Volume Iii Part 27 (1/2)

[Sidenote: Miss Hogarth.]

CHESTER PLACE, _Tuesday Night._

MY DEAREST GEORGY,

So far from having ”got through my agonies,” as you benevolently hope, I have not yet begun them. No, on this _ninth of the month_ I have not yet written a single slip. What could I do; house-hunting at first, and beleaguered all day to-day and yesterday by furniture that must be altered, and things that must be put away? My wretchedness, just now, is inconceivable. Tell Anne, by-the-bye (not with reference to my wretchedness, but in connection with the arrangements generally), that I can't get on at all without her.

If Kate has not mentioned it, get Katey and Mamey to write and send a letter to Charley; of course not hinting at our being here. He wants to hear from them.

Poor little Hall is dead, as you will have seen, I dare say, in the paper. This house is very cheerful on the drawing-room floor and above, looking into the park on one side and Albany Street on the other.

Forster is mild. Maclise, exceedingly bald on the crown of his head.

Roche has just come in to know if he may ”blow datter light.” Love to all the darlings. Regards to everybody else. Love to yourself.

Ever affectionately.

[Sidenote: Miss d.i.c.kens and Miss Katey d.i.c.kens.]

148, KING'S ROAD, BRIGHTON, _Monday, May 24, 1847._

MY DEAR MAMEY AND KATEY,

I was very glad to receive your nice letter. I am going to tell you something that I hope will please you. It is this: I am coming to London Thursday, and I mean to bring you both back here with me, to stay until we all come home together on the Sat.u.r.day. I hope you like this.

Tell John to come with the carriage to the London Bridge Station, on Thursday morning at ten o'clock, and to wait there for me. I will then come home and fetch you.

Mamma and Auntey and Charley send their loves. I send mine too, to Walley, Spim, and Alfred, and Sydney.

Always, my dears, Your affectionate Papa.

[Sidenote: Mr. William Sandys.]

1, DEVONs.h.i.+RE TERRACE, _June 13th, 1847._

DEAR SIR,

Many thanks for your kind note. I shall hope to see you when we return to town, from which we shall now be absent (with a short interval in next month) until October. Your account of the Cornishmen gave me great pleasure; and if I were not sunk in engagements so far, that the crown of my head is invisible to my nearest friends, I should have asked you to make me known to them. The new dialogue I will ask you by-and-by to let me see. I have, for the present, abandoned the idea of sinking a shaft in Cornwall.

I have sent your Shakesperian extracts to Collier. It is a great comfort, to my thinking, that so little is known concerning the poet. It is a fine mystery; and I tremble every day lest something should come out. If he had had a Boswell, society wouldn't have respected his grave, but would calmly have had his skull in the phrenological shop-windows.

Believe me, Faithfully yours.

[Sidenote: Mr. H. P. Smith.]

CHESTER PLACE, _June 14th, 1847._