Sunday I found myself extremely giddy, and extremely uncertain of my sense of touch, both in the left leg and the left hand and arm. I had been taking some slight medicine of Beard's; and immediately wrote to him describing exactly what I felt, and asking him whether those feelings could be referable to the medicine? He promptly replied, "There can be no mistaking them from your exact account. The medicine cannot possibly have caused them. I recognise indisputable symptoms of overwork, and I wish to take you in hand without any loss of time." They have greatly modified since, but he is coming down here this afternoon. To-morrow night at Warrington I shall have but twenty-five more nights to work through. If he can coach me up for them, I do not doubt that I shall get all right again as I did when I became free in America. The foot has given me very little trouble. Yet it is remarkable that it is the left foot too; and that I told Henry Thompson (before I saw his old master Syme) that I had an inward conviction that whatever it was, it was not gout. I also told Beard, a year after the Staplehurst accident, that I was certain that my heart had been fluttered, and wanted a little helping. This the stethoscope confirmed; and considering the immense exertion I am undergoing, and the constant jarring of express trains, the case seems to me quite intelligible. Don't say anything in the Gad's direction about my being a little out of sorts. I have broached the matter of course; but very lightly. Indeed, there is no reason for broaching it otherwise. DCLXXXIV. MR. RUSDEN PRESTON, Thursday, April 22, 1869. MY DEAR SIR,I am finishing my Farewell Readings, — to-night is the seventy-fourth out of one hundred, and have barely time to send you a line to thank you most heartily for yours of the 30th January, and for your great kindness to Alfred and Edward. The latter wrote by the same mail, on behalf of both, expressing the warmest gratitude to you, and reporting himself in the stoutest heart and hope. I never can thank you sufficiently. You will see that the new Ministry has made a decided hit with its Budget, and that in the matter of the Irish Church it has the country at its back. You will also see that the VOL. II. "Reform League" has dissolved itself, indisputably because it became aware that the people did not want it. I think the general feeling in England is a desire to get the Irish Church out of the way of many social reforms, and to have it done with as already done for. I do not in the least believe myself that agrarian Ireland is to be pacified by any such means, or can have it got out of its mistaken head that the land is of right the peasantry's, and that every man who owns land has stolen it and is therefore to be shot. But that is not the question. The clock strikes post-time as I write, and I fear to write more, lest, at this distance from London, I should imperil the next mail. Cordially yours. DCLXXXV. THOMAS CHAPPELL OFFICE OF ALL THE YEAR ROUND," MY DEAR MR. CHAPPELL, I am really touched by your letter. I can most truthfully assure you that your part in the inconvenience of this mishap has given me much more concern than my own; and that if I did not hope to have our London Farewells yet, I should be in a very gloomy condition on your account. Pray do not suppose that you are to blame for my having done a little too much a wild fancy indeed! The simple fact is, that the rapid railway travelling was stretched a hair's breadth too far, and that I ought to have foreseen it. For on the night before the last night of our reading in America, when Dolby was cheering me with a review of the success, and the immediate prospect of the voyage home, I told him, to his astonishment, "I am too far gone, and too worn out, to realise anything but my own exhaustion. Believe me, if I had to read but twice more, instead of once, I could n't do it." We were then just beyond our recent number. And it was the travelling that I had felt throughout. The sharp precautionary remedy of stopping instantly was almost as instantly successful the other day. I told Dr. Watson that he had never seen me knocked out of time, and that he had no idea of the rapidity with which I should come up again. Just as three days' repose on the Atlantic steamer made me, in my altered appearance, the amazement of the captain, so this last week has set me up, thank God, in the most wonderful manner. The sense of exhaustion seems a dream already. Of course I shall train myself carefully, nevertheless, all through the summer and autumn. I beg to send my kind regards to Mrs. Chappell, and I shall hope to see her and you at Teddington in the long bright days. It would disappoint me indeed if a lasting friendship did not come of our business relations. In the spring I trust I shall be able to report to you that I am ready to take my Farewells in London. Of this I am pretty certain: that I never will take them at all, unless with you on your own conditions. With an affectionate regard for you and your brother, believe me always, Very