The work is very hard, sometimes overpowering; but I am none the worse for it, and arrived here quite fresh.
Secondly, will you let me recommend the enclosed letter from Wigan, as the groundwork of a capital article, in your way, for H. W.? There is not the least objection to a plain reference to him, or to Phelps, to whom the same thing happened a year or two ago, near Islington, in the case of a clever and capital little daughter of his. I think it a capital opportunity for a discourse on gentility, with a glance at those other schools which advertise that the "sons of gentlemen only" are admitted, and a just recognition of the greater liberality of our public schools. There are tradesmen"s sons at Eton, and Charles Kean was at Eton, and Macready (also an actor"s son) was at Rugby. Some such t.i.tle as "Scholastic Flunkeydom," or anything infinitely contemptuous, would help out the meaning. Surely such a schoolmaster must swallow all the silver forks that the pupils are expected to take when they come, and are not expected to take away with them when they go. And of course he could not exist, unless he had flunkey customers by the dozen.
Secondly--no, this is thirdly now--about the Christmas number. I have arranged so to stop my readings, as to be available for it on _the 15th of November_, which will leave me time to write a good article, if I clear my way to one. Do you see your way to our making a Christmas number of this idea that I am going very briefly to hint? Some disappointed person, man or woman, prematurely disgusted with the world, for some reason or no reason (the person should be young, I think) retires to an old lonely house, or an old lonely mill, or anything you like, with one attendant, resolved to shut out the world, and hold no communion with it. The one attendant sees the absurdity of the idea, pretends to humour it, but really thus to slaughter it. Everything that happens, everybody that comes near, every breath of human interest that floats into the old place from the village, or the heath, or the four cross-roads near which it stands, and from which belated travellers stray into it, shows beyond mistake that you can"t shut out the world; that you are in it, to be of it; that you get into a false position the moment you try to sever yourself from it; and that you must mingle with it, and make the best of it, and make the best of yourself into the bargain.
If we could plot out a way of doing this together, I would not be afraid to take my part. If we could not, could we plot out a way of doing it, and taking in stories by other hands? If we could not do either (but I think we could), shall we fall back upon a round of stories again? That I would rather not do, if possible. Will you think about it?
And can you come and dine at Tavistock House _on Monday, the 20th September, at half-past five_? I purpose being at home there with the girls that day.
Answer this, according to my printed list for the week. I am off to Huddersfield on Wednesday morning.
I think I will now leave off; merely adding that I have got a splendid brogue (it really is exactly like the people), and that I think of coming out as the only legitimate successor of poor Power.
Ever, my dear Wilkie, affectionately yours.
[Sidenote: Miss Mary Boyle.]
STATION HOTEL, YORK, _Friday, Sept. 10th, 1858._
DEAREST MEERY,
First let me tell you that all the magicians and spirits in your employ have fulfilled the instructions of their wondrous mistress to admiration. Flowers have fallen in my path wherever I have trod; and when they rained upon me at Cork I was more amazed than you ever saw me.
Secondly, receive my hearty and loving thanks for that same. (Excuse a little Irish in the turn of that sentence, but I can"t help it).
Thirdly, I have written direct to Mr. Boddington, explaining that I am bound to be in Edinburgh on the day when he courteously proposes to do me honour.
I really cannot tell you how truly and tenderly I feel your letter, and how gratified I am by its contents. Your truth and attachment are always so precious to me that I can_not_ get my heart out on my sleeve to show it you. It is like a child, and, at the sound of some familiar voices, "goes and hides."
You know what an affection I have for Mrs. Watson, and how happy it made me to see her again--younger, much, than when I first knew her in Switzerland.
G.o.d bless you always!
Ever affectionately yours.
[Sidenote: Miss Hogarth.]
ROYAL HOTEL, SCARBOROUGH, _Sunday, Sept. 11th, 1858._
MY DEAREST GEORGY,
We had a very fine house indeed at York. All kinds of applications have been made for another reading there, and no doubt it would be exceedingly productive; but it cannot be done. At Harrogate yesterday; the queerest place, with the strangest people in it, leading the oddest lives of dancing, newspaper reading, and tables d"hote. The piety of York obliging us to leave that place for this at six this morning, and there being no night train from Harrogate, we had to engage a special engine. We got to bed at one, and were up again before five; which, after yesterday"s fatigues, leaves me a little worn out at this present.
I have no accounts of this place as yet, nor have I received any letter here. But the post of this morning is not yet delivered, I believe. We have a charming room, overlooking the sea. Leech is here (living within a few doors), with the partner of his bosom, and his young family. I write at ten in the morning, having been here two hours; and you will readily suppose that I have not seen him.
Of news, I have not the faintest breath. I seem to have been doing nothing all my life but riding in railway-carriages and reading. The railway of the morning brought us through Castle Howard, and under the woods of Easthorpe, and then just below Malton Abbey, where I went to poor Smithson"s funeral. It was a most lovely morning, and, tired as I was, I couldn"t sleep for looking out of window.
Yesterday, at Harrogate, two circ.u.mstances occurred which gave Arthur great delight. Firstly, he chafed his legs sore with his black bag of silver. Secondly, the landlord asked him as a favour, "If he could oblige him with a little silver." He obliged him directly with some forty pounds" worth; and I suspect the landlord to have repented of having approached the subject. After the reading last night we walked over the moor to the railway, three miles, leaving our men to follow with the luggage in a light cart. They pa.s.sed us just short of the railway, and John was making the night hideous and terrifying the sleeping country, by _playing the horn_ in prodigiously horrible and unmusical blasts.
