INIMITABLE (_in his delightful way_). What a nice old fellow you are. I am very fond of little boys.
YOUNG IRELAND. Air yer? Ye"r right.
INIMITABLE. What do you learn, old fellow?
YOUNG IRELAND (_very intent on Inimitable, and always childish, except in his brogue_). I lairn wureds of three sillibils, and wureds of two sillibils, and wureds of one sillibil.
INIMITABLE (_gaily_). Get out, you humbug! You learn only words of one syllable.
YOUNG IRELAND (_laughs heartily_). You may say that it is mostly wureds of one sillibil.
INIMITABLE. Can you write?
YOUNG IRELAND. Not yet. Things comes by deegrays.
INIMITABLE. Can you cipher?
YOUNG IRELAND (_very quickly_). Wha"at"s that?
INIMITABLE. Can you make figures?
YOUNG IRELAND. I can make a nought, which is not asy, being roond.
INIMITABLE. I say, old boy, wasn"t it you I saw on Sunday morning in the hall, in a soldier"s cap? You know--in a soldier"s cap?
YOUNG IRELAND (_cogitating deeply_). Was it a very good cap?
INIMITABLE. Yes.
YOUNG IRELAND. Did it fit unkommon?
INIMITABLE. Yes.
YOUNG IRELAND. Dat was me!
There are two stupid old louts at the room, to show people into their places, whom John calls "them two old Paddies," and of whom he says, that he "never see nothing like them (sn.i.g.g.e.r) hold idiots" (sn.i.g.g.e.r).
They bow and walk backwards before the grandees, and our men hustle them while they are doing it.
We walked out last night, with the intention of going to the theatre; but the Piccolomini establishment (they were doing the "Lucia") looked so horribly like a very bad jail, and the Queen"s looked so blackguardly, that we came back again, and went to bed. I seem to be always either in a railway carriage, or reading, or going to bed. I get so knocked up, whenever I have a minute to remember it, that then I go to bed as a matter of course.
I send my love to the n.o.ble Plorn, and to all the boys. To dear Mamie and Katie, and to yourself of course, in the first degree. I am looking forward to the last Irish reading on Thursday, with great impatience.
But when we shall have turned this week, once knocked off Belfast, I shall see land, and shall (like poor Timber in the days of old) "keep up a good heart." I get so wonderfully hot every night in my dress clothes, that they positively won"t dry in the short interval they get, and I have been obliged to write to Doudney"s to make me another suit, that I may have a constant change.
Ever, my dearest Georgy, most affectionately.
[Sidenote: Miss d.i.c.kens.]
BELFAST, _Sat.u.r.day, Aug. 28th, 1858._
When I went down to the Rotunda at Dublin on Thursday night, I said to Arthur, who came rushing at me: "You needn"t tell me. I know all about it." The moment I had come out of the door of the hotel (a mile off), I had come against the stream of people turned away. I had struggled against it to the room. There, the crowd in all the lobbies and pa.s.sages was so great, that I had a difficulty in getting in. They had broken all the gla.s.s in the pay-boxes. They had offered frantic prices for stalls.
Eleven bank-notes were thrust into that pay-box (Arthur saw them) at one time, for eleven stalls. Our men were flattened against walls, and squeezed against beams. Ladies stood all night with their chins against my platform. Other ladies sat all night upon my steps. You never saw such a sight. And the reading went tremendously! It is much to be regretted that we troubled ourselves to go anywhere else in Ireland. We turned away people enough to make immense houses for a week.
We arrived here yesterday at two. The room will not hold more than from eighty to ninety pounds. The same scene was repeated with the additional feature, that the people are much rougher here than in Dublin, and that there was a very great uproar at the opening of the doors, which, the police in attendance being quite inefficient and only looking on, it was impossible to check. Arthur was in the deepest misery because shillings got into stalls, and half-crowns got into shillings, and stalls got nowhere, and there was immense confusion. It ceased, however, the moment I showed myself; and all went most brilliantly, in spite of a great piece of the cornice of the ceiling falling with a great crash within four or five inches of the head of a young lady on my platform (I was obliged to have people there), and in spite of my gas suddenly going out at the time of the game of forfeits at Scrooge"s nephew"s, through some Belfastian gentleman accidentally treading on the flexible pipe, and needing to be relighted.
We shall not get to Cork before mid-day on Monday; it being difficult to get from here on a Sunday. We hope to be able to start away to-morrow morning to see the Giant"s Causeway (some sixteen miles off), and in that case we shall sleep at Dublin to-morrow night, leaving here by the train at half-past three in the afternoon. Dublin, you must understand, is on the way to Cork. This is a fine place, surrounded by lofty hills.
