November. I am going to do "Copperfield," and shall be curious to test
its effect on the Edinburgh people. It has been quite a job so to piece
portions of the long book together as to make something continuous out
of it; but I hope I have got something varied and dramatic. I am also
(not to slight _your_ book) going to do "Nickleby at Mr. Squeers's." It
is clear that both must be trotted out at Cheltenham.
With kindest love and regard to all your house,
Ever, my dearest Macready, your most affectionate.
P.S.--Fourth edition of "Great Expectations" almost gone!
[Sidenote: Miss Hogarth.]
ANGEL HOTEL, BURY ST. EDMUNDS,
_Wednesday, Oct. 13th, 1861._
MY DEAREST GEORGY,
I have just now received your welcome letter, and I hasten to report
(having very little time) that we had a splendid hall last night, and
that I think "Nickleby" tops all the readings. Somehow it seems to have
got in it, by accident, exactly the qualities best suited to the
purpose, and it went last night not only with roars, but with a general
hilarity and pleasure that I have never seen surpassed.
We are full here for to-night.
Fancy this: last night at about six, who should walk in but Elwin! He
was exactly in his usual state, only more demonstrative than ever, and
had been driven in by some neighbours who were coming to the reading. I
had tea up for him, and he went down at seven with me to the dismal den
where I dressed, and sat by the fire while I dressed, and was childishly
happy in that great privilege! During the reading he sat on a corner of
the platform and roared incessantly. He brought in a lady and gentleman
to introduce while I was undressing, and went away in a perfect and
absolute rapture.
[Sidenote: Miss Hogarth.]
ROYAL HOTEL, NORWICH, _Tuesday, Oct. 29th, 1861._
I cannot say that we began well last night. We had not a good hall, and
they were a very lumpish audience indeed. This did not tend to cheer the
strangeness I felt in being without Arthur, and I was not at all myself.
We have a large let for to-night, I think two hundred and fifty stalls,
which is very large, and I hope that both they and I will go better. I
could have done perfectly last night, if the audience had been bright,
but they were an intent and staring audience. They laughed though very
well, and the storm made them shake themselves again. But they were not
magnetic, and the great big place was out of sorts somehow.
To-morrow I will write you another short note, however short. It is
"Nickleby" and the "Trial" to-night; "Copperfield" again to-morrow. A
wet day here, with glimpses of blue. I shall not forget Katey's health
at dinner. A pleasant journey down.
Ever, my dearest Georgy, your most affectionate.
[Sidenote: The same.]
THE GREAT WHITE HORSE, IPSWICH, _Friday, Nov. 1st, 1861._
I cannot quite remember in the whirl of travelling and reading, whether
or no I wrote you a line from Bury St. Edmunds. But I think (and hope)
I did. We had a fine room there, and "Copperfield" made a great
impression. At mid-day we go on to Colchester, where I shall expect the
young Morgans. I sent a telegram on yesterday, after receiving your
note, to secure places for them. The answer returned by telegraph was:
"No box-seats left but on the fourth row." If they prefer to sit on the
stage (for I read in the theatre, there being no other large public
room), they shall. Meantime I have told John, who went forward this
morning with the other men, to let the people at the inn know that if
three travellers answering that description appear before my
dinner-time, they are to dine with me.
Plorn's admission that he likes the school very much indeed, is the
great social triumph of modern times.
I am looking forward to Sunday's rest at Gad's, and shall be down by the
ten o'clock train from town. I miss poor Arthur dreadfully. It is
scarcely possible to imagine how much. It is not only that his loss to
me socially is quite irreparable, but that the sense I used to have of
compactness and comfort about me while I was reading is quite gone. And
when I come out for the ten minutes, when I used to find him always
ready for me with something cheerful to say, it is forlorn. I cannot but
fancy, too, that the audience must miss the old speciality of a
pervading gentleman.
Nobody I know has turned up yet except Elwin. I have had many
invitations to all sorts of houses in all sorts of places, and have of
course accepted them every one.
Love to Mamie, if she has come home, and to Bouncer, if _she_ has come;
also Marguerite, who I hope is by this time much better.
Ever, my dear Georgy, your most affectionate.
[Sidenote: Mrs. Henry Austin.]
GAD'S HILL, _Sunday, Nov. 3rd, 1861._
EXTRACT.
