Ever affectionately yours.
The same.
3, Hanover Terrace, Regent's Park,Monday, Twentieth May, 1861.
My dear Bulwer Lytton,
I did not read from Australia till the end, because I was obliged to be hard at work that day, and thought it best that the MS. should come back to you rather than that I should detain it. Of course, Icanread it, whenever it suits you. As to Isabel's dying and Fenwick's growing old, I would say that, beyond question, whatever the meaning of the story tends to, is the proper end.
All the alterations you mention in your last, are excellent.
As to title, "Margrave, a Tale of Mystery," would be sufficiently striking. I prefer "Wonder" to "Mystery," because I think it suggests something higher and more apart from ordinary complications of plot, or the like, which "Mystery" might seem to mean. Will you kindly remark that the titlepresses, and that it will be a great relief to have it as soon as possible. The last two months of my story are our best time for announcement and preparation. Of course, it is most desirable that your story should have the full benefit of them.
Ever faithfully.
Lady Olliffe.
Lord Warden Hotel, Dover,Sunday, Twenty-sixth May, 1861.
My dear Lady Olliffe,
I have run away to this sea-beach to get rid of my neuralgic face.
Touching the kind invitations received from you this morning, I feel that the only course I can take—without being a Humbug—is to decline them. After the middle of June I shall be mostly at Gad's Hill—I know that I cannot do better than keep out of the way of hot rooms and late dinners, and what would you think of me, or call me, if I were to accept and not come!
No, no, no. Be still my soul. Be virtuous, eminent author. Donotaccept, my Dickens. She is to come to Gad's Hill with her spouse. Await herthere, my child. (Thus the voice of wisdom.)
My dear Lady Olliffe,Ever affectionately yours.
Mrs. Milner Gibson.
Gad's Hill,Monday, Eighth 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.
Sir Edward Bulwer Lytton.
Gad's Hill Place, Higham by Rochester, Kent,Tuesday, Seventeenth 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. Through the dullest time of the year we held our circulation most gallantly. And it could not have taken a better hold. I 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,hewas 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.
Mr. H. G. Adams.
Gad's Hill Place, Higham by Rochester, Kent,Sunday, Sixth October, 1861.
My dear Mr. Adams,
My readings are a sad subject to me just now, for I am going away on the 28th to read fifty times, and I have lost Mr. Arthur Smith—a friend whom I can never replace—who always went with me, and transacted, as no other man ever can, all the business connected with them, and without whom, I fear, they will be dreary and weary to me. But this is not to the purpose of your letter.
I desire to be useful to the Institution of the place with which my childhood is inseparably associated, and I will serve it this next Christmas if I can. Will you tell me when I could do you most good by reading for you?
Faithfully yours.
Mr. B. W. Procter.
Office of "All the Year Round,"Tuesday, Twelfth November, 1861.
My dear Procter,
I grieve to reply to your note, that I am obliged to read at Newcastle on the 21st. Poor Arthur Smith had pledged me to do so before I knew that my annual engagement with you was being encroached on. I am heartily sorry for this, and shall miss my usual place atyour table, quite as much (to say the least) as my place can possibly miss me. You may be sure that I shall drink to my dear old friend in a bumper that day, with love and best wishes. Don't leave me out next year for having been carried away north this time.
Ever yours affectionately.
Sir Edward Bulwer Lytton.
Queen's Head Hotel, Newcastle-on-Tyne,Wednesday Night, Twentieth November, 1861.
My dear Bulwer Lytton,
I have read here, this evening, very attentively, Nos. 19 and 20. I have not the least doubt of the introduced matter; whether considered for its policy, its beauty, or its wise bearing on the story, it is decidedly a great improvement. It is at once very suggestive and very new to have these various points of view presented to the reader's mind.
That the audience is good enough for anything that is well presented to it, I am quite sure.
When you can avoidnotes, however, and get their substance into the text, it is highly desirable in the case of so large an audience, simply because, as so large an audience necessarily reads the story in small portions, it is of the greater importance that they should retain asmuch of its argument as possible. Whereas the difficulty of getting numbers of people to read notes (which they invariably regard as interruptions of the text, not as strengtheners or elucidators of it) is wonderful.
