Volume Iii Part 66 (2/2)
(Todgers), ”_ah! qu'elle est drole et precis.e.m.e.nt comme une dame que je connais a Calais._”
You cannot have any doubt about this place, if you will only recollect it is the great main road from the Place de la Concorde to the Barriere de l'etoile.
Ever faithfully.
[Sidenote: Monsieur Regnier.]
_Wednesday, November 21st, 1855._
MY DEAR REGNIER,
In thanking you for the box you kindly sent me the day before yesterday, let me thank you a thousand times for the delight we derived from the representation of your beautiful and admirable piece. I have hardly ever been so affected and interested in any theatre. Its construction is in the highest degree excellent, the interest absorbing, and the whole conducted by a masterly hand to a touching and natural conclusion.
Through the whole story from beginning to end, I recognise the true spirit and feeling of an artist, and I most heartily offer you and your fellow-labourer my felicitations on the success you have achieved. That it will prove a very great and a lasting one, I cannot for a moment doubt.
O my friend! If I could see an English actress with but one hundredth part of the nature and art of Madame Plessy, I should believe our English theatre to be in a fair way towards its regeneration. But I have no hope of ever beholding such a phenomenon. I may as well expect ever to see upon an English stage an accomplished artist, able to write and to embody what he writes, like you.
Faithfully yours ever.
[Sidenote: Madame Viardot.]
49, AVENUE DES CHAMPS ELYSeES, _Monday, Dec. 3rd, 1855._
DEAR MADAME VIARDOT,
Mrs. d.i.c.kens tells me that you have only borrowed the first number of ”Little Dorrit,” and are going to send it back. Pray do nothing of the sort, and allow me to have the great pleasure of sending you the succeeding numbers as they reach me. I have had such delight in your great genius, and have so high an interest in it and admiration of it, that I am proud of the honour of giving you a moment's intellectual pleasure.
Believe me, very faithfully yours.
[Sidenote: The Hon. Mrs. Watson.]
TAVISTOCK HOUSE, _Sunday, Dec. 23rd, 1855._
MY DEAR MRS. WATSON,
I have a moment in which to redeem my promise, of putting you in possession of my Little Friend No. 2, before the general public. It is, of course, at the disposal of your circle, but until the month is out, is understood to be a prisoner in the castle.
If I had time to write anything, I should still quite vainly try to tell you what interest and happiness I had in once more seeing you among your dear children. Let me congratulate you on your Eton boys. They are so handsome, frank, and genuinely modest, that they charmed me. A kiss to the little fair-haired darling and the rest; the love of my heart to every stone in the old house.
Enormous effect at Sheffield. But really not a better audience perceptively than at Peterboro', for that could hardly be, but they were more enthusiastically demonstrative, and they took the line, ”and to Tiny Tim who did NOT die,” with a most prodigious shout and roll of thunder.
Ever, my dear Friend, most faithfully yours.
FOOTNOTES:
[21] Captain Cavendish Boyle was governor of the military prison at Weedon.
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