as yet make out is, that my perfect freedom from bondage, and at any moment to go on or leave off, or otherwise do as I like, is the only safe position to occupy. All Again; there are two apparently irreconcilable contrasts here. Down below in this hotel every night are the bar loungers, dram drinkers, drunkards, swaggerers, loafers, that one might find in a Boucicault play. Within half an hour is Cambridge, where a delightful domestic life-simple, self-respectful, cordial, and affectionate - is seen in an admirable aspect. New England is primitive and puritanical. All about and around it is a puddle of mixed human mud, with no such quality in it. Perhaps I may in time sift out some tolerably intelligible whole, but I certainly have not done so yet. It is a good sign, may be, that it all seems immensely more difficult to understand than it was when I was here before. Felton left two daughters. I have only seen the eldest, a very sensible, frank, pleasant girl of eight-and-twenty, perhaps, rather like him in the face. A striking-looking daughter of Hawthorne's (who is also dead) came into my room last night. The day has slipped on to three o'clock, and I must get up "Dombey " for to-night. Hence this sudden break off. Best love to Mamie, and to Katie and Charley Collins. DXCVII. JOHN FORSTER NEW YORK, January 9, 1868. Each evening an enormous ferry-boat will convey me and my state-carriage (not to mention half a dozen wagons and any number of people and a few score of horses) across the river to Brooklyn, and will bring me back again. The sale of tickets there was an amazing scene. The noble army of speculators are now furnished (this is literally true, and I am quite serious) each man with a straw mattress, a little bag of bread and meat, two blankets, and a bottle of whiskey. With this outfit, they lie down in line on the pavement the whole of the night before the tickets are sold: generally taking up their position at about ten. It being severely cold at Brooklyn, they made an immense bonfire in the street. a narrow street of wooden houses which the police turned out to extinguish. A general fight then took place; from which the people farthest off in the line rushed bleeding when they saw any chance of ousting others He was immediately saluted "So Charley has let you "How is he, Dolby?" "Look alive, Dolby!" nearer the door, put their mattresses in the spots so gained, and held on by the iron rails. At 8 in the morning Dolby appeared with the tickets in a portmanteau. with a roar of "Halloa! Dolby!" have the carriage, has he, Dolby ? "Don't drop the tickets, Dolby!" etc., etc., etc., in the midst of which he proceeded to business, and concluded (as usual) by giving universal dissatisfaction. He is now going off upon a little journey to look over the ground and cut back again. This little journey (to Chicago) is twelve hundred miles on end, by railway, besides the back again! DXCVIII. WILKIE COLLINS WESTMINSTER HOTEL, NEW York, MY DEAR WILKIE, — First, of the play. I am truly delighted to learn that it made so great a success, and I hope I may yet see it on the Adelphi boards. You have had a world of trouble and work with it, but I hope will be repaid in some degree by the pleasure of a triumph. Even for the alteration at the end of the fourth act (of which you tell me in your letter received yesterday), I was fully prepared, for I COULD NOT see the original effect in the reading of the play, and COULD NOT make it go. I agree with Webster in thinking it best that Obenreizer should die on the stage; but no doubt that point is disposed of. In reading the play before the representation I felt that it was too long, and that there was a good deal of unnecessary explanation. Those points are, no doubt, disposed of too by this time. We shall do nothing with it on this side. Pirates are producing their own wretched versions in all directions, thus (as Wills would say) anticipating and glutting "the market." registered one play as the property of Ticknor and Fields, American citizens. But, besides that the law on the point is extremely doubtful, the manager of the Museum Theatre, Boston, instantly announced his version. (You may suppose what it is and how it is done, when I tell you that it was playing within ten days of the arrival out of the Christmas number.) Thereupon, Ticknor and Fields gave him notice that he must n't 1 No Thoroughfare. play it. Unto which he replied, that he meant to play it and would play it. Of course he knew very well that if an injunction were applied for against him, there would be an immediate howl against my persecution of an innocent, and he played it. Then the noble host of pirates rushed in, and it is being done, in some mangled form or other, everywhere. It touches me to read what you write of your poor mother. But, of course, at her age, each winter counts heavily. Do give her my love, and tell her that I asked you about her. I am going on here at the same great rate, but am always counting the days that lie between me and home. I got through the first fourth of my readings on Friday, January 3. I leave for two readings at Philadelphia this evening. Being at Boston last Sunday, I took it into my head to go over the medical school, and survey the holes and corners in which that extraordinary murder was done by Webster. There was the furnace stinking horribly, as if the dismembered pieces were still inside it — and there are all the grim spouts, and sinks, and chemical appliances, and what not. At dinner, afterwards, Longfellow told me a terrific story. He dined with Webster within a year of the murder, one