The Letters of Charles Dickens Volume Ii Part 48

[Sidenote: The Hon. Mrs. Watson.]

OFFICE OF "ALL THE YEAR ROUND,"

_Tuesday, Nov. 5th, 1867._

MY DEAR MRS. WATSON,

A thousand thanks for your kind letter, and many congratulations on your having successfully attained a dignity which I never allow to be mentioned in my presence. Charley's children are instructed from their tenderest months only to know me as "Wenerables," which they sincerely believe to be my name, and a kind of t.i.tle that I have received from a grateful country.

Alas! I cannot have the pleasure of seeing you before I presently go to Liverpool. Every moment of my time is preoccupied. But I send you my sincere love, and am always truthful to the dear old days, and the memory of one of the dearest friends I ever loved.

Affectionately yours.

[Sidenote: Miss d.i.c.kens.]

ABOARD THE "CUBA," QUEENSTOWN HARBOUR, _Sunday, Nov. 10th, 1867._

MY DEAREST MAMIE,

We arrived here at seven this morning, and shall probably remain awaiting our mail, until four or five this afternoon. The weather in the pa.s.sage here was delightful, and we had scarcely any motion beyond that of the screw.

We are nearly but not quite full of pa.s.sengers. At table I sit next the captain, on his right, on the outside of the table and close to the door. My little cabin is big enough for everything but getting up in and going to bed in. As it has a good window which I can leave open all night, and a door which I can set open too, it suits my chief requirements of it--plenty of air--admirably. On a writing-slab in it, which pulls out when wanted, I now write in a majestic manner.

Many of the pa.s.sengers are American, and I am already on the best terms with nearly all the ship.

We began our voyage yesterday a very little while after you left us, which was a great relief. The wind is S.E. this morning, and if it would keep so we should go along n.o.bly. My dearest love to your aunt, and also to Katie and all the rest. I am in very good health, thank G.o.d, and as well as possible.

[Sidenote: Miss Hogarth.]

ABOARD THE "CUBA," FIVE DAYS OUT, _Wednesday, Nov. 13th, 1867._

MY DEAREST GEORGY,

As I wrote to Mamie last, I now write to you, or mean to do it, if the motion of the ship will let me.

We are very nearly halfway to-day. The weather was favourable for us until yesterday morning, when we got a head-wind which still stands by us. We have rolled and pitched, of course; but on the whole have been wonderfully well off. I have had headache and have felt faint once or twice, _but have not been sick at all_. My s.p.a.cious cabin is very noisy at night, as the most important working of the ship goes on outside my window and over my head; but it is very airy, and if the weather be bad and I can't open the window, I can open the door all night. If the weather be fine (as it is now), I can open both door and window, and write between them. Last night, I got a foot-bath under the dignified circ.u.mstances of sitting on a camp-stool in my cabin, and having the bath (and my feet) in the pa.s.sage outside. The officers' quarters are close to me, and, as I know them all, I get reports of the weather and the way we are making when the watch is changed, and I am (as I usually am) lying awake. The motion of the screw is at its slightest vibration in my particular part of the ship. The silent captain, reported gruff, is a very good fellow and an honest fellow. Kelly has been ill all the time, and not of the slightest use, and is ill now. Scott always cheerful, and useful, and ready; a better servant for the kind of work there never can have been. Young Lowndes has been fearfully sick until mid-day yesterday. His cabin is pitch dark, and full of blackbeetles. He shares mine until nine o'clock at night, when Scott carries him off to bed. He also dines with me in my magnificent chamber. This pa.s.sage in winter time cannot be said to be an enjoyable excursion, but I certainly am making it under the best circ.u.mstances. (I find Dolby to have been enormously popular on board, and to have known everybody and gone everywhere.)

So much for my news, except that I have been constantly reading, and find that "Pierra" that Mrs. Hogge sent me by Katie to be a very remarkable book, not only for its grim and horrible story, but for its suggestion of wheels within wheels, and sad human mysteries. Baker's second book not nearly so good as his first, but his first antic.i.p.ated it.

We hope to get to Halifax either on Sunday or Monday, and to Boston either on Tuesday or Wednesday. The gla.s.s is rising high to-day, and everybody on board is hopeful of an easterly wind.

[Sidenote: Miss Hogarth.]

_Sat.u.r.day, 16th._

Last Thursday afternoon a heavy gale of wind sprang up and blew hard until dark, when it seemed to lull. But it then came on again with great violence, and blew tremendously all night. The noise, and the rolling and plunging of the ship, were awful. n.o.body on board could get any sleep, and numbers of pa.s.sengers were rolled out of their berths. Having a side-board to mine to keep me in, like a baby, I lay still. But it was a dismal night indeed, and it was curious to see the change it had made in the faces of all the pa.s.sengers yesterday. It cannot be denied that these winter crossings are very trying and startling; while the personal discomfort of not being able to wash, and the miseries of getting up and going to bed, with what small means there are all sliding, and sloping, and slopping about, are really in their way distressing.

This forenoon we made Cape Race, and are now running along at full speed with the land beside us. Kelly still useless, and positively declining to show on deck. Scott, with an eight-day-old moustache, more super like than ever. My foot (I hope from walking on the boarded deck) in a very shy condition to-day, and rather painful. I shaved this morning for the first time since Liverpool; dodging at the gla.s.s, very much like Fechter's imitation of ----. The white cat that came off with us in the tender a general favourite. She belongs to the daughter of a Southerner, returning with his wife and family from a two-years' tour in Europe.

