Volume Iii Part 51 (1/2)

I think there is an abundance of places here that would suit you well enough; and Georgina is ready to launch on voyages of discovery and observation with you. But it is necessary that you should consider for how long a time you want it, as the folks here let much more advantageously for the tenant when they know the term--don't like to let without. It seems to me that the best thing you can do is to get a paper of the South Eastern tidal trains, fix your day for coming over here in five hours (when you will pay through to Boulogne at London Bridge), let me know the day, and come and see how you like the place. _I_ like it better than ever. We can give you a bed (two to spare, at a pinch three), and show you a garden and a view or so. The town is not so cheap as places farther off, but you get a great deal for your money, and by far the best wine at tenpence a bottle that I have ever drank anywhere.

I really desire no better.

I may mention for your guidance (for I count upon your coming to overhaul the general aspect of things), that you have nothing on earth to do with your luggage when it is once in the boat, _until after you have walked ash.o.r.e_. That you will be filtered with the rest of the pa.s.sengers through a hideous, whitewashed, quarantine-looking custom-house, where a stern man of a military aspect will demand your pa.s.sport. That you will have nothing of the sort, but will produce your card with this addition: ”Restant a Boulogne, chez M. Charles d.i.c.kens, Chateau des Moulineaux.” That you will then be pa.s.sed out at a little door, like one of the ill-starred prisoners on the b.l.o.o.d.y September night, into a yelling and shrieking crowd, cleaving the air with the names of the different hotels, exactly seven thousand six hundred and fifty-four in number. And that your heart will be on the point of sinking with dread, then you will find yourself in the arms of the Sparkler of Albion. All unite in kindest regards.

Ever affectionately.

P.S.--I thought you might like to see the flourish again.

[Sidenote: Mr. W. H. Wills.]

BOULOGNE, _Wednesday, July 27th, 1853._

MY DEAR WILLS,

I have thought of another article to be called ”Frauds upon the Fairies,” _a propos_ of George Cruikshank's editing. Half playfully and half seriously, I mean to protest most strongly against alteration, for any purpose, of the beautiful little stories which are so tenderly and humanly useful to us in these times, when the world is too much with us, early and late; and then to re-write ”Cinderella” according to Total Abstinence, Peace Society, and Bloomer principles, and expressly for their propagation.

I shall want his book of ”Hop o' my Thumb” (Forster noticed it in the last _Examiner_), and the most simple and popular version of ”Cinderella” you can get me. I shall not be able to do it until after finis.h.i.+ng ”Bleak House,” but I shall do it the more easily for having the books by me. So send them, if convenient, in your next parcel.

Ever faithfully.

[Sidenote: Mr. W. C. Macready.]

CHaTEAU DES MOULINEAUX, BOULOGNE, _Sunday, Aug. 24th, 1853._

MY DEAREST MACREADY,

Some unaccountable delay in the transmission here of the parcel which contained your letter, caused me to come into the receipt of it a whole week after its date. I immediately wrote to Miss Coutts, who has written to you, and I hope some good may come of it. I know it will not be her fault if none does. I was very much concerned to read your account of poor Mrs. Warner, and to read her own plain and unaffected account of herself. Pray a.s.sure her of my cordial sympathy and remembrance, and of my earnest desire to do anything in my power to help to put her mind at ease.

We are living in a beautiful little country place here, where I have been hard at work ever since I came, and am now (after an interval of a week's rest) going to work again to finish ”Bleak House.” Kate and Georgina send their kindest loves to you, and Miss Macready, and all the rest. They look forward, I a.s.sure you, to their Sherborne visit, when I--a mere forlorn wanderer--shall be roaming over the Alps into Italy. I saw ”The Midsummer Night's Dream” of the Opera Comique, done here (very well) last night. The way in which a poet named w.i.l.l.yim Shay Kes Peer gets drunk in company with Sir John Foll Stayffe, fights with a n.o.ble 'night, Lor Latimeer (who is in love with a maid-of-honour you may have read of in history, called Mees Oleevia), and promises not to do so any more on observing symptoms of love for him in the Queen of England, is very remarkable. Queen Elizabeth, too, in the profound and impenetrable disguise of a black velvet mask, two inches deep by three broad, following him into taverns and worse places, and enquiring of persons of doubtful reputation for ”the sublime Williams,” was inexpressibly ridiculous. And yet the nonsense was done with a sense quite admirable.

I have been very much struck by the book you sent me. It is one of the wisest, the manliest, and most serviceable I ever read. I am reading it again with the greatest pleasure and admiration.

Ever most affectionately yours, My dear Macready.

[Sidenote: The Hon. Mrs. Watson.]

VILLA DES MOULINEAUX, BOULOGNE, _Sat.u.r.day, Aug. 27th, 1853._

MY DEAR MRS. WATSON,

I received your letter--most welcome and full of interest to me--when I was hard at work finis.h.i.+ng ”Bleak House.” We are always talking of you; and I had said but the day before, that one of the first things I would do on my release would be to write to you. To finish the topic of ”Bleak House” at once, I will only add that I like the conclusion very much and think it _very pretty indeed_. The story has taken extraordinarily, especially during the last five or six months, when its purpose has been gradually working itself out. It has retained its immense circulation from the first, beating dear old ”Copperfield” by a round ten thousand or more. I have never had so many readers. We had a little reading of the final double number here the night before last, and it made a great impression I a.s.sure you.

We are all extremely well, and like Boulogne very much indeed. I laid down the rule before we came, that we would know n.o.body here, and we _do_ know n.o.body here. We evaded callers as politely as we could, and gradually came to be understood and left to ourselves. It is a fine bracing air, a beautiful open country, and an admirable mixture of town and country. We live on a green hill-side out of the town, but are in the town (on foot) in ten minutes. Things are tolerably cheap, and exceedingly good; the people very cheerful, good-looking, and obliging; the houses very clean; the distance to London short, and easily traversed. I think if you came to know the place (which I never did myself until last October, often as I have been through it), you could be but in one mind about it.

Charley is still at Leipzig. I shall take him up somewhere on the Rhine, to bring him home for Christmas, as I come back on my own little tour.

He has been in the Hartz Mountains on a walking tour, and has written a journal thereof, which he has sent home in portions. It has cost about as much in postage as would have bought a pair of ponies.