My dearest love, of course, to the dear girls, and to the n.o.ble Plorn.
Apropos of children, there was one gentleman at the "Little Dombey"
yesterday morning, who exhibited, or rather concealed, the profoundest grief. After crying a good deal without hiding it, he covered his face with both his hands, and laid it down on the back of the seat before him, and really shook with emotion. He was not in mourning, but I supposed him to have lost some child in old time. There was a remarkably good fellow of thirty or so, too, who found something so very ludicrous in "Toots," that he _could not_ compose himself at all, but laughed until he sat wiping his eyes with his handkerchief. And whenever he felt "Toots" coming again he began to laugh and wipe his eyes afresh, and when he came he gave a kind of cry, as if it were too much for him. It was uncommonly droll, and made me laugh heartily.
Ever, dear Georgy, your most affectionate.
[Sidenote: Miss d.i.c.kens.]
SCARBOROUGH ARMS, LEEDS, _Wednesday, Sept. 15th, 1858._
MY DEAREST MAMIE,
I have added a pound to the cheque. I would recommend your seeing the poor railway man again and giving him ten shillings, and telling him to let you see him again in about a week. If he be then still unable to lift weights and handle heavy things, I would then give him another ten shillings, and so on.
Since I wrote to Georgy from Scarborough, we have had, thank G.o.d, nothing but success. The Hull people (not generally considered excitable, even on their own showing) were so enthusiastic, that we were obliged to promise to go back there for two readings. I have positively resolved not to lengthen out the time of my tour, so we are now arranging to drop some small places, and subst.i.tute Hull again and York again. But you will perhaps have heard this in the main from Arthur. I know he wrote to you after the reading last night. This place I have always doubted, knowing that we should come here when it was recovering from the double excitement of the festival and the Queen. But there is a very large hall let indeed, and the prospect of to-night consequently looks bright.
Arthur told you, I suppose, that he had his shirt-front and waistcoat torn off last night? He was perfectly enraptured in consequence. Our men got so knocked about that he gave them five shillings apiece on the spot. John pa.s.sed several minutes upside down against a wall, with his head amongst the people"s boots. He came out of the difficulty in an exceedingly touzled condition, and with his face much flushed. For all this, and their being packed as you may conceive they would be packed, they settled down the instant I went in, and never wavered in the closest attention for an instant. It was a very high room, and required a great effort.
Oddly enough, I slept in this house three days last year with Wilkie.
Arthur has the bedroom I occupied then, and I have one two doors from it, and Gordon has the one between. Not only is he still with us, but he _has_ talked of going on to Manchester, going on to London, and coming back with us to Darlington next Tuesday!!!
These streets look like a great circus with the season just finished.
All sorts of garish triumphal arches were put up for the Queen, and they have got smoky, and have been looked out of countenance by the sun, and are blistered and patchy, and half up and half down, and are hideous to behold. Spiritless men (evidently drunk for some time in the royal honour) are slowly removing them, and on the whole it is more like the clearing away of "The Frozen Deep" at Tavistock House than anything within your knowledge--with the exception that we are not in the least sorry, as we were then. Vague ideas are in Arthur"s head that when we come back to Hull, we are to come here, and are to have the Town Hall (a beautiful building), and read to the million. I can"t say yet. That depends. I remember that when I was here before (I came from Rockingham to make a speech), I thought them a dull and slow audience. I hope I may have been mistaken. I never saw better audiences than the Yorkshire audiences generally.
I am so perpetually at work or asleep, that I have not a sc.r.a.p of news.
I saw the Leech family at Scarboro", both in my own house (that is to say, hotel) and in theirs. They were not at either reading. Scarboro" is gay and pretty, and I think Gordon had an idea that we were always at some such place.
Kiss the darling Plorn for me, and give him my love; dear Katie too, giving her the same. I feel sorry that I cannot get down to Gad"s Hill this next time, but I shall look forward to our being there with Georgy, after Scotland. Tell the servants that I remember them, and hope they will live with us many years.
Ever, my dearest Mamie, Your most affectionate Father.
[Sidenote: Miss Hogarth.]
KING"S HEAD, SHEFFIELD, _Friday, Sept. 17th, 1858._
I write you a few lines to Tavistock House, thinking you may not be sorry to find a note from me there on your arrival from Gad"s Hill.
Halifax was too small for us. I never saw such an audience though. They were really worth reading to for nothing, though I didn"t do exactly that. It is as horrible a place as I ever saw, I think.
The run upon the tickets here is so immense that Arthur is obliged to get great bills out, signifying that no more can be sold. It will be by no means easy to get into the place the numbers who have already paid.
It is the hall we acted in. Crammed to the roof and the pa.s.sages. We must come back here towards the end of October, and are again altering the list and striking out small places.
The trains are so strange and unintelligible in this part of the country that we were obliged to leave Halifax at eight this morning, and breakfast on the road--at Huddersfield again, where we had an hour"s wait. Wills was in attendance on the platform, and took me (here at Sheffield, I mean) out to Frederick Lehmann"s house to see Mrs. Wills.
She looked pretty much the same as ever, I thought, and was taking care of a very pretty little boy. The house and grounds are as nice as anything _can_ be in this smoke. A heavy thunderstorm is pa.s.sing over the town, and it is raining hard too.