Volume Iii Part 21 (2/2)

Do not regard this as my answer to it. It is merely to say that I have been at Bradbury and Evans's all day, and have barely time to write more than that I _will_ write to-morrow. I arrived about seven on Sat.u.r.day evening, and rushed into the arms of Mac and Forster. Both of them send their best love to you and Georgy, with a heartiness not to be described.

The little book is now, as far as I am concerned, all ready. One cut of Doyle's and one of Leech's I found so unlike my ideas, that I had them both to breakfast with me this morning, and with that winning manner which you know of, got them with the highest good humour to do both afresh. They are now hard at it. Stanfield's readiness, delight, wonder at my being pleased with what he has done is delicious. Mac's frontispiece is charming. The book is quite splendid; the expenses will be very great, I have no doubt.

Anybody who has heard it has been moved in the most extraordinary manner. Forster read it (for dramatic purposes) to A'Beckett. He cried so much and so painfully, that Forster didn't know whether to go on or stop; and he called next day to say that any expression of his feeling was beyond his power. But that he believed it, and felt it to be--I won't say what.

As the reading comes off to-morrow night, I had better not despatch my letters to you until _Wednesday's_ post. I must close to save this (heartily tired I am, and I dine at Gore House to-day), so with love to Georgy, Mamey, Katey, Charley, Wally, and Chickenstalker, ever, believe me,

Yours, with true affection.

P.S.--If you had seen Macready last night, undisguisedly sobbing and crying on the sofa as I read, you would have felt, as I did, what a thing it is to have power.

FOOTNOTES:

[4] T. P. Cooke, the celebrated actor of ”William” in Douglas Jerrold's play of ”Black-eyed Susan.”

1845.

NARRATIVE.

At the beginning of this year, Charles d.i.c.kens was still living at the Palazzo Peschiere, Genoa, with his family. In February, he went with his wife to Rome for the Carnival, leaving his sister-in-law and children at Genoa; Miss Hogarth joining them later on at Naples. They all returned to Rome for the Holy Week, and then went to Florence, and so back to Genoa. He continued his residence at Genoa until June of this year, when he returned to England by Switzerland and Belgium, the party being met at Brussels by Mr. Forster, Mr. Maclise, and Mr. Douglas Jerrold, and arriving at home at the end of June. The autumn months, until the 1st October, were again spent at Broadstairs. And in this September was the first amateur play at Miss Kelly's theatre in Dean Street, under the management of Charles d.i.c.kens, with Messrs. Jerrold, Mark Lemon, John Leech, Gilbert A'Beckett, Leigh, Frank Stone, Forster, and others as his fellow-actors. The play selected was Ben Jonson's ”Every Man in his Humour,” in which Charles d.i.c.kens acted Captain Bobadil. The first performance was a private one, merely as an entertainment for the actors and their friends, but its success speedily led to a repet.i.tion of the same performance, and afterwards to many other performances for public and charitable objects. ”Every Man in his Humour” was shortly after repeated, at the same little theatre, for a useful charity which needed help; and later in the year Beaumont and Fletcher's play of ”The Elder Brother” was given by the same company, at the same place, for the benefit of Miss Kelly. There was a farce played after the comedy on each occasion--not always the same one--in which Charles d.i.c.kens and Mark Lemon were the princ.i.p.al actors.

The letters which we have for this year, refer, with very few exceptions, to these theatricals, and therefore need no explanation.

He was at work at the end of this year on another Christmas book, ”The Cricket on the Hearth,” and was also much occupied with the project of _The Daily News_ paper, of which he undertook the editors.h.i.+p at its starting, which took place in the beginning of the following year, 1846.

[Sidenote: Miss Hogarth.]

ROME, _Tuesday, February 4th, 1845._

MY DEAREST GEORGY,

This is a very short note, but time is still shorter. Come by the first boat by all means. If there be a good one a day or two before it, come by that. Don't delay on any account. I am very sorry you are not here.

The Carnival is a very remarkable and beautiful sight. I have been regretting the having left you at home all the way here.

Kate says, will you take counsel with Charlotte about colour (I put in my word, as usual, for brightness), and have the darlings' bonnets made at once, by the same artist as before? Kate would have written, but is gone with Black to a day performance at the opera, to see Cerito dance.

At two o'clock each day we sally forth in an open carriage, with a large sack of sugar-plums and at least five hundred little nosegays to pelt people with. I should think we threw away, yesterday, a thousand of the latter. We had the carriage filled with flowers three or four times. I wish you could have seen me catch a swell brigand on the nose with a handful of very large confetti every time we met him. It was the best thing I have ever done. ”The Chimes” are nothing to it.

Anxiously expecting you, I am ever,

Dear Georgy, Yours most affectionately.

[Sidenote: Mr. Thomas Mitton.]

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