My Dear Fields: We live here (opposite the Marble Arch) in a
charming house until the 1st of June, and then return to Gad's. The
Conservatory is completed, and is a brilliant success;--but an
expensive one!
I read this afternoon at three,--a beastly proceeding which I
particularly hate,--and again this day week at three. These morning
readings particularly disturb me at my book-work; nevertheless I
hope, please God, to lose no way on their account. An evening
reading once a week is nothing. By the by, I recommenced last
Tuesday evening with the greatest brilliancy.
I should be quite ashamed of not having written to you and my dear
Mrs. Fields before now, if I didn't know that you will both
understand how occupied I am, and how naturally, when I put my
papers away for the day, I get up and fly. I have a large room here,
with three fine windows, overlooking the Park,--unsurpassable for
airiness and cheerfulness.
You saw the announcement of the death of poor dear Harness. The
circumstances are curious. He wrote to his old friend the Dean of
Battle saying he would come to visit him on that day (the day of his
death). The Dean wrote back: "Come next day, instead, as we are
obliged to go out to dinner, and you will be alone." Harness told
his sister a little impatiently that he _must_ go on the first-named
day,--that he had made up his mind to go, and MUST. He had been
getting himself ready for dinner, and came to a part of the
staircase whence two doors opened,--one, upon another level passage;
one, upon a flight of stone steps. He opened the wrong door, fell
down the steps, injured himself very severely, and died in a few
hours.
You will know--_I_ don't--what Fechter's success is in America at
the time of this present writing. In his farewell performances at
the Princess's he acted very finely. I thought the three first acts
of his Hamlet very much better than I had ever thought them
before,--and I always thought very highly of them. We gave him a
foaming stirrup cup at Gad's Hill. Forster (who has been ill with
his bronchitis again) thinks No. 2 of the new book (Edwin Drood) a
clincher,--I mean that word (as his own expression) for _Clincher_.
There is a curious interest steadily working up to No. 5, which
requires a great deal of art and self-denial. I think also, apart
from character and picturesqueness, that the young people are placed
in a very novel situation. So I hope--at Nos. 5 and 6 the story will
turn upon an interest suspended until the end.
I can't believe it, and don't, and won't, but they say Harry's
twenty-first birthday is next Sunday. I have entered him at the
Temple just now; and if he don't get a fellowship at Trinity Hall
when his time comes, I shall be disappointed, if in the present
disappointed state of existence.
I hope you may have met with the little touch of Radicalism I gave
them at Birmingham in the words of Buckle? With pride I observe that
it makes the regular political traders, of all sorts, perfectly mad.
Sich was my intentions, as a grateful acknowledgment of having been
misrepresented.
I think Mrs. ----'s prose very admirable, but I don't believe it!
No, I do _not_. My conviction is that those Islanders get
frightfully bored by the Islands, and wish they had never set eyes
upon them!
Charley Collins has done a charming cover for the monthly part of
the new book. At the very earnest representations of Millais (and
after having seen a great number of his drawings) I am going to
engage with a new man; retaining, of course, C.C.'s cover aforesaid.
K---- has made some more capital portraits, and is always improving.
My dear Mrs. Fields, if "He" (made proud by chairs and bloated by
pictures) does not give you my dear love, let us conspire against
him when you find him out, and exclude him from all future
confidences. Until then
Ever affectionately yours and his,