I am very doubtful indeed about "Vaux," and have kept it out of the number in consequence. The mere details of such a rascal"s proceedings, whether recorded by himself or set down by the Reverend Ordinary, are not wholesome for a large audience, and are scarcely justifiable (I think) as claiming to be a piece of literature. I can understand Barrington to be a good subject, as involving the representation of a period, a style of manners, an order of dress, certain habits of street life, a.s.sembly-room life, and coffee-room life, etc.; but there is a very broad distinction between this and mere Newgate Calendar. The latter would a.s.suredly damage your book, and be protested against to me.
I have a conviction of it, founded on constant observation and experience here.
Your kind invitation is extremely welcome and acceptable to me, but I am sorry to add that I must not go a-visiting. For this reason: So incessantly have I been "reading," that I have not once been at home at Gad"s Hill since last January, and am little likely to get there before the middle of May. Judge how the master"s eye must be kept on the place when it does at length get a look at it after so long an absence! I hope you will descry in this a reason for coming to me again, instead of my coming to you.
The extinct prize-fighters, as a body, I take to be a good subject, for much the same reason as George Barrington. Their patrons were a cla.s.s of men now extinct too, and the whole ring of those days (not to mention Jackson"s rooms in Bond Street) is a piece of social history. Now Vaux is not, nor is he even a phenomenon among thieves.
Faithfully yours always.
[Sidenote: Mr. Clarkson Stanfield, R.A.]
GAD"S HILL PLACE, HIGHAM BY ROCHESTER, _Thursday, April 18th, 1867._
MY DEAR STANNY,
The time of year reminds me how the months have gone, since I last heard from you through Mrs. Stanfield.
I hope you have not thought me unmindful of you in the meanwhile. I have been almost constantly travelling and reading. England, Ireland, and Scotland have laid hold of me by turns, and I have had no rest. As soon as I had finished this kind of work last year, I had to fall to work upon "All the Year Round" and the Christmas number. I was no sooner quit of that task, and the Christmas season was but run out to its last day, when I was tempted into another course of fifty readings that are not yet over. I am here now for two days, and have not seen the place since Twelfth Night. When a reading in London has been done, I have been brought up for it from some great distance, and have next morning been carried back again. But the fifty will be "paid out" (as we say at sea) by the middle of May, and then I hope to see you.
Reading at Cheltenham the other day, I saw Macready, who sent his love to you. His face was much more ma.s.sive and as it used to be, than when I saw him previous to his illness. His wife takes admirable care of him, and is on the happiest terms with his daughter Katie. His boy by the second marriage is a jolly little fellow, and leads a far easier life than the children you and I remember, who used to come in at dessert and have each a biscuit and a gla.s.s of water, in which last refreshment I was always convinced that they drank, with the gloomiest malignity, "Destruction to the gormandising grown-up company!"
I hope to look up your latest triumphs on the day of the Academy dinner.
Of course as yet I have had no opportunity of even hearing of what anyone has done. I have been (in a general way) snowed up for four months. The locomotive with which I was going to Ireland was dug out of the snow at midnight, in Wales. Both pa.s.sages across were made in a furious snowstorm. The snow lay ankle-deep in Dublin, and froze hard at Belfast. In Scotland it slanted before a perpetual east wind. In Yorkshire, it derived novelty from thunder and lightning. Whirlwinds everywhere I don"t mention.
G.o.d bless you and yours. If I look like some weather-beaten pilot when we meet, don"t be surprised. Any mahogany-faced stranger who holds out his hand to you will probably turn out, on inspection, to be the old original d.i.c.k.
Ever, my dear Stanny, your faithful and affectionate.
P.S.--I wish you could have been with me (of course in a snowstorm) one day on the pier at Tynemouth. There was a very heavy sea running, and a perfect fleet of screw merchantmen were plunging in and out on the turn of the tide at high-water. Suddenly there came a golden horizon, and a most glorious rainbow burst out, arching one large ship, as if she were sailing direct for heaven. I was so enchanted by the scene, that I became oblivious of a few thousand tons of water coming on in an enormous roller, and was knocked down and beaten by its spray when it broke, and so completely wetted through and through, that the very pockets in my pocket-book were full of sea.
[Sidenote: Mr. George Stanfield.]
OFFICE OF "ALL THE YEAR ROUND,"
_Sunday, May 19th, 1867._
ON THE DEATH OF HIS FATHER.
MY DEAR GEORGE,
When I came up to the house this afternoon and saw what had happened, I had not the courage to ring, though I had thought I was fully prepared by what I heard when I called yesterday. No one of your father"s friends can ever have loved him more dearly than I always did, or can have better known the worth of his n.o.ble character.