of a party of ten or twelve. As they sat at their wine, Webster suddenly ordered the lights to be turned out, and a bowl of some burning mineral to be placed on the table, that the guests might see how ghostly it made them look. As each man stared at all the rest in the weird light, all were horrified to see Webster with a rope round his neck, holding it up, over the bowl, with his head jerked on one side, and his tongue lolled out, representing a man being hanged! Poking into his life and character, I find (what I would have staked my head upon) that he was always a cruel man. So no more at present from, My dear Wilkie, yours ever affectionately. DXCIX. MISS HOGARTH WESTMINSTER HOTEL, NEW YORK, As I am off to Philadelphia this evening, I may as well post my letter here. I have scarcely a word of news. My cold steadily refuses to leave me; but otherwise I am as right as one can hope to be under this heavy work. My New York readings are over (except four farewell nights in April), and I look forward to the relief of being out of my hardest hall. Last Friday night, though it was only "Nickleby" and " Boots," I was again dead beat at the end, and was once more laid upon a sofa. But the faintness went off after a little while. We have now cold, bright, frosty weather, without snow the best weather for me. Having been in great trepidation about the play, I am correspondingly elated by the belief that it really is a success. No doubt the unnecessary explanations will have been taken out, and the flatness of the last act fetched up. At some points I could have done wonders to it, in the way of screwing it up sharply, and picturesquely, if I could have rehearsed it. Your account of the first night interested me immensely, but I was afraid to open the letter until Dolby rushed in with the opened "Times." On Wednesday I come back here for my four church readings at Brooklyn. Each evening an enormous ferry-boat will convey me and my state-carriage (not to mention half a dozen wagons, and any number of people, and a few score of horses) across the river, and will bring me back again. The sale of tickets there was an amazing scene. The noble army of speculators are now furnished (this is literally true, and I am quite serious), each man with a straw mattress, a little bag of bread and meat, two blankets, and a bottle of whiskey. With this outfit they lie down in line on the pavement the whole night before the tickets are sold, generally taking up their position at about ten. It being severely cold at Brooklyn, they made an immense bonfire in the streeta narrow street of wooden houses! - which the police turned out to extinguish. A general fight then took place, out of which the people farthest off in the line rushed bleeding when they saw a chance of displacing others near the door, and put their mattresses in those places, and then held on by the iron rails. At eight in the morning Dolby appeared with the tickets in a portmanteau. He was immediately saluted with a roar of "Halloa, Dolby!" "So Charley has let you have the carriage, has he, Dolby!" "How is he, Dolby!" "Don't drop the tickets, Dolby!" "Look alive, Dolby!" etc., etc., etc., in the midst of which he proceeded to business, and concluded (as usual) by giving universal dissatisfaction. He is now going off upon a little journey "to look over the ground and cut back again." This little journey (to Chicago) is fifteen hundred miles on end, by railway, and back again! We have an excellent gas-man, who is well up to that department. We have enlarged the large staff by another clerk; yet even now the preparation of such an immense number of new tickets constantly, and the keeping and checking of the accounts, keep them hard at it. And they get so oddly divided! Kelly is at Philadelphia, another man at Baltimore, two others are stamping tickets at the top of this house, another is cruising over New England, and Osgood will come on duty to-morrow (when Dolby starts off) to pick me up after the reading, and take me to the hotel, and mount guard over me, and bring me back here. You see that even such wretched domesticity as Dolby and self by a fireside is broken up under these conditions. Dolby has been twice poisoned, and Osgood once. Morgan's sharpness has discovered the cause. When the snow is deep upon the ground, and the partridges cannot get their usual food, they eat something (I don't know what, if anybody does) which does not poison them, but which poisons the people who eat them. The symptoms, which last some twelve hours, are violent sickness, cold perspiration, and the formation of some detestable mucus in the stomach. You may infer that partridges have been banished from our bill of fare. The appearance of our sufferers was lamentable in the extreme. Did I tell you that the severity of the weather and the heat of the intolerable furnaces dry the hair and break the nails of strangers? There is not a complete nail in the whole British suite, and my hair cracks again when I brush it. (I am losing my hair with great rapidity, and what I don't lose is getting very grey.) The Cuba will bring this. She has a jolly new captain – Moody, of the Java - and her people rushed into the reading, the other night, captain-headed, as if I were their peculiar property. Please God, I shall come home in her, in my old cabin ; leaving here on the 22d of April, and finishing my eighty-fourth reading on the previous night! It is likely enough that I shall read and go straight on board. I think this is all my poor stock of intelligence. By the bye, on the last Sunday in the old year, I lost my old year's |