I am heartily glad to hear that you have been out in the air, and I hope
you will go again very soon and make a point of continuing to go. There
is a soothing influence in the sight of the earth and sky, which God put
into them for our relief when He made the world in which we are all to
suffer, and strive, and die.
I will not fail to write to you from many points of my tour, and if you
ever want to write to me you may be sure of a quick response, and may be
certain that I am sympathetic and true.
Ever affectionately.
[Sidenote: Miss Dickens.]
FOUNTAIN HOTEL, CANTERBURY, _Windy Night, Nov. 4th, 1861._
MY DEAREST MAMIE,
A word of report before I go to bed. An excellent house to-night, and an
audience positively perfect. The greatest part of it stalls, and an
intelligent and delightful response in them, like the touch of a
beautiful instrument. "Copperfield" wound up in a real burst of feeling
and delight.
Ever affectionately.
[Sidenote: Mr. John Agate.]
LORD WARDEN HOTEL, DOVER, _Wednesday, Nov. 6th, 1861._
SIR,
I am exceedingly sorry to find, from the letter you have addressed to
me, that you had just cause of complaint in being excluded from my
reading here last night. It will now and then unfortunately happen when
the place of reading is small (as in this case), that some confusion
and inconvenience arise from the local agents over-estimating, in
perfect good faith and sincerity, the capacity of the room. Such a
mistake, I am assured, was made last night; and thus all the available
space was filled before the people in charge were at all prepared for
that circumstance.
You may readily suppose that I can have no personal knowledge of the
proceedings of the people in my employment at such a time. But I wish to
assure you very earnestly, that they are all old servants, well
acquainted with my principles and wishes, and that they are under the
strongest injunction to avoid any approach to mercenary dealing; and to
behave to all comers equally with as much consideration and politeness
as they know I should myself display. The recent death of a
much-regretted friend of mine, who managed this business for me, and on
whom these men were accustomed to rely in any little difficulty, caused
them (I have no doubt) to feel rather at a loss in your case. Do me the
favour to understand that under any other circumstances you would, as a
matter of course, have been provided with any places whatever that could
be found, without the smallest reference to what you had originally
paid. This is scanty satisfaction to you, but it is so strictly the
truth, that yours is the first complaint of the kind I have ever
received.
I hope to read in Dover again, but it is quite impossible that I can
make any present arrangement for that purpose. Whenever I may return
here, you may be sure I shall not fail to remember that I owe you a
recompense for a disappointment. In the meanwhile I very sincerely
regret it.
Faithfully yours.
[Sidenote: Miss Hogarth.]
BEDFORD HOTEL, BRIGHTON, _Thursday, Nov. 7th, 1861._
MY DEAR GEORGY,
* * * * *
The Duchess of Cambridge comes to-night to "Copperfield." The bad
weather has not in the least touched us, and beyond all doubt a great
deal of money has been left untaken at each place.
The storm was most magnificent at Dover. All the great side of The Lord
Warden next the sea had to be emptied, the break of the sea was so
prodigious, and the noise was so utterly confounding. The sea came in
like a great sky of immense clouds, for ever breaking suddenly into
furious rain. All kinds of wreck were washed in. Miss Birmingham and I
saw, among other things, a very pretty brass-bound chest being thrown
about like a feather. On Tuesday night, the unhappy Ostend packet could
not get in, neither could she go back, and she beat about the Channel
until noon yesterday. I saw her come in then, _with five men at the
wheel_; such a picture of misery, as to the crew (of passengers there
were no signs), as you can scarcely imagine.
Tho effect at Hastings and at Dover really seems to have outdone the
best usual impression, and at Dover they wouldn't go, but sat applauding
like mad. The most delicate audience I have seen in any provincial place
is Canterbury. The audience with the greatest sense of humour certainly
is Dover. The people in the stalls set the example of laughing, in the
most curiously unreserved way; and they really laughed when Squeers read
the boys' letters, with such cordial enjoyment, that the contagion
extended to me, for one couldn't hear them without laughing too.
So, thank God, all goes well, and the recompense for the trouble is in
every way great. There is rather an alarming breakdown at Newcastle, in
respect of all the bills having been, in some inscrutable way, lost on
the road. I have resolved to send Berry there, with full powers to do
all manner of things, early next week.
The amended route-list is not printed yet, because I am trying to get
off Manchester and Liverpool; both of which I strongly doubt, in the
present state of American affairs. Therefore I can't send it for
Marguerite; but I can, and do, send her my love and God-speed. This is
addressed to the office because I suppose you will be there to-morrow.