_Sunday, 17th._

At four o'clock this morning we got into bad weather again, and the state of things at breakfast-time was unutterably miserable. Nearly all the pa.s.sengers in their berths--no possibility of standing on deck--sickness and groans--impracticable to pa.s.s a cup of tea from one pair of hands to another. It has slightly moderated since (between two and three in the afternoon I write), and the sun is shining, but the rolling of the ship surpa.s.ses all imagination or description.

We expect to be at Halifax about an hour after midnight, and this letter shall be posted there, to make certain of catching the return mail on Wednesday. Boston is only thirty hours from Halifax.

Best love to Mamie, and to Katie and Charley. I know you will report me and my love to Forster and Mrs. Forster. I write with great difficulty, wedged up in a corner, and having my heels on the paper as often as the pen. Kelly worse than ever, and Scott better than ever.

My desk and I have just arisen from the floor.

[Sidenote: Miss d.i.c.kens.]

PARKER HOUSE, BOSTON, _Thursday, Nov. 21st, 1867._

I arrived here on Tuesday night, after a very slow pa.s.sage from Halifax against head-winds. All the tickets for the first four readings here (all yet announced) were sold immediately on their being issued.

You know that I begin on the 2nd of December with "Carol" and "Trial"?

Shall be heartily glad to begin to count the readings off.

This is an immense hotel, with all manner of white marble public pa.s.sages and public rooms. I live in a corner high up, and have a hot and cold bath in my bedroom (communicating with the sitting-room), and comforts not in existence when I was here before. The cost of living is enormous, but happily we can afford it. I dine to-day with Longfellow, Emerson, Holmes, and Aga.s.siz. Longfellow was here yesterday. Perfectly white in hair and beard, but a remarkably handsome and notable-looking man. The city has increased enormously in five-and-twenty years. It has grown more mercantile--is like Leeds mixed with Preston, and flavoured with New Brighton; but for smoke and fog you subst.i.tute an exquisitely bright light air. I found my rooms beautifully decorated (by Mrs.

Fields) with choice flowers, and set off by a number of good books. I am not much persecuted by people in general, as Dolby has happily made up his mind that the less I am exhibited for nothing the better. So our men sit outside the room door and wrestle with mankind.

We had speech-making and singing in the saloon of the _Cuba_ after the last dinner of the voyage. I think I have acquired a higher reputation from drawing out the captain, and getting him to take the second in "All's Well," and likewise in "There's not in the wide world" (your parent taking first), than from anything previously known of me on these sh.o.r.es. I hope the effect of these achievements may not dim the l.u.s.tre of the readings. We also sang (with a Chicago lady, and a strong-minded woman from I don't know where) "Auld Lang Syne," with a tender melancholy, expressive of having all four been united from our cradles.

The more dismal we were, the more delighted the company were. Once (when we paddled i' the burn) the captain took a little cruise round the compa.s.s on his own account, touching at the "Canadian Boat Song," and taking in supplies at "Jubilate," "Seas between us braid ha' roared,"

and roared like the seas themselves. Finally, I proposed the ladies in a speech that convulsed the stewards, and we closed with a brilliant success. But when you dine with Mr. Forster, ask him to read to you how we got on at church in a heavy sea. Hillard has just been in and sent his love "to those dear girls." He has grown much older. He is now District Attorney of the State of Ma.s.sachusetts, which is a very good office. Best love to your aunt and Katie, and Charley and all his house, and all friends.

[Sidenote: Miss Hogarth.]

PARKER HOUSE, BOSTON, _Monday, Nov. 25th, 1867._

I cannot remember to whom I wrote last, but it will not much matter if I make a mistake; this being generally to report myself so well, that I am constantly chafing at not having begun to-night instead of this night week.

The tickets being all sold for next week, and no other announcement being yet made, there is nothing new in that way to tell of. Dolby is over at New York, where we are at our wits' end how to keep tickets out of the hands of speculators. Morgan is staying with me; came yesterday to breakfast, and goes home to-morrow. Fields and Mrs. Fields also dined yesterday. She is a very nice woman, with a rare relish for humour and a most contagious laugh. The Bostonians having been duly informed that I wish to be quiet, really leave me as much so as I should be in Manchester or Liverpool. This I cannot expect to last elsewhere; but it is a most welcome relief here, as I have all the readings to get up. The people are perfectly kind and perfectly agreeable. If I stop to look in at a shop-window, a score of pa.s.sers-by stop; and after I begin to read, I cannot expect in the natural course of things to get off so easily.

But I every day take from seven to ten miles in peace.

Communications about readings incessantly come in from all parts of the country. We take no offer whatever, lying by with our plans until after the first series in New York, and designing, if we make a furore there, to travel as little as possible. I fear I shall have to take Canada at the end of the whole tour. They make such strong representations from Montreal and Toronto, and from Nova Scotia--represented by St. John's and Halifax--of the slight it would be to them, if I wound up with the States, that I am shaken.

It is sad to see Longfellow's house (the house in which his wife was burnt) with his young daughters in it, and the shadow of that terrible story. The young undergraduates of Cambridge (he is a professor there) have made a representation to him that they are five hundred strong, and cannot get one ticket. I don't know what is to be done for them; I suppose I must read there somehow. We are all in the clouds until I shall have broken ground in New York, as to where readings will be possible and where impossible.

Aga.s.siz is one of the most natural and jovial of men. I go out a-visiting as little as I can, but still have to dine, and what is worse, sup pretty often. Socially, I am (as I was here before) wonderfully reminded of Edinburgh when I had many friends in it.

Your account and Mamie's of the return journey to London gave me great pleasure. I was delighted with your report of Wilkie, and not surprised by Chappell's coming out gallantly.