Volume Iii Part 55 (2/2)

On the very day after I sent the Christmas number to Rockingham, I heard of your being at Brighton. I should have sent another there, but that I had a misgiving I might seem to be making too much of it. For, when I thought of the probability of the Rockingham copy going on to Brighton, and pictured to myself the advent of two of those very large envelopes at once at Junction House at breakfast time, a sort of comic modesty overcame me. I was heartily pleased with the Birmingham audience, which was a very fine one. I never saw, nor do I suppose anybody ever did, such an interesting sight as the working people's night. There were two thousand five hundred of them there, and a more delicately observant audience it is impossible to imagine. They lost nothing, misinterpreted nothing, followed everything closely, laughed and cried with most delightful earnestness, and animated me to that extent that I felt as if we were all bodily going up into the clouds together. It is an enormous place for the purpose; but I had considered all that carefully, and I believe made the most distant person hear as well as if I had been reading in my own room. I was a little doubtful before I began on the first night whether it was quite practicable to conceal the requisite effort; but I soon had the satisfaction of finding that it was, and that we were all going on together, in the first page, as easily, to all appearance, as if we had been sitting round the fire.

I am obliged to go out on Monday at five and to dine out; but I will be at home at any time before that hour that you may appoint. You say you are only going to stay one night in town; but if you could stay two, and would dine with us alone on Tuesday, _that_ is the plan that we should all like best. Let me have one word from you by post on Monday morning.

Few things that I saw, when I was away, took my fancy so much as the Electric Telegraph, piercing, like a sunbeam, right through the cruel old heart of the Coliseum at Rome. And on the summit of the Alps, among the eternal ice and snow, there it was still, with its posts sustained against the sweeping mountain winds by cl.u.s.ters of great beams--to say nothing of its being at the bottom of the sea as we crossed the Channel.

With kindest loves,

Ever, my dear Mrs. Watson, Most faithfully yours.

[Sidenote: Miss Mary Boyle.]

TAVISTOCK HOUSE, _Monday, January 16th, 1854._

MY DEAR MARY,

It is all very well to pretend to love me as you do. Ah! If you loved as _I_ love, Mary! But, when my breast is tortured by the perusal of such a letter as yours, Falkland, Falkland, madam, becomes my part in ”The Rivals,” and I play it with desperate earnestness.

As thus:

FALKLAND (_to Acres_). Then you see her, sir, sometimes?

ACRES. See her! Odds beams and sparkles, yes.

See her acting! Night after night.

FALKLAND (_aside and furious_). Death and the devil! Acting, and I not there! Pray, sir (_with constrained calmness_), what does she act?

ACRES. Odds, monthly nurses and babbies! Sairey Gamp and Betsey Prig, ”which, wotever it is, my dear (_mimicking_), I likes it brought reg'lar and draw'd mild!” _That's_ very like her.

FALKLAND. Confusion! Laceration! Perhaps, sir, perhaps she sometimes acts--ha! ha! perhaps she sometimes acts, I say--eh! sir?--a--ha, ha, ha!

a fairy? (_With great bitterness._)

ACRES. Odds, gauzy pinions and spangles, yes!

You should hear her sing as a fairy. You should see her dance as a fairy. Tol de rol lol--la--lol--liddle diddle. (_Sings and dances_). _That's_ very like her.

FALKLAND. Misery! while I, devoted to her image, can scarcely write a line now and then, or pensively read aloud to the people of Birmingham. (_To him._) And they applaud her, no doubt they applaud her, sir. And she--I see her! Curtsies and smiles! And they--curses on them! they laugh and--ha, ha, ha!--and clap their hands--and say it's very good. Do they not say it's very good, sir? Tell me. Do they not?

ACRES. Odds, thunderings and pealings, of course they do! and the third fiddler, little Tweaks, of the county town, goes into fits. Ho, ho, ho, I can't bear it (_mimicking_); take me out! Ha, ha, ha! O what a one she is! She'll be the death of me. Ha, ha, ha, ha! _That's_ very like her!

FALKLAND. d.a.m.nation! Heartless Mary! (_Rushes out._)

Scene opens, and discloses coals of fire, heaped up into form of letters, representing the following inscription:

When the praise thou meetest To thine ear is sweetest, O then REMEMBER JOE!

(_Curtain falls._)

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