It is idle to suppose that I can do anything for you; and yet I cannot help saying that I am staying here for some days, and that if I could, it would be a much greater relief to me than it could be a service to you.
Your poor mother has been constantly in my thoughts since I saw the quiet bravery with which she preserved her composure. The beauty of her ministration sank into my heart when I saw him for the last time on earth. May G.o.d be with her, and with you all, in your great loss.
Affectionately yours always.
[Sidenote: Mr. W. H. Wills.]
_Thursday, June 6th, 1867._
MY DEAR WILLS,
I cannot tell you how warmly I feel your letter, or how deeply I appreciate the affection and regard in which it originates. I thank you for it with all my heart.
You will not suppose that I make light of any of your misgivings if I present the other side of the question. Every objection that you make strongly impresses me, and will be revolved in my mind again and again.
When I went to America in "42, I was so much younger, but (I think) very much weaker too. I had had a painful surgical operation performed shortly before going out, and had had the labour from week to week of "Master Humphrey"s Clock." My life in the States was a life of continual speech-making (quite as laborious as reading), and I was less patient and more irritable then than I am now. My idea of a course of readings in America is, that it would involve far less travelling than you suppose, that the large first-cla.s.s rooms would absorb the whole course, and that the receipts would be very much larger than your estimate, unless the demand for the readings is ENORMOUSLY EXAGGERATED ON ALL HANDS. There is considerable reason for this view of the case. And I can hardly think that all the speculators who beset, and all the private correspondents who urge me, are in a conspiracy or under a common delusion.
I shall never rest much while my faculties last, and (if I know myself) have a certain something in me that would still be active in rusting and corroding me, if I flattered myself that I was in repose. On the other hand, I think that my habit of easy self-abstraction and withdrawal into fancies has always refreshed and strengthened me in short intervals wonderfully. I always seem to myself to have rested far more than I have worked; and I do really believe that I have some exceptional faculty of acc.u.mulating young feelings in short pauses, which obliterates a quant.i.ty of wear and tear.
My worldly circ.u.mstances (such a large family considered) are very good.
I don"t want money. All my possessions are free and in the best order.
Still, at fifty-five or fifty-six, the likelihood of making a very great addition to one"s capital in half a year is an immense consideration....
I repeat the phrase, because there should be something large to set against the objections.
I dine with Forster to-day, to talk it over. I have no doubt he will urge most of your objections and particularly the last, though American friends and correspondents he has, have undoubtedly staggered him more than I ever knew him to be staggered on the money question. Be a.s.sured that no one can present any argument to me which will weigh more heartily with me than your kind words, and that whatever comes of my present state of abeyance, I shall never forget your letter or cease to be grateful for it.
Ever, my dear Wills, faithfully yours.
[Sidenote: Mr. W. H. Wills.]
GAD"S HILL PLACE, HIGHAM BY ROCHESTER, KENT, _Sunday, June 13th, 1867._
MY DEAR WILLS,
I have read the first three numbers of Wilkie"s story this morning, and have gone minutely through the plot of the rest to the last line. It gives a series of "narratives," but it is a very curious story, wild, and yet domestic, with excellent character in it, and great mystery. It is prepared with extraordinary care, and has every chance of being a hit. It is in many respects much better than anything he has done. The question is, how shall we fill up the blank between Mabel"s progress and Wilkie? What do you think of proposing to Fitzgerald to do a story three months long? I daresay he has some unfinished or projected something by him.
I have an impression that it was not Silvester who tried Eliza Fenning, but Knowles. One can hardly suppose Thornbury to make such a mistake, but I wish you would look into the Annual Register. I have added a final paragraph about the unfairness of the judge, whoever he was. I distinctly recollect to have read of his "putting down" of Eliza Fenning"s father when the old man made some miserable suggestion in his daughter"s behalf (this is not noticed by Thornbury), and he also stopped some suggestion that a knife thrust into a loaf adulterated with alum would present the appearance that these knives presented. But I may have got both these points from looking up some pamphlets in Upcott"s collection which I once had.
Your account of your journey reminds me of one of the latest American stories, how a traveller by stage-coach said to the driver: "Did you ever see a snail, sir?" "Yes, sir." "Where did you meet him, sir?" "I _didn"t_ meet him, sir!" "Wa"al, sir, I think you did, if you"ll excuse me, for I"m d.a.m.ned if you ever overtook him."
Ever faithfully.
[Sidenote: Mrs. Henderson.]
GAD"S HILL, _Thursday, July 4th, 1867._
MY DEAR MRS. HENDERSON,
I was more shocked than surprised by the receipt of your mother"s announcement of our poor dear Marguerite"s death. When I heard of the consultation, and recalled what had preceded it and what I have seen here, my hopes were very slight.