Ever affectionately.
The same.
"All the Year Round" Office,Eighteenth December, 1861.
My dear Bulwer Lytton,
I have not had a moment in which to write to you. Even now I write with the greatest press upon me, meaning to write in detail in a day or two.
But I haveread, at all events, though not written. And I say, Most masterly and most admirable! It is impossible to lay the sheets down without finishing them. I showed them to Georgina and Mary, and they read and read and never stirred until they had read all. There cannot be a doubt of the beauty, power, and artistic excellence of the whole.
I counsel you most stronglynotto append the proposed dialogue between Fenwick and Faber, andnotto enter upon any explanation beyond the title-page and the motto, unless it be in some very brief preface. Decidedly I would not help the reader, if it were only for the reason that that anticipates his being in need of help, and his feelingobjections and difficulties that require solution. Let the book explain itself. It speaksforitself with a noble eloquence.
Ever affectionately.
The same.
Gad's Hill Place, Higham by Rochester, Kent,Friday, Twenty-fourth January, 1862.
My dear Bulwer Lytton,
I have considered your questions, and here follow my replies.
1. I think you undoubtedlyhavethe right to forbid the turning of your play into an opera.
2. I donotthink the production of such an opera in the slightest degree likely to injure the play or to render it a less valuable property than it is now. If it could have any effect on so standard and popular a work as "The Lady of Lyons," the effect would, in my judgment, be beneficial. But I believe the play to be high above any such influence.
3. Assuming you do consent to the adaptation, in a desire to oblige Oxenford, I would not recommend your asking any pecuniary compensation. This for two reasons: firstly, because the compensation could only be small at the best; secondly, because your taking it would associate you (unreasonably, but not the less assuredly) with the opera.
The only objection I descry is purely one of feeling. Pauline trotting about in front of the float, invoking the orchestra with a limp pocket-handkerchief, is a notion that makes goose-flesh of my back. Also a yelping tenor going away to the wars in ascene ahalf-an-hour long is painful to contemplate. Damas, too, as a bass, with a grizzled bald head, blatently bellowing about
Years long ago,When the sound of the drumFirst made his blood glowWith a rum ti tum tum—
rather sticks in my throat; but there really seems to me to be no other objection, if you can get over this.
Ever affectionately.
Mr. Baylis.
Gad's Hill Place, Higham by Rochester, Kent,Saturday, First February, 1862.
My dear Mr. Baylis,
I have just come home. Finding your note, I write to you at once, or you might do me the wrong of supposing me unmindful of it and you.
I agree with you about Smith himself, and I don't think it necessary to pursue the painful subject. Such things are at an end, I think, for the time being;—fell to the ground with the poor man at Cremorne. If they should be resumed,then they must be attacked; but I hope the fashion (far too much encouraged in its Blondin-beginning by those who should know much better) is over.
It always appears to me that the common people have an excuse in their patronage of such exhibitions which people above them in condition have not. Their lives are full of physical difficulties, and they like to see such difficulties overcome. They go to see them overcome. If I am in danger of falling off a scaffold or a ladder any day, the man who claims that he can't fall from anything is a very wonderful and agreeable person to me.
Faithfully yours always.
Mr. Henry F. Chorley.
16, Hyde Park Gate, South Kensington Gore, W.,Saturday, 1st March, 1862.
My dear Chorley,
I was at your lecture[73]this afternoon, and I hope I may venture to tell you that I was extremely pleased and interested. Both the matter of the materials and the manner of their arrangement were quite admirable, and a modesty and complete absence of any kind of affectation pervaded the whole discourse, which was quite an example to the many whom it concerns. If you could be a very little louder, and would never let a sentence go for thethousandth part of an instant until the last word is out, you would find the audience more responsive.
A spoken sentence will never run alone in all its life, and is never to be trusted to itself in its most insignificant member. See itwell out—with the voice—and the part of the audience is made surprisingly easier. In that excellent description of the Spanish mendicant and his guitar, as well as the very happy touches about the dance and the castanets, the people were really desirous to express very hearty appreciation; but by giving them rather too much to do in watching and listening for latter words, you stopped them. I take the liberty of making the remark, as one who has fought with beasts (oratorically) in divers arenas. For the rest nothing could be better. Knowledge, ingenuity, neatness, condensation, good sense, and good taste in delightful combination.
