The Letters of Charles Dickens Volume Ii Part 53

PHILADELPHIA, _Same Night._

We came on here through a snowstorm all the way, but up to time. f.a.n.n.y Kemble (who begins to read shortly) is coming to "Marigold" and "Trial"

to-morrow night. I have written her a note, telling her that if it will at all a.s.sist _her_ movements to know _mine_, my list is at her service. Probably I shall see her to-morrow. Tell Mamie (to whom I will write next), with my love, that I found her letter of the 10th of this month awaiting me here. The _Siberia_ that brought it is a new Cunarder, and made an unusually slow pa.s.sage out. Probably because it would be dangerous to work new machinery too fast on the Atlantic.

_Thursday, 30th._

My cold still sticks to me. The heat of the railway cars and their unventilated condition invariably brings it back when I think it going.

This morning my head is as stuffed and heavy as ever! A superb sledge and four horses have been offered me for a ride, but I am afraid to take it, lest I should make the "true American catarrh" worse, and should get hoa.r.s.e. So I am going to give Osgood another "breather" on foot instead.

The communication with New York is not interrupted, so we consider the zealous Dolby all right. You may imagine what his work is, when you hear that he goes three times to every place we visit. Firstly, to look at the hall, arrange the numberings, and make five hundred acquaintances, whom he immediately calls by their christian-names; secondly, to sell the tickets--a very nice business, requiring great tact and temper; thirdly, with me. He will probably turn up at Washington next Sunday, but only for a little while; for as soon as I am on the platform on Monday night, he will start away again, probably to be seen no more until we pa.s.s through New York in the middle of February.

[Sidenote: Mr. Samuel Cartwright]

BALTIMORE, _Wednesday, Jan. 29th, 1868._

MY DEAR CARTWRIGHT,

As I promised to report myself to you from this side of the Atlantic, and as I have some leisure this morning, I am going to lighten my conscience by keeping my word.

I am going on at a great pace and with immense success. Next week, at Washington, I shall, please G.o.d, have got through half my readings. The remaining half are all arranged, and they will carry me into the third week of April. It is very hard work, but it is brilliantly paid. The changes that I find in the country generally (this place is the least changed of any I have yet seen) exceed my utmost expectations. I had been in New York a couple of days before I began to recognise it at all; and the handsomest part of Boston was a black swamp when I saw it five-and-twenty years ago. Considerable advances, too, have been made socially. Strange to say, the railways and railway arrangements (both exceedingly defective) seem to have stood still while all other things have been moving.

One of the most comical spectacles I have ever seen in my life was "church," with a heavy sea on, in the saloon of the Cunard steamer coming out. The officiating minister, an extremely modest young man, was brought in between two big stewards, exactly as if he were coming up to the scratch in a prize-fight. The ship was rolling and pitching so, that the two big stewards had to stop and watch their opportunity of making a dart at the reading-desk with their reverend charge, during which pause he held on, now by one steward and now by the other, with the feeblest expression of countenance and no legs whatever. At length they made a dart at the wrong moment, and one steward was immediately beheld alone in the extreme perspective, while the other and the reverend gentleman _held on by the mast_ in the middle of the saloon--which the latter embraced with both arms, as if it were his wife. All this time the congregation was breaking up into sects and sliding away; every sect (as in nature) pounding the other sect. And when at last the reverend gentleman had been tumbled into his place, the desk (a loose one, put upon the dining-table) deserted from the church bodily, and went over to the purser. The scene was so extraordinarily ridiculous, and was made so much more so by the exemplary gravity of all concerned in it, that I was obliged to leave before the service began.

This is one of the places where Butler carried it with so high a hand in the war, and where the ladies used to spit when they pa.s.sed a Northern soldier. It still wears, I fancy, a look of sullen remembrance. (The ladies are remarkably handsome, with an Eastern look upon them, dress with a strong sense of colour, and make a brilliant audience.) The ghost of slavery haunts the houses; and the old, untidy, incapable, lounging, shambling black serves you as a free man. Free of course he ought to be; but the stupendous absurdity of making him a voter glares out of every roll of his eye, stretch of his mouth, and b.u.mp of his head. I have a strong impression that the race must fade out of the States very fast.

It never can hold its own against a striving, restless, shifty people.

