Volume Iii Part 41 (1/2)
P.S.--I write from my bed.
[Sidenote: Mr. W. C. Macready.]
_Sat.u.r.day, May 24th, 1851._
MY DEAR MACREADY,
We are getting in a good heap of money for the Guild. The comedy has been very much improved, in many respects, since you read it. The scene to which you refer is certainly one of the most telling in the play. And there _is_ a farce to be produced on Tuesday next, wherein a distinguished amateur will sustain a variety of a.s.sumption-parts, and in particular, Samuel Weller and Mrs. Gamp, of which I say no more. I am pining for Broadstairs, where the children are at present. I lurk from the sun, during the best part of the day, in a villainous compound of darkness, canvas, sawdust, general dust, stale gas (involving a vague smell of pepper), and disenchanted properties. But I hope to get down on Wednesday or Thursday.
Ah! you country gentlemen, who live at home at ease, how little do you think of us among the London fleas! But they tell me you are coming in for Dorsets.h.i.+re. You must be very careful, when you come to town to attend to your parliamentary duties, never to ask your way of people in the streets. They will misdirect you for what the vulgar call ”a lark,”
meaning, in this connection, a jest at your expense. Always go into some respectable shop or apply to a policeman. You will know him by his being dressed in blue, with very dull silver b.u.t.tons, and by the top of his hat being made of sticking-plaster. You may perhaps see in some odd place an intelligent-looking man, with a curious little wooden table before him and three thimbles on it. He will want you to bet, but don't do it. He really desires to cheat you. And don't buy at auctions where the best plated goods are being knocked down for next to nothing. These, too, are delusions. If you wish to go to the play to see real good acting (though a little more subdued than perfect tragedy should be), I would recommend you to see ---- at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane. Anybody will show it to you. It is near the Strand, and you may know it by seeing no company whatever at any of the doors. Cab fares are eightpence a mile. A mile London measure is half a Dorsets.h.i.+re mile, recollect.
Porter is twopence per pint; what is called stout is fourpence. The Zoological Gardens are in the Regent's Park, and the price of admission is one s.h.i.+lling. Of the streets, I would recommend you to see Regent Street and the Quadrant, Bond Street, Piccadilly, Oxford Street, and Cheapside. I think these will please you after a time, though the tumult and bustle will at first bewilder you. If I can serve you in any way, pray command me. And with my best regards to your happy family, so remote from this Babel,
Believe me, my dear Friend, Ever affectionately yours.
P.S.--I forgot to mention just now that the black equestrian figure you will see at Charing Cross, as you go down to the House, is a statue of _King Charles the First_.
[Sidenote: The Earl of Carlisle.]
BROADSTAIRS, _July 8th, 1851._
MY DEAR LORD CARLISLE,
We shall be delighted to see you, if you will come down on Sat.u.r.day. Mr.
Lemon may perhaps be here, with his wife, but no one else. And we can give you a bed that may be surpa.s.sed, with a welcome that certainly cannot be.
The general character of Broadstairs as to size and accommodation was happily expressed by Miss Eden, when she wrote to the Duke of Devons.h.i.+re (as he told me), saying how grateful she felt to a certain sailor, who asked leave to see her garden, for not plucking it bodily up, and sticking it in his b.u.t.ton-hole.
As we think of putting mignonette-boxes outside the windows, for the younger children to sleep in by-and-by, I am afraid we should give your servant the cramp if we hardily undertook to lodge him. But in case you should decide to bring one, he is easily disposable hard by.
Don't come by the boat. It is rather tedious, and both departs and arrives at inconvenient hours. There is a railway train from the Dover terminus to Ramsgate, at half-past twelve in the day, which will bring you in three hours. Another at half-past four in the afternoon. If you will tell me by which you come (I hope the former), I will await you at the terminus with my little brougham.
You will have for a night-light in the room we shall give you, the North Foreland lighthouse. That and the sea and air are our only lions. It is a very rough little place, but a very pleasant one, and you will make it pleasanter than ever to me.
Faithfully yours always.
[Sidenote: The Hon. Mrs. Watson.]
BROADSTAIRS, KENT, _July 11th, 1851._
MY DEAR MRS. WATSON,
I am so desperately indignant with you for writing me that short apology for a note, and pretending to suppose that under any circ.u.mstances I could fail to read with interest anything _you_ wrote to me, that I have more than half a mind to inflict a regular letter upon you. If I were not the gentlest of men I should do it!
Poor dear Haldimand, I have thought of him so often. That kind of decay is so inexpressibly affecting and piteous to me, that I have no words to express my compa.s.sion and sorrow. When I was at Abbotsford, I saw in a vile gla.s.s case the last clothes Scott wore. Among them an old white hat, which seemed to be tumbled and bent and broken by the uneasy, purposeless wandering, hither and thither, of his heavy head. It so embodied Lockhart's pathetic description of him when he tried to write, and laid down his pen and cried, that it a.s.sociated itself in my mind with broken powers and mental weakness from that hour. I fancy Haldimand in such another, going listlessly about that beautiful place, and remembering the happy hours we have pa.s.sed with him, and his goodness and truth. I think what a dream we live in, until it seems for the moment the saddest dream that ever was dreamed. Pray tell us if you hear more of him. We really loved him.
To go to the opposite side of life, let me tell you that a week or so ago I took Charley and three of his schoolfellows down the river gipsying. I secured the services of Charley's G.o.dfather (an old friend of mine, and a n.o.ble fellow with boys), and went down to Slough, accompanied by two immense hampers from Fortnum and Mason, on (I believe) the wettest morning ever seen out of the tropics.