The streets are very wide, and the place is very prosperous. The whole ride from Dublin here is through a very picturesque and various country; and the amazing thing is, that it is all particularly neat and orderly, and that the houses (outside at all events) are all brightly whitewashed and remarkably clean. I want to climb one of the neighbouring hills before this morning"s "Dombey." I am now waiting for Arthur, who has gone to the bank to remit his last acc.u.mulation of treasure to London.
Our men are rather indignant with the Irish crowds, because in the struggle they don"t sell books, and because, in the pressure, they can"t force a way into the room afterwards to sell them. They are deeply interested in the success, however, and are as zealous and ardent as possible. I shall write to Katie next. Give her my best love, and kiss the darling Plorn for me, and give my love to all the boys.
Ever, my dearest Mamie, Your most affectionate Father.
[Sidenote: Miss Hogarth.]
MORRISON"S HOTEL, DUBLIN, _Sunday Night, Aug. 29th, 1858._
I am so delighted to find your letter here to-night (eleven o"clock), and so afraid that, in the wear and tear of this strange life, I have written to Gad"s Hill in the wrong order, and have not written to you, as I should, that I resolve to write this before going to bed. You will find it a wretchedly stupid letter; but you may imagine, my dearest girl, that I am tired.
The success at Belfast has been equal to the success here. Enormous! We turned away half the town. I think them a better audience, on the whole, than Dublin; and the personal affection there was something overwhelming. I wish you and the dear girls could have seen the people look at me in the street; or heard them ask me, as I hurried to the hotel after reading last night, to "do me the honour to shake hands, Misther d.i.c.kens, and G.o.d bless you, sir; not ounly for the light you"ve been to me this night, but for the light you"ve been in mee house, sir (and G.o.d love your face), this many a year." Every night, by-the-bye, since I have been in Ireland, the ladies have beguiled John out of the bouquet from my coat. And yesterday morning, as I had showered the leaves from my geranium in reading "Little Dombey," they mounted the platform, after I was gone, and picked them all up as keepsakes!
I have never seen _men_ go in to cry so undisguisedly as they did at that reading yesterday afternoon. They made no attempt whatever to hide it, and certainly cried more than the women. As to the "Boots" at night, and "Mrs. Gamp" too, it was just one roar with me and them; for they made me laugh so that sometimes I _could not_ compose my face to go on.
You must not let the new idea of poor dear Landor efface the former image of the fine old man. I wouldn"t blot him out, in his tender gallantry, as he sat upon that bed at Forster"s that night, for a million of wild mistakes at eighty years of age.
I hope to be at Tavistock House before five o"clock next Sat.u.r.day morning, and to lie in bed half the day, and come home by the 10.50 on Sunday.
Tell the girls that Arthur and I have each ordered at Belfast a trim, sparkling, slap-up _Irish jaunting-car_!!! I flatter myself we shall astonish the Kentish people. It is the oddest carriage in the world, and you are always falling off. But it is gay and bright in the highest degree. Wonderfully Neapolitan.
What with a sixteen mile ride before we left Belfast, and a sea-beach walk, and a two o"clock dinner, and a seven hours" railway ride since, I am--as we say here--"a thrifle weary." But I really am in wonderful force, considering the work. For which I am, as I ought to be, very thankful.
Arthur was exceedingly unwell last night--could not cheer up at all. He was so very unwell that he left the hall(!) and became invisible after my five minutes" rest. I found him at the hotel in a jacket and slippers, and with a hot bath just ready. He was in the last stage of prostration. The local agent was with me, and proposed that he (the wretched Arthur) should go to his office and balance the accounts then and there. He went, in the jacket and slippers, and came back in twenty minutes, _perfectly well_, in consequence of the admirable balance. He is now sitting opposite to me ON THE BAG OF SILVER, forty pounds (it must be dreadfully hard), writing to Boulogne.
I suppose it is clear that the next letter I write is Katie"s. Either from Cork or from Limerick, it shall report further. At Limerick I read in the theatre, there being no other place.
Best love to Mamie and Katie, and dear Plorn, and all the boys left when this comes to Gad"s Hill; also to my dear good Anne, and her little woman.
Ever affectionately.
[Sidenote: Mr. W. Wilkie Collins.]
GAD"S HILL PLACE, HIGHAM BY ROCHESTER, KENT, _Monday, Sept. 6th, 1858._
MY DEAR WILKIE,
First, let me report myself here for something less than eight-and-forty hours. I come last (and direct--a pretty hard journey) from Limerick.
The success in Ireland has been immense.