Ever affectionately.
[Sidenote: The Earl of Carlisle.]
GAD'S HILL PLACE, HIGHAM BY ROCHESTER, KENT,
_November 15th, 1861._
MY DEAR LORD CARLISLE,
You know poor Austin, and what his work was, and how he did it. If you
have no private objection to signing the enclosed memorial (which will
receive the right signatures before being presented), I think you will
have no public objection. I shall be heartily glad if you can put your
name to it, and shall esteem your doing so as a very kind service. Will
you return the memorial under cover to Mr. Tom Taylor, at the Local
Government Act Office, Whitehall? He is generously exerting himself in
furtherance of it, and so delay will be avoided.
My dear Lord Carlisle, faithfully yours always.
[Sidenote: Miss Mary Boyle.]
GAD'S HILL PLACE, HIGHAM BY ROCHESTER, KENT,
_Sunday, Nov. 17th, 1861._
MY DEAR MARY,
I am perfectly enraptured with the quilt. It is one of the most
tasteful, lively, elegant things I have ever seen; and I need not tell
you that while it is valuable to me for its own ornamental sake, it is
precious to me as a rainbow-hint of your friendship and affectionate
remembrance.
Please God you shall see it next summer occupying its allotted place of
state in my brand-new bedroom here. You shall behold it then, with all
cheerful surroundings, the envy of mankind.
My readings have been doing absolute wonders. Your Duchess and Princess
came to hear first "Nickleby" and the "Pickwick Trial," then
"Copperfield," at Brighton. I think they were pleased with me, and I am
sure I was with them; for they are the very best audience one could
possibly desire. I shall always have a pleasant remembrance of them.
On Wednesday I am away again for the longest part of my trip.
Yes, Mary dear, I must say that I like my Carton, and I have a faint
idea sometimes that if I had acted him, I could have done something with
his life and death.
Believe me, ever your affectionate and faithful
JOE.
[Sidenote: Miss Hogarth.]
QUEEN'S HEAD, NEWCASTLE, _Friday, Nov. 22nd, 1861._
I received your letter this morning, and grieve to report that the
unlucky Headland has broken down most awfully!
First, as perhaps you remember, this is the place where the bills were
"lost" for a week or two. The consequence has been that the agent could
not announce all through the "Jenny Lind" time (the most important for
announcing), and could but stand still and stare when people came to ask
what I was going to read. Last night I read "Copperfield" to the most
enthusiastic and appreciative audience imaginable, but in numbers about
half what they might have been. To-night we shall have a famous house;
but we might have had it last night too. To-morrow (knowing by this time
what can, of a certainty, be done with "Copperfield"), I had, of course,
given out "Copperfield" to be read again. Conceive my amazement and
dismay when I find the printer to have announced "Little Dombey"!!!
This, I declare, I had no more intention of reading than I had of
reading an account of the solar system. And this, after a sensation last
night, of a really extraordinary nature in its intensity and delight!
Says the unlucky Headland to this first head of misery: "Johnson's
mistake" (Johnson being the printer).
Second, I read at Edinburgh for the first time--observe the day--_next
Wednesday_. Jenny Lind's concert at Edinburgh is to-night. This morning
comes a frantic letter from the Edinburgh agent. "I have no bills, no
tickets; I lose all the announcement I would have made to hundreds upon
hundreds of people to-night, all of the most desirable class to be well
informed beforehand. I can't announce what Mr. Dickens is going to read;
I can answer no question; I have, upon my responsibility, put a dreary
advertisement into the papers announcing that he _is_ going to read so
many times, and that particulars will shortly be ready; and I stand
bound hand and foot." "Johnson's mistake," says the unlucky Headland.
Of course, I know that the man who never made a mistake in poor Arthur's
time is not likely to be always making mistakes now. But I have written
by this post to Wills, to go to him and investigate. I have also
detached Berry from here, and have sent him on by train at a few
minutes' notice to Edinburgh, and then to Glasgow (where I have no doubt
everything is wrong too). Glasgow we may save; Edinburgh I hold to be
irretrievably damaged. If it can be picked up at all, it can only be at
the loss of the two first nights, and by the expenditure of no end of
spirits and force. And this is the harder, because it is impossible not
to see that the last readings polished and prepared the audiences in
general, and that I have not to work them up in any place where I have
been before, but that they start with a London intelligence, and with a
respect and preparation for what they are going to hear.
