Part 77

The weather is very severe here, and the work is very hard. Dolby, having been violently pitched into by the Mayor of Newhaven (a town at which I am to read next week), has gone bodily this morning with defiant written instructions from me to inform the said mayor that, if he fail to make out his case, he (Dolby) is to return all the money taken, and to tell him that I will not set foot in his jurisdiction; whereupon the Newhaven people will probably fall upon the mayor in his turn, and lead him a pleasant life.

Ever, my dear Harry, your affectionate Father.

PHILADELPHIA, Thursday, Feb. 13th, 1868.

We have got into an immense difficulty with the people of Newhaven. I have a strong suspicion that one of our men (who sold there) has been speculating all this while, and that he must have put front seats in his pockets, and sold back ones. He denies what the mayor charges, but the mayor holds on grimly. Dolby set off from Baltimore as soon as we found out what was amiss, to examine and report; but some new feature of difficulty must have come out, for this morning he telegraphs from New York (where he had to sleep last night on his way to Newhaven), that he is coming back for further consultation with the Chief. It will certainly hurt us, and will of course be distorted by the papers into all manner of shapes. My suspicion may not be correct, but I have an instinctive belief that it is. We shall probably have the old New York row (and loss) over again, unless I can catch this mayor tripping in an assertion.

In this very place, we are half-distracted by the speculators. They have been holding out for such high prices, that the public have held out too; and now (frightened at what they have done) the speculators are trying to sell their worst seats at half the cost price, so that we are in the ridiculous situation of having sold the room out, and yet not knowing what empty seats there may be. We could sell at our box-office to any extent; but we can't buy back of the speculators, because we informed the public that all the tickets were gone. And if we bought under our own price and sold at our own price, we should at once be in treaty with the speculators, and should be making money by it! Dolby, the much bullied, will come back here presently, half bereft of his senses; and I should be half bereft of mine, if the situation were not comically disagreeable.

Nothing will induce the people to believe in the farewells. At Baltimore on Tuesday night (a very brilliant night indeed), they asked as they came out: "When will Mr. Dickens read here again?" "Never." "Nonsense! Not come back, after such houses as these? Come. Say when he'll read again." Just the same here. We could as soon persuade them that I am the President, as that I am going to read here, for the last time, to-morrow night.

There is a child of the Barney Williams's in this house--a little girl--to whom I presented a black doll when I was here last. I have seen her eye at the keyhole since I began writing this, and I think she and the doll are outside still. "When you sent it up to me by the coloured boy," she said after receiving it (coloured boy is the term for black waiter), "I gave such a cream that ma came running in and creamed too, 'cos she fort I'd hurt myself. But I creamed a cream of joy." She had a friend to play with her that day, and brought the friend with her, to my infinite confusion. A friend all stockings, and much too tall, who sat on the sofa very far back, with her stockings sticking stiffly out in front of her, and glared at me and never spake word. Dolby found us confronted in a sort of fascination, like serpent and bird.

NEW YORK, Monday, Feb. 17th, 1868.

I got your letter of the 3rd of February here this morning. As I am off at seven to-morrow morning, I answer it at once, though indeed I have nothing to say.

"True American" still sticking to me. But I am always ready for my work, and therefore don't much mind. Dolby and the Mayor of Newhaven alternately embrace and exchange mortal defiances. In writing out some advertisements towards midnight last night, he made a very good mistake. "The reading will be comprised within two minutes, and the audience are earnestly entreated to be seated ten hours before its commencement."

The weather has been finer lately, but the streets are in a horrible condition, through half-melted snow, and it is now snowing again. The walking-match (next Saturday week) is already in the Boston papers! I suppose half Boston will turn out on the occasion. As a sure way of not being conspicuous, "the men" are going to walk in flannel! They are in a mingled state of comicality and gravity about it that is highly ridiculous. Yesterday being a bright cool day, I took Dolby for a "buster" of eight miles. As everybody here knows me, the spectacle of our splitting up the fashionable avenue (the only way out of town) excited the greatest amazement. No doubt that will be in the papers to-morrow. I give a gorgeous banquet to eighteen (ladies and gentlemen) after the match. Mr. and Mrs. Fields, Do. Ticknor, Longfellow and his daughter, Lowell, Holmes and his wife, etc. etc. Sporting speeches to be made, and the stakes (four hats) to be handed over to the winner.