faithfully yours. DCLXXXVI. MR. RUSDEN "ALL THE YEAR ROUND," OFFICE, MY DEAR MR. RUSDEN, Tuesday, May 18, 1869. As I dare say some exaggerated accounts of my having been very ill have reached you, I begin with the true version of the case. I was I dare say I should have been very ill if I had not suddenly stopped my Farewell Readings when there were yet five-andtwenty remaining to be given. I was quite exhausted, and was warned by the doctors to stop (for the time) instantly. Acting on the advice, and going home into Kent for rest, I immediately began to recover, and within a fortnight was in the brilliant condition in which I can now thank God. report myself. I cannot thank you enough for your care of Plorn. quite prepared for his not settling down without a lurch or two. I still hope that he may take to colonial life. In his letter to me about his leaving the station to which he got through your kindness, he expresses his gratitude to you quite as strongly as if he had made a wonderful success, and seems to have acquired no distaste for anything but the one individual of whom he wrote that betrayed letter. But knowing the boy, I want to try him fully. You know all our public news, such as it is, at least as well as I do. Many people here (of whom I am one) do not like the look of American matters. What I most fear is that the perpetual bluster of a party in the States will at last set the patient British back up. And if our people begin to bluster too, and there should come into existence an exasperating war-party on both sides, there will be great danger of a daily widening breach. The first shriek of the first engine that traverses the San Francisco Railroad from end to end will be a death warning to the disciples of Jo Smith. The moment the Mormon bubble gets touched by neighbours it will break. Similarly, the red man's course is very nearly run. A scalped stoker is the outward and visible sign of his utter extermination. Not Quakers enough to reach from here to Jerusalem will save him by the term of a single year. I don't know how it may be with you, but it is the fashion here to be absolutely certain that the Emperor of the French is fastened by Providence and the fates on a throne of adamant expressly constructed for him since the foundations of the universe were laid. He knows better, and so do the police of Paris, and both powers must be grimly entertained by the resolute British belief, knowing what they have known, and doing what they have done through the last ten years. What Victor Hugo calls "the drop-curtain, behind which is constructing the great last act of the French Revolution," has been a little shaken at the bottom lately, however. One seems to see the feet of a rather large chorus getting ready. I inclose a letter for Plorn to your care, not knowing how to address him. Forgive me for so doing (I write to Alfred direct), and believe me, my dear Mr. Rusden, Yours faithfully and much obliged. DCLXXXVII. LORD JOHN RUSSELL GAD'S HILL PLACE, HIGHAM BY ROCHESTER, Kent, MY DEAR LORD RUSSELL, I have delayed answering your kind letter, in order that you might get home before I wrote. I am happy to report myself quite well again, and I shall be charmed to come to Pembroke Lodge on any day that may be most convenient to Lady Russell and yourself after the middle of June. You gratify me beyond expression by your reference to the Liverpool dinner. I made the allusion to you with all my heart at least, and it was most magnificently received. I beg to send my kind regard to Lady Russell, with many thanks for her remembrance, and am ever, My dear Lord Russell, faithfully yours. DCLXXXVIII. W. H. WILLS OFFICE OF "ALL THE YEAR ROUND," MY DEAR WILLS, - At a great meeting 1 compounded of your late "Chief," Charley, Morley, Grieve, and Telbin, your letter was read to-day, and a very sincere record of regret and thanks was placed on the books of the great institution. Many thanks for the suggestion about the condition of churches. I am so aweary of church questions of all sorts that I am not quite clear as to tackling this. But I am turning it in my mind. I am afraid of two things: firstly, that the thing would not be picturesquely done; secondly, that a general cucumber-coolness would pervade the mind of our circulation. Nothing new here but a speaking-pipe, a post-box, and a mouldy smell from some forgotten crypt-an extra mouldy smell, mouldier than of yore. Lillie sniffs, projects one eye into nineteen hundred and ninety-nine, and does no more. I have been to Chadwick's, to look at a new kind of cottage he has built (very ingenious and cheap). We were all much disappointed last Saturday afternoon by a neighbouring fire being only at a carpenter's, and not at Drury Lane Theatre. Ellen's 2 child having an eye nearly poked out by a young friend, and being asked whether the young friend was not very sorry afterwards, replied, "No. She was n't. was." London execrable. P. S. Love to Mrs. Wills. Ever affectionately yours. I 1 Of the Guild of Literature and Art. 2 The housekeeper at the office. |