5, HYDE PARK PLACE, W., _Sat.u.r.day, April 16th, 1870._
MY DEAR FRITH,
I shall be happy to go on Wednesday evening, if convenient.
You please me with what you say of my new ill.u.s.trator, of whom I have great hopes.
Faithfully yours ever.
[Sidenote: Mr. William Charles Kent.]
_Monday Morning, April 25th, 1870._
MY DEAR KENT,
I received your book[35] with the greatest pleasure, and heartily thank you for it. It is a volume of a highly prepossessing appearance, and a most friendly look. I felt as if I should have taken to it at sight; even (a very large even) though I had known nothing of its contents, or of its author!
For the last week I have been most perseveringly and ding-dong-doggedly at work, making headway but slowly. The spring always has a restless influence over me; and I weary, at any season, of this London dining-out beyond expression; and I yearn for the country again. This is my excuse for not having written to you sooner. Besides which, I had a baseless conviction that I should see you at the office last Thursday. Not having done so, I fear you must be worse, or no better? If you _can_ let me have a report of yourself, pray do.
[Sidenote: Mrs. Frederick Pollock.]
5, HYDE PARK PLACE, W., _Monday, May 2nd, 1870._
MY DEAR MRS. POLLOCK,
Pray tell the ill.u.s.trious Philip van Artevelde, that I will deal with the nefarious case in question if I can. I am a little doubtful of the practicability of doing so, and frisking outside the bounds of the law of libel. I have that high opinion of the law of England generally, which one is likely to derive from the impression that it puts all the honest men under the diabolical hoofs of all the scoundrels. It makes me cautious of doing right; an admirable instance of its wisdom!
I was very sorry to have gone astray from you that Sunday; but as the earlier disciples entertained angels unawares, so the later often miss them haphazard.
Your description of La Font"s acting is the complete truth in one short sentence: Nature"s triumph over art; reversing the copy-book axiom! But the Lord deliver us from Plessy"s mechanical ingenuousness!!
And your pet.i.tioner will ever pray.
And ever be,
Faithfully yours.
[Sidenote: Mrs. E. M. Ward.]
5, HYDE PARK PLACE, W., _Wednesday, May 11th, 1870._
MY DEAR MRS. WARD,
I grieve to say that I am literally laid by the heels, and incapable of dining with you to-morrow. A neuralgic affection of the foot, which usually seizes me about twice a year, and which will yield to nothing but days of fomentation and horizontal rest, set in last night, and has caused me very great pain ever since, and will too clearly be no better until it has had its usual time in which to wear itself out. I send my kindest regard to Ward, and beg to be pitied.
Believe me, faithfully yours always.
[Sidenote: Mr. William Charles Kent.]
5, HYDE PARK PLACE, W., _Tuesday, May 17th, 1870._
MY DEAR KENT,
Many, many thanks! It is only my neuralgic foot. It has given me such a sharp twist this time that I have not been able, in its extreme sensitiveness, to put any covering upon it except scalding fomentations.
Having viciously bubbled and blistered it in all directions, I hope it now begins to see the folly of its ways.
Affectionately ever.
P.S.--I hope the Sun shines.
[Sidenote: Mrs. Bancroft.]
GAD"S HILL PLACE, HIGHAM BY ROCHESTER, KENT, _Thursday, May 31st, 1870._
MY DEAR MRS. BANCROFT,[36]
I am most heartily obliged to you for your kind note, which I received here only last night, having come here from town circuitously to get a little change of air on the road. My sense of your interest cannot be better proved than by my trying the remedy you recommend, and that I will do immediately. As I shall be in town on Thursday, my troubling you to order it would be quite unjustifiable. I will use your name in applying for it, and will report the result after a fair trial. Whether this remedy succeeds or fails as to the neuralgia, I shall always consider myself under an obligation to it for having indirectly procured me the great pleasure of receiving a communication from you; for I hope I may lay claim to being one of the most earnest and delighted of your many artistic admirers.
Believe me, faithfully yours.
FOOTNOTES:
[32] On the death of his second wife.
[33] Of the Readings. The intention was carried out. Mr. Kent"s book, "Charles d.i.c.kens as a Reader," was published in 1872.
[34] No doubt Charles d.i.c.kens intended to add the Reading Books to the legacy of his MSS. to Mr. Forster. But he did not do so, therefore the "Readings" are not a part of the "Forster Collection" at the South Kensington Museum.
[35] A new collective edition of "Kent"s Poems," dedicated to his cousin, Colonel Kent, of the 77th Regiment.
[36] Miss Marie Wilton.
TWO LAST LETTERS.
[Sidenote: Mr. William Charles Kent.]
[Ill.u.s.tration: Gad"s Hill Place, Higham by Rochester, Kent.[37]