remembrance of the time we have passed together, that perhaps I make more of it than you meant to do. My sailor-boy is at home I was going to write, for the holidays, but I suppose I must substitute " on leave." Under the new regulations, he must not pass out of the Britannia before December. The younger boys are all at school, and coming home this week for the holidays. Mary keeps house, of course, and Katie and her husband surprised us yesterday, and are here now. Charley is holiday-making at Guernsey and Jersey. He has been for some time seeking a partnership in business, and has not yet found one. The matter is in the hands of Mr. Bates, the managing partner in Barings' house, and seems as slow a matter to adjust itself as ever I looked on at. Georgina is, as usual, the general friend and confidante and factotum of the whole party. Your present correspondent read at St. James's Hall in the beginning of the season, to perfectly astounding audiences; but finding that fatigue and excitement very difficult to manage in conjunction with a story, deemed it prudent to leave off reading in high tide and mid-career, the rather by reason of something like neuralgia in the face. At the end of October I begin again; and if you are at Brighton in November, I shall try to see you there. I deliver myself up to Mr. Arthur Smith, and I know it is one of the places for which he has put me down. This is all about me and mine, and next I want to know why you never come to Gad's Hill, and whether you are never coming. The stress I lay on these questions you will infer from the size of the following note of interrogation? Of I am in the constant receipt of news from Lausanne. Mary Boyle, I dare say you have seen and heard more than I have lately. Rumours occasionally reach me of her acting in every English shire incessantly, and getting in a harvest of laurels all the year round. Cavendish I have not seen for a long time, but when I did see him last, it was at Tavistock House, and we dined together jovially. Mention of that locality reminds me that when you DO come here, you will see the pictures looking wonderfully better, and more precious than they ever did in town. Brought together in country light and air, they really are quite a baby collection and very pretty. I direct this to Rockingham, supposing you to be there in this summer-time. If you are as leafy in Northamptonshire as we are in Kent, you are greener than you have been for some years. I hope you may have seen a large-headed photograph with little legs, representing the undersigned, pen in hand, tapping his forehead to knock an idea out. It has just sprung up so abundantly in all the shops, that I am ashamed to go about town looking in at the picture-windows, which is my delight. It seems to me extraordinarily ludicrous, and much more like than the grave portrait done in earnest. It made me laugh when I first came upon it, until I shook again, in open sunlighted Piccadilly. Pray be a good Christian to me, and don't be retributive in measuring out the time that shall pass before you write to me. And believe me ever, Your affectionate and faithful. CCCCXXII. MRS. MILNER GIBSON GAD'S HILL, Monday, 8th July, 1861. MY DEAR MRS. GIBSON, I want very affectionately and earnestly to congratulate you on your eldest daughter's approaching marriage. Up to the moment when Mary told me of it, I had foolishly thought of her always as the pretty little girl with the frank loving face whom I saw last on the sands at Broadstairs. I rubbed my eyes and woke at the words "going to be married," and found I had been walking in my sleep some years. I want to thank you also for thinking of me on the occasion, but I feel that I am better away from it. I should really have a misgiving that I was a sort of shadow on a young marriage, and you will understand me when I say so, and no more. But I shall be with you in the best part of myself, in the warmth of sympathy and friendship and I send my love to the dear girl, and devoutly hope and believe that she will be happy. The face that I remember with perfect accuracy, and could draw here, if I could draw at all, was made to be happy and to make a husband so. I wonder whether you ever travel by railroad in these times! I wish Mary could tempt you to come by any road to this little place. With kind regard to Milner Gibson, believe me ever, Affectionately and faithfully yours. CCCCXXIII. WILKIE COLLINS OFFICE OF "ALL THE YEAR ROUND," MY DEAR WILKIE, I have been going to write to you ever since I received your letter from Whitby, and now I hear from Charley that you are coming home, and must be addressed in the Rue Harley. Let me know whether you will dine here this day week at the usual five. I am at present so addleheaded (having hard Wednesday work in Wills's absence) that I can't write much. I have got the "Copperfield" reading ready for delivery, and am now going to blaze away at "Nickleby," which I don't like half as well. Every morning I "go in" at these marks for two or three hours, and then collapse and do nothing whatever (counting as nothing much cricket and rounders). In my time that curious railroad by the Whitby Moor was so much the more curious, that you were balanced against a counter-weight of water, and that you did it like Blondin. But in these remote days the one inn of Whitby was up a back yard, and oyster-shell grottoes were the only view from the best private room. Likewise, sir, I have posted to Whitby. "Pity the sorrows of a poor old man.” The sun is glaring in at these windows with an amount of ferocity insupportable by one of the landed interest, who lies upon his back with an imbecile hold on grass, from lunch to dinner. Feebleness of mind and head are the result. Ever affectionately. P. S.The boys have multiplied themselves by fifty daily, and have seemed to appear in hosts (especially in the hottest days) round all the corners at Gad's Hill. I call them the prowlers, and each has a distinguishing name attached, derived from his style of prowling. CCCCXXIV. ARTHUR SMITH GAD'S HILL PLACE, HIGHAM BY ROCHESTER, KENT, sorry MY DEAR ARTHUR, I cannot tell you how I am to receive your bad account of your health, or how anxious I shall be to receive a better one as soon as you can possibly give it. If you go away, don't you think in the main you would be better here than anywhere? You know how well you would be nursed, what care we should take of you, and how perfectly quiet and at home you would be, until you become strong enough to take to the Medway. Moreover, I think you would be less anxious about the tour here than away from such association. I would come to Worthing to fetch you, I need n't say, and would take the most careful charge of you. I will write no more about this, because I wish to avoid giving you more to read than can be helped; but I do sincerely believe it would be at once your wisest and least anxious course. As to a long journey into Wales, or any long journey, it would never do. Nice is not to be thought of. Its dust, and its sharp winds (I know it well), towards October are very bad indeed. I send you the inclosed letters, firstly, because I have no circular to answer them with, and, secondly, because I fear I might confuse your arrangements by interfering with the correspondence. I shall hope to have a word from you very soon. I am at work for the tour every day, except my town Wednesdays. Ever faithfully. P. S.Kindest regards from all. CCCCXXV. SIR EDWARD BULWER LYTTON GAD'S HILL PLACE, HIGHAM BY ROCHESTER, Kent, Tuesday, 17th September, 1861. MY DEAR BULWER LYTTON, -I am delighted with your letter of yesterday — delighted with the addition to the length of the story-delighted with your account of it, and your interest in it and even more than delighted by what you say of our working in company. Not one dissentient voice has reached me respecting it. I Through the dullest time of the year we held our circulation most gallantly. And it could not have taken a better hold. saw Forster on Friday (newly returned from thousands of provincial lunatics), and he really was more impressed than I can tell you by what he had seen of it. Just what you say you think it will turn out to be, he was saying, almost in the same words. I am burning to get at the whole story, - and you inflame me in the maddest manner by your references to what I don't know. The exquisite art with which you have changed it, and have overcome the difficulties of the mode of publication, has fairly staggered me. I know pretty well what the difficulties are; and there is no other man who could have done it, I ween. Ever affectionately. CCCCXXVI. JOHN WATKINS GAD'S HILL PLACE, HIGHAM BY ROCHESTer, Kent, DEAR MR. WATKINS, In reply to your kind letter I must explain that I have not yet brought down any of your large photographs of myself, and therefore cannot report upon their effect here. I think the "cartes " are all liked. A general howl of horror greeted the appearance of No. 18, and a riotous attempt was made to throw it out of window. I calmed the popular fury by promising that it should never again be beheld within these walls. I think I mentioned to you when you showed it to me, that I felt persuaded it would not be liked. It has a grim and wasted aspect, and perhaps might be made useful as a portrait of the Ancient Mariner. I feel that I owe you an apology for being (innocently) a difficult subject. When I once excused myself to Ary Scheffer while sitting to him, he received the apology as strictly his due, and said with a vexed air: "At this moment, mon cher Dickens, you look more like an energetic Dutch admiral than anything else;" for which I apologised again. In the hope that the pains you have bestowed upon me will not be thrown away, but that your success will prove of some use to you, believe me, Faithfully yours. |