I like the second little poem very much indeed, and think (as you do)
that it is a great advance upon the first. Please to note that I make it
a rule to pay for everything that is inserted in "Household Words,"
holding it to be a part of my trust to make my fellow-proprietors
understand that they have no right to unrequited labour. Therefore, when
Wills (who has been ill and is gone for a holiday) does his invariable
spiriting gently, don't make Katey's case different from Adelaide
Procter's.
I am afraid there is no possibility of my reading Dorsetshirewards. I
have made many conditional promises thus: "I am very much occupied; but
if I read at all, I will read for your institution in such an order on
my list." Edinburgh, which is No. 1, I have been obliged to put as far
off as next Christmas twelvemonth. Bristol stands next. The working men
at Preston come next. And so, if I were to go out of the record and read
for your people, I should bring such a house about my ears as would
shake "Little Dorrit" out of my head.
Being in town last Saturday, I went to see Robson in a burlesque of
"Medea." It is an odd but perfectly true testimony to the extraordinary
power of his performance (which is of a very remarkable kind indeed),
that it points the badness of ----'s acting in a most singular manner,
by bringing out what she might do and does not. The scene with Jason is
perfectly terrific; and the manner in which the comic rage and jealousy
does not pitch itself over the floor at the stalls is in striking
contrast to the manner in which the tragic rage and jealousy does. He
has a frantic song and dagger dance, about ten minutes long altogether,
which has more passion in it than ---- could express in fifty years.
We all unite in kindest love to Miss Macready and all your dear ones;
not forgetting my godson, to whom I send his godfather's particular love
twice over. The Hammy boy is so brown that you would scarcely know him.
Ever, my dear Macready, affectionately yours.
[Sidenote: Mr. W. H. Wills.]