In the penitentiary here, the other day, in a room full of all blacks (too dull to be taught any of the work in hand), was one young brooding fellow, very like a black rhinoceros. He sat glowering at life, as if it were just endurable at dinner time, until four of his fellows began to sing, most unmelodiously, a part song. He then set up a dismal howl, and pounded his face on a form. I took him to have been rendered quite desperate by having learnt anything. I send my kind regard to Mrs.

Cartwright, and sincerely hope that she and you have no new family distresses or anxieties. My standing address is the Westminster Hotel, Irving Place, New York City. And I am always, my dear Cartwright,

Cordially yours.

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

PHILADELPHIA, _Friday, Jan. 31st, 1868._

Since writing to your aunt I have received yours of the 7th, and am truly glad to have the last news of you confirmed by yourself.

From a letter Wilkie has written to me, it seems there can be no doubt that the "No Thoroughfare" drama is a real, genuine, and great success.

It is drawing immensely, and seems to "go" with great effect and applause.

"Doctor Marigold" here last night (for the first time) was an immense success, and all Philadelphia is going to rush at once for tickets for the two Philadelphian farewells the week after next. The tickets are to be sold to-morrow, and great excitement is antic.i.p.ated in the streets.

Dolby not being here, a clerk will sell, and will probably wish himself dead before he has done with it.

It appears to me that Chorley[22] writes to you on the legacy question because he wishes you to understand that there is no danger of his changing his mind, and at the bottom I descry an honest desire to pledge himself as strongly as possible. You may receive it in that better spirit, or I am much mistaken. Tell your aunt, with my best love, that I wrote to Chauncey weeks ago, in answer to a letter from him. I am now going out in a sleigh (and four) with unconceivable dignity and grandeur; mentioning which reminds me that I am informed by trusty scouts that ---- intends to waylay me at Washington, and may even descend upon me in the train to-morrow.

Best love to Katie, the two Charleys, and all.

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

WASHINGTON, _Tuesday, Feb. 4th, 1868._

I began here last night with great success. The hall being small, the prices were raised to three dollars each ticket. The audience was a superior one, composed of the foremost public men and their families. At the end of the "Carol" they gave a great break out, and applauded, I really believe, for five minutes. You would suppose them to be Manchester shillings instead of Washington half-sovereigns. Immense enthusiasm.

A devoted adherent in this place (an Englishman) had represented to Dolby that if I were taken to an hotel here it would be impossible to secure me a minute's rest, and he undertook to get one Wheleker, a German, who keeps a little Verey's, to furnish his private dining-rooms for the ill.u.s.trious traveller's reception. Accordingly here we are, on the first and second floor of a small house, with no one else in it but our people, a French waiter, and a very good French cuisine. Perfectly private, in the city of all the world (I should say) where the hotels are intolerable, and privacy the least possible, and quite comfortable.

"Wheleker's Restaurant" is our rather undignified address for the present week.

I dined (against my rules) with Charles Sumner on Sunday, he having been an old friend of mine. Mr. Secretary Staunton (War Minister) was there.

He is a man of a very remarkable memory, and famous for his acquaintance with the minutest details of my books. Give him any pa.s.sage anywhere, and he will instantly cap it and go on with the context. He was commander-in-chief of all the Northern forces concentrated here, and never went to sleep at night without first reading something from my books, which were always with him. I put him through a pretty severe examination, but he was better up than I was.

The gas was very defective indeed last night, and I began with a small speech, to the effect that I must trust to the brightness of their faces for the illumination of mine; this was taken greatly. In the "Carol," a most ridiculous incident occurred all of a sudden. I saw a dog look out from among the seats into the centre aisle, and look very intently at me. The general attention being fixed on me, I don't think anybody saw the dog; but I felt so sure of his turning up again and barking, that I kept my eye wandering about in search of him. He was a very comic dog, and it was well for me that I was reading a very comic part of the book.

But when he bounced out into the centre aisle again, in an entirely new place (still looking intently at me) and tried the effect of a bark upon my proceedings, I was seized with such a paroxysm of laughter, that it communicated itself to the audience, and we roared at one another loud and long.

The President has sent to me twice, and I am going to see him to-morrow.

