On the very day after I sent the Christmas number to Rockingham, I heard
of your being at Brighton. I should have sent another there, but that I
had a misgiving I might seem to be making too much of it. For, when I
thought of the probability of the Rockingham copy going on to Brighton,
and pictured to myself the advent of two of those very large envelopes
at once at Junction House at breakfast time, a sort of comic modesty
overcame me. I was heartily pleased with the Birmingham audience, which
was a very fine one. I never saw, nor do I suppose anybody ever did,
such an interesting sight as the working people's night. There were two
thousand five hundred of them there, and a more delicately observant
audience it is impossible to imagine. They lost nothing, misinterpreted
nothing, followed everything closely, laughed and cried with most
delightful earnestness, and animated me to that extent that I felt as if
we were all bodily going up into the clouds together. It is an enormous
place for the purpose; but I had considered all that carefully, and I
believe made the most distant person hear as well as if I had been
reading in my own room. I was a little doubtful before I began on the
first night whether it was quite practicable to conceal the requisite
effort; but I soon had the satisfaction of finding that it was, and that
we were all going on together, in the first page, as easily, to all
appearance, as if we had been sitting round the fire.
I am obliged to go out on Monday at five and to dine out; but I will be
at home at any time before that hour that you may appoint. You say you
are only going to stay one night in town; but if you could stay two, and
would dine with us alone on Tuesday, _that_ is the plan that we should
all like best. Let me have one word from you by post on Monday morning.
Few things that I saw, when I was away, took my fancy so much as the
Electric Telegraph, piercing, like a sunbeam, right through the cruel
old heart of the Coliseum at Rome. And on the summit of the Alps, among
the eternal ice and snow, there it was still, with its posts sustained
against the sweeping mountain winds by clusters of great beams--to say
nothing of its being at the bottom of the sea as we crossed the Channel.
With kindest loves,
Ever, my dear Mrs. Watson,
Most faithfully yours.
[Sidenote: Miss Mary Boyle.]