Affectionately always.
Mrs. Austin.
Paris, Rue du Faubourg St. Honoré, 27,Friday, Seventh November, 1862.
My dear Letitia,
I should have written to you from here sooner, but for having been constantly occupied.
Your improved account of yourself is very cheering and hopeful. Through determined occupation and action, lies the way. Be sure of it.
I came over to France before Georgina and Mary, and went to Boulogne to meet them coming in by the steamer on the great Sunday—the day of the storm. I stood (holding on with both hands) on the pier at Boulogne, five hours. The Sub-Marine Telegraph had telegraphed their boat as having come out of Folkestone—though the companion boat from Boulogne didn't try it—and at nine o'clock at night, she being due at six, there were no signs of her. My principal dread was, that she would try to get into Boulogne; which she could not possibly have done without carrying away everything on deck. The tide at nine o'clock being too low for any such desperate attempt, I thought it likely that they had run for the Downs and would knock about there all night. So I went to the Inn to dry my pea-jacket and get some dinner anxiously enough, when, at about ten, came a telegram from them at Calais to say they had run in there. To Calais I went, post, next morning, expecting to find them half-dead (of course, they had arrived half-drowned), but I found them elaborately got up to come on to Paris by the next Train, and the most wonderful thing of all was, that they hardly seem to have been frightened! Of course, they had discovered at the end of the voyage, that a young bride and her husband, the only other passengers on deck, and with whom they had been talking all the time, were an officer from Chatham whom they knew very well (when dry), just married and going to India! So they all set up house-keeping together at Dessin's at Calais (where Iam well known), and looked as if they had been passing a mild summer there.
We have a pretty apartment here, but house-rent is awful to mention. Mrs. Bouncer (muzzled by the Parisian police) is also here, and is a wonderful spectacle to behold in the streets, restrained like a raging Lion.
I learn from an embassy here, that the Emperor has just made an earnest proposal to our Government to unite with France (and Russia, if Russia will) in an appeal to America to stop the brutal war. Our Government's answer is not yet received, but I think I clearly perceive that the proposal will be declined, on the ground "that the time has not yet come."
Ever affectionately.
Mr. Henry F. Chorley.
Gad's Hill Place, Higham by Rochester, Kent,Friday, December 18th, 1863.
My dear Chorley,
This is a "Social Science" note, touching prospective engagements.
If you are obliged, as you were last year, to go away between Christmas Day and New Year's Day, then we rely upon your coming back to see the old year out. Furthermore, I rely upon you for this: Lady Molesworth says she will come down for a day or two, and I have told herthatI shall ask you to be her escort, and to arrange a time. Will you take counsel with her, and arrange accordingly? After our family visitors are gone, Mary is going a-hunting in Hampshire; but if you and Lady Molesworth could make out from Saturday, the 9th of January, as your day of coming together, or for any day between that and Saturday, the 16th, it would be beforehand with her going and would suit me excellently. There is a new officer at the dockyard,viceCaptain —— (now an admiral), and I will take that opportunity of paying him and his wife the attention of asking them to dine in these gorgeous halls. For all of which reasons, if the Social Science Congress of two could meet and arrive at a conclusion, the conclusion would be thankfully booked by the illustrious writer of these lines.
On Christmas Eve there is a train from your own Victoria Station at 4.35 p.m., which will bring you to Strood (Rochester Bridge Station) in an hour, and there a majestic form will be descried in a Basket.
Yours affectionately.
Mr. W. H. Wills.
Lord Warden Hotel, Dover,Sunday, 16th October, 1864.
My dear Wills,
I was unspeakably relieved, and most agreeably surprised to get your letter this morning. I had pictured you as lying there waiting full another week. Whereas, please God, you will now come up with a wet sheet and a flowing sail—as we say in these parts.
