what we are doing here; no notion whether things are right or wrong; no conception where the room is; no hold of the business at all. For which reason I cannot rest without going and looking after the worthy man.
[Sidenote: Miss Hogarth.]
TORQUAY, _Wednesday, Jan. 8th, 1862._
You know, I think, that I was very averse to going to Plymouth, and would not have gone there again but for poor Arthur. But on the last night I read ”Copperfield,” and positively enthralled the people. It was a most overpowering effect, and poor Andrew[7] came behind the screen, after the storm, and cried in the best and manliest manner. Also there were two or three lines of his s.h.i.+pmates and other sailors, and they were extraordinarily affected. But its culminating effect was on Macready at Cheltenham. When I got home after ”Copperfield,” I found him quite unable to speak, and able to do nothing but square his dear old jaw all on one side, and roll his eyes (half closed), like Jackson's picture of him. And when I said something light about it, he returned: ”No--er--d.i.c.kens! I swear to Heaven that, as a piece of pa.s.sion and playfulness--er--indescribably mixed up together, it does--er--no, really, d.i.c.kens!--amaze me as profoundly as it moves me. But as a piece of art--and you know--er--that I--no, d.i.c.kens! By ----! have seen the best art in a great time--it is incomprehensible to me. How is it got at--er--how is it done--er--how one man can--well? It lays me on my--er--back, and it is of no use talking about it!” With which he put his hand upon my breast and pulled out his pocket-handkerchief, and I felt as if I were doing somebody to his Werner. Katie, by-the-bye, is a wonderful audience, and has a great fund of wild feeling in her. Johnny not at all unlike Plorn.
I have not yet seen the room here, but imagine it to be very small.
Exeter I know, and that is small also. I am very much used up, on the whole, for I cannot bear this moist warm climate. It would kill me very soon. And I have now got to the point of taking so much out of myself with ”Copperfield,” that I might as well do Richard Wardour.
You have now, my dearest Georgy, the fullest extent of my tidings. This is a very pretty place--a compound of Hastings, Tunbridge Wells, and little bits of the hills about Naples; but I met four respirators as I came up from the station, and three pale curates without them, who seemed in a bad way.
Frightful intelligence has just been brought in by Boylett, concerning the small size of the room. I have terrified Headland by sending him to look at it, and swearing that if it's too small I will go away to Exeter.
[Sidenote: Miss Hogarth.]
ADELPHI HOTEL, LIVERPOOL, _Tuesday, Jan. 28th, 1862._
The beautiful room was crammed to excess last night, and numbers were turned away. Its beauty and completeness when it is lighted up are most brilliant to behold, and for a reading it is simply perfect. You remember that a Liverpool audience is usually dull, but they put me on my mettle last night, for I never saw such an audience--no, not even in Edinburgh!
I slept horribly last night, and have been over to Birkenhead for a little change of air to-day. My head is dazed and worn by gas and heat, and I fear that ”Copperfield” and ”Bob” together to-night won't mend it.
Best love to Mamie and Katie, if still at Gad's. I am going to bring the boys some toffee.
[Sidenote: The Misses Armstrong]
GAD'S HILL PLACE, HIGHAM BY ROCHESTER, KENT, _Monday, Feb. 10th, 1862._
MY DEAR GIRLS,
For if I were to write ”young friends,” it would look like a schoolmaster; and if I were to write ”young ladies,” it would look like a schoolmistress; and worse than that, neither form of words would look familiar and natural, or in character with our snowy ride that tooth-chattering morning.