I hope by the time you and Mamie come to me, we shall have got into some
good method. I must take the thing more into my own hands and look after
it from hour to hour. If such a thing as this Edinburgh business could
have happened under poor Arthur, I really believe he would have fallen
into a fit, or gone distracted. No one can ever know what he was but I
who have been with him and without him. Headland is so anxious and so
good-tempered that I cannot be very stormy with him; but it is the
simple fact that he has no notion of the requirements of such work as
this. Without him, and with a larger salary to Berry (though there are
objections to the latter as _first_ man), I could have done a hundred
times better.
As Forster will have a strong interest in knowing all about the
proceedings, perhaps you will send him this letter to read. There is no
very tremendous harm, indeed, done as yet. At Edinburgh I KNOW what I
can do with "Copperfield." I think it is not too much to say that for
every one who does come to hear it on the first night, I can get back
fifty on the second. And whatever can be worked up there will tell on
Glasgow. Berry I shall continue to send on ahead, and I shall take
nothing on trust and more as being done.
On Sunday morning at six, I have to start for Berwick. From Berwick, in
the course of that day, I will write again; to Mamie next time.
With best love to her and Mrs. B.
[Sidenote: Miss Dickens.]
QUEEN'S HEAD, NEWCASTLE-ON-TYNE,
_Saturday, Nov. 23rd, 1861._
A most tremendous hall here last night; something almost terrible in the
cram. A fearful thing might have happened. Suddenly, when they were all
very still over Smike, my gas batten came down, and it looked as if the
room was falling. There were three great galleries crammed to the roof,
and a high steep flight of stairs, and a panic must have destroyed
numbers of people. A lady in the front row of stalls screamed, and ran
out wildly towards me, and for one instant there was a terrible wave in
the crowd. I addressed that lady laughing (for I knew she was in sight
of everybody there), and called out as if it happened every night,
"There's nothing the matter, I assure you; don't be alarmed; pray sit
down;" and she sat down directly, and there was a thunder of applause.
It took some few minutes to mend, and I looked on with my hands in my
pockets; for I think if I had turned my back for a moment there might
still have been a move. My people were dreadfully alarmed, Boylett in
particular, who I suppose had some notion that the whole place might
have taken fire.
"But there stood the master," he did me the honour to say afterwards, in
addressing the rest, "as cool as ever I see him a-lounging at a railway
station."
A telegram from Berry at Edinburgh yesterday evening, to say that he
had got the bills, and that they would all be up and dispersed yesterday
evening under his own eyes. So no time was lost in setting things as
right as they can be set. He has now gone on to Glasgow.
P.S.--Duty to Mrs. Bouncer.
[Sidenote: Miss Hogarth.]
BERWICK-ON-TWEED, _Monday, Nov. 25th, 1861._
I write (in a gale of wind, with a high sea running), to let you know
that we go on to Edinburgh at half-past eight to-morrow morning.
A most ridiculous room was designed for me in this odd out-of-the-way
place. An immense Corn Exchange made of glass and iron, round,
dome-topped, lofty, utterly absurd for any such purpose, and full of
thundering echoes, with a little lofty crow's-nest of a stone gallery
breast high, deep in the wall, into which it was designed to put _me_! I
instantly struck, of course, and said I would either read in a room
attached to this house (a very snug one, capable of holding five hundred
people) or not at all. Terrified local agents glowered, but fell
prostrate.
Berry has this moment come back from Edinburgh and Glasgow with hopeful
accounts. He seems to have done the business extremely well, and he says
that it was quite curious and cheering to see how the Glasgow people
assembled round the bills the instant they were posted, and evidently
with a great interest in them.
We left Newcastle yesterday morning in the dark, when it was intensely
cold and froze very hard. So it did here. But towards night the wind
went round to the S.W., and all night it has been blowing very hard
indeed. So it is now.
Tell Mamie that I have the same sitting-room as we had when we came here
with poor Arthur, and that my bedroom is the room out of it which she
and Katie had. Surely it is the oddest town to read in! But it is taken
on poor Arthur's principle that a place in the way pays the expenses of
a through journey; and the people would seem to be coming up to the
scratch gallantly. It was a dull Sunday, though; O it _was_ a dull
Sunday, without a book! For I had forgotten to buy one at Newcastle,
until it was too late. So after dark I made a jug of whisky-punch, and
drowned the unlucky Headland's remembrance of his failures.