My expectations of "Mrs. Lirriper's" sale are not so mighty as yours, but I am heartily glad and grateful to be honestly able to believe that she is nothing but a good 'un. It is the condensation of a quantity of subjects and the very greatest pains.
George Russell knew nothing whatever of the slightest doubt of your being elected at the Garrick. Rely on my probing the matter to the bottom and ascertaining everything about it, and giving you the fullest information in ample time to decide what shall be done. Don't bother yourself about it. I have spoken. On my eyes be it.
As next week will not be my working-time at "Our Mutual Friend," I shall devote the day of Friday (notthe evening) to making up news. Therefore I write to say that if you would rather stay where you are than come to London,don't come. I shall throw my hat into the ring at eleven, and shall receive all the punishment that can be administered by two Nos. on end like a British Glutton.
Ever.
The same.
Gad's Hill,Wednesday, 30th November, 1864.
My dear Wills,
I found the beautiful and perfect Brougham[74]awaiting me in triumph at the Station when I came down yesterday afternoon. Georgina and Marsh were both highly mortified that it had fallen dark, and the beauties of the carriage were obscured. But of course I had it out in the yard the first thing this morning, and got in and out at both the doors, and let down and pulled up the windows, and checked an imaginary coachman, and leaned back in a state of placid contemplation.
It is the lightest and prettiest and best carriage of the class ever made. But you know that I value it for higher reasons than these. It will always be dear to me—far dearer than anything on wheels could ever be for its own sake—as a proof of your ever generous friendship and appreciation, and a memorial of a happy intercourse and a perfect confidence that have never had a break, and that surely never can have any break now (after all these years) but one.
Ever your faithful.
Miss Mary Boyle.
Gad's Hill Place, Higham by Rochester, Kent,Saturday, 31st December, 1864.
My dear Mary,
Many happy years to you and those who are near and dear to you. These and a thousand unexpressed good wishes of his heart from the humble Jo.
And also an earnest word of commendation of the little Christmas book.[75]Very gracefully and charmingly done. The right feeling, the right touch; a very neat hand, and a very true heart.
Ever your affectionate.
Sir Edward Bulwer Lytton.
Gad's Hill Place, Higham by Rochester, Kent,Thursday, 20th July, 1865.
My dear Bulwer Lytton,
I am truly sorry to reply to your kind and welcome note that we cannot come to Knebworth on a visit at this time: firstly, because I am tied by the leg to my book. Secondly, because my married daughter and her husband are with us. Thirdly, because my two boys are at home for their holidays.
But if you would come out of that murky electioneeringatmosphere and come to us, you don't know how delighted we should be. You should have your own way as completely as though you were at home. You should have a cheery room, and you should have a Swiss châlet all to yourself to write in.Smoking regarded as a personal favour to the family.Georgina is so insupportably vain on account of being a favourite of yours, that you might findhera drawback; but nothing else would turn out in that way, I hope.
Won'tyou manage it?Dothink of it. If, for instance, you would come back with us on that Guild Saturday. I have turned the house upside down and inside out since you were here, and have carved new rooms out of places then non-existent. Pray do think of it, and do manage it. I should be heartily pleased.
I hope you will find the purpose and the plot of my book very plain when you see it as a whole piece. I am looking forward to sending you the proofs complete about the end of next month. It is all sketched out and I am working hard on it, giving it all the pains possible to be bestowed on a labour of love. Your critical opinion two months in advance of the public will be invaluable to me. For you know what store I set by it, and how I think over a hint from you.
I notice the latest piece of poisoning ingenuity in Pritchard's case. When he had made his medical student boarders sick, by poisoning the family food, he then quietly walked out, took an emetic, and made himself sick. Thiswith a view to ask them, in examination on a possible trial, whether he did not present symptoms at the time like the rest?—A question naturally asked for him and answered in the affirmative. From which I get at the fact.
If your constituency don't bring you in they deserve to lose you, and may the Gods continue to confound them! I shudder at the thought of such public life as political life. Would there not seem to be something horribly rotten in the system of it, when one stands amazed how any man—not forced into it by position, as you are—can bear to live it?
But the private life here is my point, and again I urge upon you. Do think of it, and Do come.