My ship will not be the Cuba after all. She is to go into dock, and the Russia (a larger ship, and the latest built for the Cunard line) is to take her place.

Very glad to hear of Plorn's success. Best love to Mamie.

WASHINGTON, February 24th, 1868.

MY DEAR FECHTER,

Your letter reached me here yesterday. I have sent you a telegram (addressed to the theatre) this morning, and I write this by the earliest return mail.

My dear fellow, consider yourself my representative. Whatever you do, or desire to do, about the play, I fully authorise beforehand. Tell Webster, with my regard, that I think his proposal honest and fair; that I think it, in a word, like himself; and that I have perfect confidence in his good faith and liberality.

As to making money of the play in the United States here, Boucicault has filled Wilkie's head with golden dreams that have nothing in them. He makes no account of the fact that, wherever I go, the theatres (with my name in big letters) instantly begin playing versions of my books, and that the moment the Christmas number came over here they pirated it and played "No Thoroughfare." Now, I have enquired into the law, and am extremely doubtful whether I could have prevented this. Why should they pay for the piece as you act it, when they have no actors, and when all they want is my name, and they can get that for nothing?

Wilkie has uniformly written of you enthusiastically. In a letter I had from him, dated the 10th of January, he described your conception and execution of the part in the most glowing terms. "Here Fechter is magnificent." "Here his superb playing brings the house down." "I should call even his exit in the last act one of the subtlest and finest things he does in the piece." "You can hardly imagine what he gets out of the part, or what he makes of his passionate love for Marguerite." These expressions, and many others like them, crowded his letter.

I never did so want to see a character played on the stage as I want to see you play Obenreizer. As the play was going when I last heard of it, I have some hopes that I MAY see it yet. Please God, your Adelphi dressing-room will be irradiated with the noble presence of "Never Wrong" (if you are acting), about the evening of Monday, the 4th of May!

I am doing enormous business. It is a wearying life, away from all I love, but I hope that the time will soon begin to spin away. Among the many changes that I find here is the comfortable change that the people are in general extremely considerate, and very observant of my privacy. Even in this place, I am really almost as much my own master as if I were in an English country town. Generally, they are very good audiences indeed. They do not (I think) perceive touches of art to be art; but they are responsive to the broad results of such touches. "Doctor Marigold" is a great favourite, and they laugh so unrestrainedly at "The Trial" from "Pickwick" (which you never heard), that it has grown about half as long again as it used to be.

If I could send you a "brandy cocktail" by post I would. It is a highly meritorious dram, which I hope to present to you at Gad's. My New York landlord made me a "Rocky Mountain sneezer," which appeared to me to be compounded of all the spirits ever heard of in the world, with bitters, lemon, sugar, and snow. You can only make a true "sneezer" when the snow is lying on the ground.

There, my dear boy, my paper is out, and I am going to read "Copperfield." Count always on my fidelity and true attachment, and look out, as I have already said, for a distinguished visitor about Monday, the 4th of May.

Ever, my dear Fechter, Your cordial and affectionate Friend.

BOSTON, Tuesday, Feb. 25th, 1868.

It is so very difficult to know, by any exercise of common sense, what turn or height the political excitement may take next, and it may so easily, and so soon, swallow up all other things, that I think I shall suppress my next week's readings here (by good fortune not yet announced) and watch the course of events. Dolby's sudden desponding under these circumstances is so acute, that it is actually swelling his head as I glance at him in the glass while writing.

The catarrh is no better and no worse. The weather is intensely cold. The walking-match (of which I will send particulars) is to come off on Sunday. Mrs. Fields is more delightful than ever, and Fields more hospitable. My room is always radiant with brilliant flowers of their sending. I don't know whether I told you that the walking-match is to celebrate the extinction of February, and the coming of the day when I can say "next month."

BOSTON, Thursday, Feb. 27th, 1868.