I thought to have been at Rockingham long ago! It seems a century since
I, standing in big boots on the Haymarket stage, saw you come into a box
upstairs and look down on the humbled Bobadil, since then I have had the
kindest of notes from you, since then the finest of venison, and yet I
have not seen the Rockingham flowers, and they are withering I daresay.
But we have acted at Manchester, Liverpool, Birmingham, Edinburgh, and
Glasgow; and the business of all this--and graver and heavier daily
occupation in going to see a dying sister at Hornsey--has so worried me
that I have hardly had an hour, far less a week. I shall never be quite
happy, in a theatrical point of view, until you have seen me play in an
English version of the French piece, "L'Homme Blase," which fairly
turned the head of Glasgow last Thursday night as ever was; neither
shall I be quite happy, in a social point of view, until I have been to
Rockingham again. When the first event will come about Heaven knows. The
latter will happen about the end of the November fogs and wet weather.
For am I not going to Broadstairs now, to walk about on the sea-shore
(why don't you bring your rosy children there?) and think what is to be
done for Christmas! An idea occurs to me all at once. I must come down
and read you that book before it's published. Shall it be a bargain?
Were you all in Switzerland? I don't believe _I_ ever was. It is such a
dream now. I wonder sometimes whether I ever disputed with a Haldimand;
whether I ever drank mulled wine on the top of the Great St. Bernard, or
was jovial at the bottom with company that have stolen into my
affection; whether I ever was merry and happy in that valley on the Lake
of Geneva, or saw you one evening (when I didn't know you) walking down
among the green trees outside Elysee, arm-in-arm with a gentleman in a
white hat. I am quite clear that there is no foundation for these
visions. But I should like to go somewhere, too, and try it all over
again. I don't know how it is, but the ideal world in which my lot is
cast has an odd effect on the real one, and makes it chiefly precious
for such remembrances. I get quite melancholy over them sometimes,
especially when, as now, those great piled-up semicircles of bright
faces, at which I have lately been looking--all laughing, earnest and
intent--have faded away like dead people. They seem a ghostly moral of
everything in life to me.
Kate sends her best love, in which Georgy would as heartily unite, I
know, but that she is already gone to Broadstairs with the children. We
think of following on Saturday morning, but that depends on my poor
sister. Pray give my most cordial remembrances to Watson, and tell him
they include a great deal. I meant to have written you a letter. I don't
know what this is. There is no word for it. So, if you will still let me
owe you one, I will pay my debt, on the smallest encouragement, from the
seaside. Here, there, and elsewhere, I am, with perfect truth, believe
me,
Very faithfully yours.
[Sidenote: Mr. W. C. Macready.]