I want to tell you how I have been impressed by the "Boatman." It haunts me as only a beautiful and profound thing can. The lines are always running in my head, as the river runs with me.
Ever affectionately.
Mr. Henry F. Chorley.
Office of "All the Year Round,"No. 26, Wellington Street, Strand, W.C.,Saturday, 28th of October, 1865.
My dear Chorley,
I find your letter here only to-day. I shall be delighted to dine with you on Tuesday, the 7th, but I cannot answer for Mary, as she is staying with theLehmanns. To the best of my belief, she is coming to Gad's this evening to dine with a neighbour. In that case, she will immediately answer for herself. I have seen theAthenæum, and most heartily and earnestly thank you. Trust me, there is nothing I could have wished away, and all that I read there affects and delights me. I feel so generous an appreciation and sympathy so very strongly, that if I were to try to write more, I should blur the words by seeing them dimly.
Ever affectionately yours.
Mrs. Procter.
Gad's Hill,Sunday, 29th October, 1865.
My dear Mrs. Procter,
The beautiful table-cover was a most cheering surprise to me when I came home last night, and I lost not a moment in finding a table for it, where it stands in a beautiful light and a perfect situation. Accept my heartiest thanks for a present on which I shall set a peculiar and particular value.
Enclosed is the MS. of the introduction.[76]The printers have cut it across and mended it again, because I always expect them to be quick, and so they distribute my "copy"among several hands, and apparently not very clean ones in this instance.
Odd as the poor butcher's feeling appears, I think I can understand it. Much as he would not have liked his boy's grave to be without a tombstone, had he died ashore and had a grave, so he can't bear him to drift to the depths of the ocean unrecorded.
My love to Procter.
Ever affectionately yours.
Mr. W. B. Rye.[77]
Gad's Hill Place, Higham by Rochester, Kent,Friday, 3rd November, 1865.
Dear Sir,
I beg you to accept my cordial thanks for your curious "Visits to Rochester." As I peeped about its old corners with interest and wonder when I was a very little child, few people can find a greater charm in that ancient city than I do.
Believe me, yours faithfully and obliged.
Mr. Forster.
Office of "all the Year Round,"Friday, 26th January, 1866.
My dear Forster,
I most heartily hope that your doleful apprehensions will prove unfounded. These changes from muggy weather to slight sharp frost, and back again, touch weak places, as I find by my own foot; but the touch goes by. May it prove so with you!
Yesterday Captain ——, Captain ——, and Captain ——, dined at Gad's. They are, all three, naval officers of the highest reputation. —— is supposed to be the best sailor in our Service. I said I had been remarking at home,à proposof theLondon, that I knew of no shipwreck of a large strong ship (not carrying weight of guns) in the open sea, and that I could find none such in the shipwreck books. They all agreed that the unfortunate Captain Martinmusthave been unacquainted with the truth as to what can and what can not be done with a Steamship having rigging and canvas; and that no sailor would dream of turning a ship's stern to such a gale—unless his vessel could run faster than the sea. —— said (and the other two confirmed) that theLondonwas the better for everything that she lost aloft in such a gale, and that with her head kept to the wind by means of a storm topsail—which is hoisted from the deck and requires no man to be sent aloft, and can be set under the worstcircumstances—the disaster could not have occurred. If he had no such sail, he could have improvised it, even of hammocks and the like. They said that under a Board of Enquiry into the wreck, any efficient witness must of necessity state this as the fact, and could not possibly avoid the conclusion that the seamanship was utterly bad; and as to the force of the wind, for which I suggested allowance, they all had been in West Indian hurricanes and in Typhoons, and had put the heads of their ships to the wind under the most adverse circumstances.
I thought you might be interested in this, as you have no doubt been interested in the case. They had a great respect for the unfortunate Captain's character, and for his behaviour when the case was hopeless, but they had not the faintest doubt that he lost the ship and those two hundred and odd lives.
Ever affectionately.
Mr. R. M. Ross.[78]
Gad's Hill Place, Higham by Rochester, Kent,Monday, 19th February, 1866.
