The Letters of Charles Dickens. Vol. 2, 1857-1870 — John Shaqi
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 lay last night at a place called Wigton--also in half-mourning--with
the wonderful peculiarity that it had no population, no business, no
streets to speak of; but five linendrapers within range of our small
windows, one linendraper's next door, and five more linendrapers round
the corner. I ordered a night-light in my bedroom. A queer little old
woman brought me one of the common Child's night-lights, and seeming to
think that I looked at it with interest, said: "It's joost a vara
keeyourious thing, sir, and joost new coom oop. It'll burn awt hoors a'
end, an no gootther, nor no waste, nor ony sike a thing, if you can
creedit what I say, seein' the airticle."
Of course _I_ shall go to Doncaster, whether or no (please God), and my
postage directions to you remain unchanged. Love to Mamey, Katey,
Charley, Harry, and the darling Plorn.
Ever affectionately.
[Sidenote: Miss Hogarth.]
LANCASTER, _Saturday Night, Sept. 12th, 1857._
MY DEAR GEORGY,
I received your letter at Allonby yesterday, and was delighted to get
it. We came back to Carlisle last night (to a capital inn, kept by
Breach's brother), and came on here to-day. We are on our way to
Doncaster; but Sabbath observance throws all the trains out; and
although it is not a hundred miles from here, we shall have, as well as
I can make out the complicated lists of trains, to sleep at Leeds--which
I particularly detest as an odious place--to-morrow night.
Accustomed as you are to the homage which men delight to render to the
Inimitable, you would be scarcely prepared for the proportions it
assumes in this northern country. Station-masters assist him to alight
from carriages, deputations await him in hotel entries, innkeepers bow
down before him and put him into regal rooms, the town goes down to the
platform to see him off, and Collins's ankle goes into the newspapers!!!
It is a great deal better than it was, and he can get into new hotels
and up the stairs with two thick sticks, like an admiral in a farce. His
spirits have improved in a corresponding degree, and he contemplates
cheerfully the keeping house at Doncaster. I thought (as I told you) he
would never have gone there, but he seems quite up to the mark now. Of
course he can never walk out, or see anything of any place. We have done
our first paper for H. W., and sent it up to the printer's.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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