The Letters of Charles Dickens. Vol. 2, 1857-1870Dickens, Charles
General
The Letters of Charles Dickens. Vol. 2, 1857-1870
Dickens, Charles
Dickens, Charles, 1812-1870 -- Correspondence; Novelists, English -- 19th century -- Correspondence
We left Newcastle yesterday morning in the dark, when it was intensely
cold and froze very hard. So it did here. But towards night the wind
went round to the S.W., and all night it has been blowing very hard
indeed. So it is now.
Tell Mamie that I have the same sitting-room as we had when we came here
with poor Arthur, and that my bedroom is the room out of it which she
and Katie had. Surely it is the oddest town to read in! But it is taken
on poor Arthur's principle that a place in the way pays the expenses of
a through journey; and the people would seem to be coming up to the
scratch gallantly. It was a dull Sunday, though; O it _was_ a dull
Sunday, without a book! For I had forgotten to buy one at Newcastle,
until it was too late. So after dark I made a jug of whisky-punch, and
drowned the unlucky Headland's remembrance of his failures.
I shall hope to hear very soon that the workmen have "broken through,"
and that you have been in the state apartments, and that upholstery
measurements have come off.
There has been a horrible accident in Edinburgh. One of the seven-storey
old houses in the High Street fell when it was full of people. Berry was
at the bill-poster's house, a few doors off, waiting for him to come
home, when he heard what seemed like thunder, and then the air was
darkened with dust, "as if an immense quantity of steam had been blown
off," and then all that dismal quarter set up shrieks, which he says
were most dreadful.
[Sidenote: Miss Dickens.]
WATERLOO HOTEL, EDINBURGH, _Wednesday, Nov. 27th, 1861._
Mrs. Bouncer must decidedly come with you to Carlisle. She shall be
received with open arms. Apropos of Carlisle, let me know _when_ you
purpose coming there. We shall be there, please God, on the Saturday in
good time, as I finish at Glasgow on the Friday night.
I have very little notion of the state of affairs here, as Headland
brought no more decisive information from the agents yesterday (he never
_can_ get decisive information from any agents), than "the teeckets air
joost moving reecht and left." I hope this may be taken as satisfactory.
Jenny Lind carried off a world of money from here. Miss Glyn, or Mrs.
Dallas, is playing Lady Macbeth at the theatre, and Mr. Shirley Brooks
is giving two lectures at the Philosophical Society on the House of
Commons and Horace Walpole. Grisi's farewell benefits are (I think) on
my last two nights here.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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