He has a whole row for his family every night. Dolby rejoined his chief yesterday morning, and will probably remain in the august presence until Sunday night. He and Osgood, "training for the match," are ludicrous beyond belief. I saw them just now coming up a street, each trying to pa.s.s the other, and immediately fled. Since I have been writing this, they have burst in at the door and sat down on the floor to blow. Dolby is now writing at a neighbouring table, with his bald head smoking as if he were on fire. Kelly (his great adherent) asked me, when he was last away, whether it was quite fair that I should take Mr. Osgood out for "breathers" when Mr. Dolby had no such advantage. I begin to expect that half Boston will turn out on the 29th to see the match. In which case it will be unspeakably droll.

[Sidenote: Miss Hogarth.]

WASHINGTON, _my Birthday_, 1868.

(_And my cold worse than ever._)

This will be but a short letter, as I have been to see the President this morning, and have little time before the post goes. He had sent a gentleman to me, most courteously begging me to make my own appointment, and I did so. A man of very remarkable appearance indeed, of tremendous firmness of purpose. Not to be turned or trifled with.

As I mention my cold's being so bad, I will add that I have never had anything the matter with me since I came here _but_ the cold. It is now in my throat, and slightly on my chest. It occasions me great discomfort, and you would suppose, seeing me in the morning, that I could not possibly read at night. But I have always come up to the scratch, have not yet missed one night, and have gradually got used to that. I had got much the better of it; but the dressing-room at the hall here is singularly cold and draughty, and so I have slid back again.

The papers here having written about this being my birthday, the most exquisite flowers came pouring in at breakfast time from all sorts of people. The room is covered with them, made up into beautiful bouquets, and arranged in all manner of green baskets. Probably I shall find plenty more at the hall to-night. This is considered the dullest and most apathetic place in America. _My_ audiences have been superb.

I mentioned the dog on the first night here. Next night I thought I heard (in "Copperfield") a suddenly suppressed bark. It happened in this wise: Osgood, standing just within the door, felt his leg touched, and looking down beheld the dog staring intently at me, and evidently just about to bark. In a transport of presence of mind and fury, he instantly caught him up in both hands and threw him over his own head out into the entry, where the check-takers received him like a game at ball. Last night he came again _with another dog_; but our people were so sharply on the look-out for him that he didn't get in. He had evidently promised to pa.s.s the other dog free.

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

BALTIMORE, U.S., _Tuesday, Feb. 11th, 1868._

The weather has been desperately severe, and my cold quite as bad as ever. I couldn't help laughing at myself on my birthday at Washington.

It was observed as much as though I were a little boy. Flowers and garlands (of the most exquisite kind) bloomed all over the room; letters radiant with good wishes poured in; a shirt pin, a handsome silver travelling bottle, a set of gold shirt studs, and a set of gold sleeve links were on the dinner-table. After "Boots," at night, the whole audience rose and remained (Secretaries of State, President's family, Judges of Supreme Court, and so forth) standing and cheering until I went back to the table and made them a little speech. On the same august day of the year I was received by the President, a man with a very remarkable and determined face. Each of us looked at each other very hard, and each of us managed the interview (I think) to the satisfaction of the other. In the outer room was sitting a certain sunburnt General Blair, with many evidences of the war upon him. He got up to shake hands with me, and then I found he had been out in the prairie with me five-and-twenty years ago. That afternoon my "catarrh"

was in such a state that Charles Sumner, coming in at five o'clock and finding me covered with mustard poultice, and apparently voiceless, turned to Dolby and said: "Surely, Mr. Dolby, it is impossible that he can read to-night." Says Dolby: "Sir, I have told the dear Chief so four times to-day, and I have been very anxious. But you have no idea how he will change when he gets to the little table." After five minutes of the little table, I was not (for the time) even hoa.r.s.e. The frequent experience of this return of force when it is wanted saves me a vast amount of anxiety.

I wish you would get from Homan and report to me, as near as he can make, an approximate estimate is the right term in the trade, I believe, of the following work:

1. To re-cover, with red leather, all the dining-room chairs.

2. To ditto, with green leather, all the library chairs and the couch.

3. To provide and lay down new _Brussels_ carpets in the front spare and the two top spares. Quality of carpet, quality of yours and mine.