His first letter from home gave us all great pleasure, for it announced
his complete recovery from the severe influenza that had fastened itself
upon him so many months before. Among his earliest notes I find these
paragraphs:--
"I have found it so extremely difficult to write about America
(though never so briefly) without appearing to blow trumpets on the
one hand, or to be inconsistent with my avowed determination _not_
to write about it on the other, that I have taken the simple course
enclosed. The number will be published on the 6th of June. It
appears to me to be the most modest and manly course, and to derive
some graceful significance from its title.....
"Thank my dear ---- for me for her delightful letter received on the
16th. I will write to her very soon, and tell her about the dogs. I
would write by this post, but that Wills's absence (in Sussex, and
getting no better there as yet) so overwhelms me with business that
I can scarcely get through it.
"Miss me? Ah, my dear fellow, but how do I miss _you!_ We talk about
you both at Gad's Hill every day of our lives. And I never see the
place looking very pretty indeed, or hear the birds sing all day
long and the nightingales all night, without restlessly wishing that
you were both there.
"With best love, and truest and most enduring regard, ever, my dear
Fields,
"Your most affectionate,
"C.D."
".... I hope you will receive by Saturday's Cunard a case
containing:
1. A trifling supply of the pen-knibs that suited your hand. 2. A
do. of unfailing medicine for cockroaches. 3. Mrs. Gamp, for ----.
"The case is addressed to you at Bleecker Street, New York. If it
should be delayed for the knibs (or nibs) promised to-morrow, and
should be too late for the Cunard packet, it will in that case come
by the next following Inman steamer.
"Everything here looks lovely, and I find it (you will be surprised
to hear) really a pretty place! I have seen No Thoroughfare twice.
Excellent things in it; but it drags, to my thinking. It is,
however, a great success in the country, and is now getting up with
great force in Paris. Fechter is ill, and was ordered off to
Brighton yesterday. Wills is ill too, and banished into Sussex for
perfect rest. Otherwise, thank God, I find everything well and
thriving. You and my dear Mrs. F---- are constantly in my mind.
Procter greatly better...."