I shall hope to hear very soon that the workmen have "broken through,"
and that you have been in the state apartments, and that upholstery
measurements have come off.
There has been a horrible accident in Edinburgh. One of the seven-storey
old houses in the High Street fell when it was full of people. Berry was
at the bill-poster's house, a few doors off, waiting for him to come
home, when he heard what seemed like thunder, and then the air was
darkened with dust, "as if an immense quantity of steam had been blown
off," and then all that dismal quarter set up shrieks, which he says
were most dreadful.
[Sidenote: Miss Dickens.]
WATERLOO HOTEL, EDINBURGH, _Wednesday, Nov. 27th, 1861._
Mrs. Bouncer must decidedly come with you to Carlisle. She shall be
received with open arms. Apropos of Carlisle, let me know _when_ you
purpose coming there. We shall be there, please God, on the Saturday in
good time, as I finish at Glasgow on the Friday night.
I have very little notion of the state of affairs here, as Headland
brought no more decisive information from the agents yesterday (he never
_can_ get decisive information from any agents), than "the teeckets air
joost moving reecht and left." I hope this may be taken as satisfactory.
Jenny Lind carried off a world of money from here. Miss Glyn, or Mrs.
Dallas, is playing Lady Macbeth at the theatre, and Mr. Shirley Brooks
is giving two lectures at the Philosophical Society on the House of
Commons and Horace Walpole. Grisi's farewell benefits are (I think) on
my last two nights here.
Gordon dined with me yesterday. He is, if anything, rather better, I
think, than when we last saw him in town. He was immensely pleased to be
with me. I went with him (as his office goes anywhere) right into and
among the ruins of the fallen building yesterday. They were still at
work trying to find two men (brothers), a young girl, and an old woman,
known to be all lying there. On the walls two or three common clocks are
still hanging; one of them, judging from the time at which it stopped,
would seem to have gone for an hour or so after the fall. Great interest
had been taken in a poor linnet in a cage, hanging in the wind and rain
high up against the broken wall. A fireman got it down alive, and great
exultation had been raised over it. One woman, who was dug out unhurt,
staggered into the street, stared all round her, instantly ran away, and
has never been heard of since. It is a most extraordinary sight, and of
course makes a great sensation.
[Sidenote: Miss Dickens.]
WATERLOO HOTEL, EDINBURGH, _Friday, Nov. 29th, 1861._
I think it is my turn to write to you, and I therefore send a brief
despatch, like a telegram, to let you know that in a gale of wind and a
fierce rain, last night, we turned away a thousand people. There was no
getting into the hall, no getting near the hall, no stirring among the
people, no getting out, no possibility of getting rid of them. And yet,
in spite of all that, and of their being steaming wet, they never
flagged for an instant, never made a complaint, and took up the trial
upon their very shoulders, to the last word, in a triumphant roar.
The talk about "Copperfield" rings through the whole place. It is done
again to-morrow night. To-morrow morning I read "Dombey." To-morrow
morning is Grisi's "farewell" morning concert, and last night was her
"farewell" evening concert. Neither she, nor Jenny Lind, nor anything,
nor anybody seems to make the least effect on the draw of the readings.
I lunch with Blackwood to-day. He was at the reading last night; a
capital audience. Young Blackwood has also called here. A very good
young fellow, I think.
[Sidenote: Miss Hogarth.]
CARRICK'S ROYAL HOTEL, GLASGOW, _Tuesday, Dec. 3rd, 1861._
I send you by this post another _Scotsman_. From a paragraph in it, a
letter, and an advertisement, you may be able to form some dim guess of
the scene at Edinburgh last night. Such a pouring of hundreds into a
place already full to the throat, such indescribable confusion, such a
rending and tearing of dresses, and yet such a scene of good humour on
the whole. I never saw the faintest approach to it. While I addressed
the crowd in the room, Gordon addressed the crowd in the street. Fifty
frantic men got up in all parts of the hall and addressed me all at
once. Other frantic men made speeches to the walls. The whole Blackwood
family were borne in on the top of a wave, and landed with their faces
against the front of the platform. I read with the platform crammed with
people. I got them to lie down upon it, and it was like some impossible
tableau or gigantic picnic; one pretty girl in full dress lying on her
side all night, holding on to one of the legs of my table. It was the
most extraordinary sight. And yet from the moment I began to the moment
of my leaving off, they never missed a point, and they ended with a
burst of cheers.