I received your letter--most welcome and full of interest to me--when I
was hard at work finishing "Bleak House." We are always talking of you;
and I had said but the day before, that one of the first things I would
do on my release would be to write to you. To finish the topic of "Bleak
House" at once, I will only add that I like the conclusion very much
and think it _very pretty indeed_. The story has taken extraordinarily,
especially during the last five or six months, when its purpose has been
gradually working itself out. It has retained its immense circulation
from the first, beating dear old "Copperfield" by a round ten thousand
or more. I have never had so many readers. We had a little reading of
the final double number here the night before last, and it made a great
impression I assure you.
We are all extremely well, and like Boulogne very much indeed. I laid
down the rule before we came, that we would know nobody here, and we
_do_ know nobody here. We evaded callers as politely as we could, and
gradually came to be understood and left to ourselves. It is a fine
bracing air, a beautiful open country, and an admirable mixture of town
and country. We live on a green hill-side out of the town, but are in
the town (on foot) in ten minutes. Things are tolerably cheap, and
exceedingly good; the people very cheerful, good-looking, and obliging;
the houses very clean; the distance to London short, and easily
traversed. I think if you came to know the place (which I never did
myself until last October, often as I have been through it), you could
be but in one mind about it.
Charley is still at Leipzig. I shall take him up somewhere on the Rhine,
to bring him home for Christmas, as I come back on my own little tour.
He has been in the Hartz Mountains on a walking tour, and has written a
journal thereof, which he has sent home in portions. It has cost about
as much in postage as would have bought a pair of ponies.
I contemplate starting from here on Monday, the 10th of October;
Catherine, Georgina, and the rest of them will then go home. I shall go
first by Paris and Geneva to Lausanne, for it has a separate place in my
memory. If the autumn should be very fine (just possible after such a
summer), I shall then go by Chamonix and Martigny, over the Simplon to
Milan, thence to Genoa, Leghorn, Pisa, and Naples, thence, I hope, to
Sicily. Back by Bologna, Florence, Rome, Verona, Mantua, etc., to
Venice, and home by Germany, arriving in good time for Christmas Day.
Three nights in Christmas week, I have promised to read in the Town Hall
at Birmingham, for the benefit of a new and admirable institution for
working men projected there. The Friday will be the last night, and I
shall read the "Carol" to two thousand working people, stipulating that
they shall have that night entirely to themselves.
It just occurs to me that I mean to engage, for the two months odd, a
travelling servant. I have not yet got one. If you should happen to be
interested in any good foreigner, well acquainted with the countries and
the languages, who would like such a master, how delighted I should be
to like _him_!
Ever since I have been here, I have been very hard at work, often
getting up at daybreak to write through many hours. I have never had the
least return of illness, thank God, though I was so altered (in a week)
when I came here, that I doubt if you would have known me. I am redder
and browner than ever at the present writing, with the addition of a
rather formidable and fierce moustache. Lowestoft I know, by walking
over there from Yarmouth, when I went down on an exploring expedition,
previous to "Copperfield." It is a fine place. I saw the name
"Blunderstone" on a direction-post between it and Yarmouth, and took it
from the said direction-post for the book. We imagined the Captain's
ecstasies when we saw the birth of his child in the papers. In some of
the descriptions of Chesney Wold, I have taken many bits, chiefly about
trees and shadows, from observations made at Rockingham. I wonder
whether you have ever thought so! I shall hope to hear from you again
soon, and shall not fail to write again before I go away. There seems to
be nothing but "I" in this letter; but "I" know, my dear friend, that
you will be more interested in that letter in the present connection,
than in any other I could take from the alphabet.
Catherine and Georgina send their kindest loves, and more messages than
this little sheet would hold. If I were to give you a hint of what we
feel at the sight of your handwriting, and at the receipt of a word from
yourself about yourself, and the dear boys, and the precious little
girls, I should begin to be sorrowful, which is rather the tendency of
my mind at the close of another long book. I heard from Cerjat two or
three days since. Goff, by-the-bye, lived in this house two years.
Ever, my dear Mrs. Watson,
Yours, with true affection and regard.
[Sidenote: Mr. Peter Cunningham.]