Dear Sir,
I have the honour to acknowledge the receipt of your obliging letter enclosing a copy of the Resolution passed by the members of the St. George Club on my last past birthday. Do me the kindness to assure thosefriends of mine that I am touched to the heart by their affectionate remembrance, and that I highly esteem it. To have established such relations with readers of my books is a great happiness to me, and one that I hope never to forfeit by being otherwise than manfully and truly in earnest in my vocation.
I am, dear sir,Your faithful servant.
Mr. R. Browning.
6, Southwick Place, Hyde Park,Monday, 12th March, 1866.
My dear Browning,[79]
Will you dine here next Sunday at half-past six punctually, instead of with Forster? I am going to read Thirty times, in London and elsewhere, and as I am coming out with "Doctor Marigold," I had written to ask Forster to come on Sunday and hear me sketch him. Forster says (with his own boldness) that he is sure it would not bore you to have that taste of his quality after dinner. I should be delighted if this should prove true. But I give warning that in that case I shall exact a promise from you to come to St. James's Hall one evening in April or May, and hear "David Copperfield," my own particular favourite.
Ever affectionately yours.
Lord Lytton.
Gad's Hill,Monday, 16th July, 1866.
My dear Lytton,
First, let me congratulate you on the honour which Lord Derby has conferred upon the peerage. And next, let me thank you heartily for your kind letter.
I am very sorry to report that we are so encumbered with engagements in the way of visitors coming here that we cannot see our way to getting to Knebworth yet.
Mary and Georgina send you their kind regard, and hope that the delight of coming to see you is only deferred.
Fitzgerald will be so proud of your opinion of his "Mrs. Tillotson," and will (I know) derive such great encouragement from it that I have faithfully quoted it, word for word, and sent it on to him in Ireland. He is a very clever fellow (you may remember, perhaps, that I brought him to Knebworth on the Guild day) and has charming sisters and an excellent position.
Ever affectionately yours.
Mr. Rusden.[80]
September, 1866.
My dear Sir,
Again I have to thank you very heartily for your kindness in writing to me about my son. The intelligence you send me concerning him is a great relief andsatisfaction to my mind, and I cannot separate those feelings from a truly grateful recognition of the advice and assistance for which he is much beholden to you, or from his strong desire to deserve your good opinion.
Believe me always, my dear sir,Your faithful and truly obliged.
Anonymous.
Gad's Hill,Thursday, 27th December, 1866.
Dear Madam,[81]
You make an absurd, though common mistake, in supposing that any human creature can help you to be an authoress, if you cannot become one in virtue of your own powers. I know nothing about "impenetrable barrier," "outsiders," and "charmed circles." I know that anyone who can write what is suitable to the requirements of my own journal—for instance—is a person I am heartily glad to discover, and do not very often find. And I believe this to be no rare case in periodical literature. I cannot undertake to advise you in the abstract, as I number my unknown correspondents by the hundred. But if you offer anything to me for insertion in "All the Year Round," you may be sure that it will be honestly read, and that it will be judged by no test but its own merits and adaptability to those pages.
But I am bound to add that I do not regard successful fiction as a thing to be achieved in "leisure moments."
Faithfully yours.
Hon. Robert Lytton.
Gad's Hill Place, Higham by Rochester, Kent,Wednesday, 17th April, 1867.
My dear Robert Lytton,[82]
It would have been really painful to me, if I had seen you and yours at a Reading of mine in right of any other credentials than my own. Your appreciation has given me higher and purer gratification than your modesty can readily believe. When I first entered on this interpretation of myself (then quite strange in the public ear) I was sustained by the hope that I could drop into some hearts, some new expression of the meaning of my books, that would touch them in a new way. To this hour that purpose is so strong in me, and so real are my fictions to myself, that, after hundreds of nights, I come with a feeling of perfect freshness to that little red table, and laugh and cry with my hearers, as if I had never stood there before. You will know from this what a delight it is to be delicately understood, and why your earnest words cannot fail to move me.
We are delighted to be remembered by your charming wife, and I am entrusted with more messages from this house to her, than you would care to give or withhold, so I suppress them myself and absolve you from the difficulty.
Affectionately yours.
Mr. Henry W. Phillips.
Gad's Hill,Thursday, 16th April, 1867.