e a liberal share of the popular
curiosity and congratulation. . . . Everything here at Broadstairs is the
same as of old. I have walked 20 miles a day since I came down, and I
went to a circus at Ramsgate on Saturday night, where _Mazeppa_ was
played in three long acts without an H in it: as if for a wager. Evven,
and edds, and errors, and ands, were as plentiful as blackberries; but
the letter H was neither whispered in Evven, nor muttered in Ell, nor
permitted to dwell in any form on the confines of the sawdust." With
this I will couple another theatrical experience of this holiday, when
he saw a Giant played by a village comedian with a quite Gargantuesque
felicity, and singled out for my admiration his fine manner of sitting
down to a hot supper (of children), with the self-lauding exalting
remark, by way of grace, "How pleasant is a quiet conscience and an
approving mind!"

CHAPTER X.

A HOME IN SWITZERLAND.

1846.

On the Rhine--Travelling Englishmen--At
Lausanne--House-hunting--A Cottage
chosen--First Impressions of
Switzerland--Lausanne described--His Villa
described--Design as to Work--English
Neighbours--Swiss Prison System--Blind
Institution--Interesting Case--Idiot
Girl--Habits in Idiot Life and Savage--Begins
Dombey--The Christmas Tale.

HALTING only at Ostend, Verviers, Coblentz, and Mannheim, they reached
Strasburg on the seventh of June: the beauty of the weather[109] showing
them the Rhine at its best. At Mayence there had come aboard their boat
a German, who soon after accosted Mrs. Dickens on deck in excellent
English: "Your countryman Mr. Dickens is travelling this way just now,
our papers say. Do you know him, or have you passed him anywhere?"
Explanations ensuing, it turned out, by one of the odd chances my friend
thought himself always singled out for, that he had with him a letter of
introduction to the brother of this gentleman; who then spoke to him of
the popularity of his books in Germany, and of the many persons he had
seen reading them in the steamboats as he came along. Dickens remarking
at this how great his own vexation was not to be able himself to speak a
word of German, "Oh dear! that needn't trouble you," rejoined the other;
"for even in so small a town as ours, where we are mostly primitive
people and have few travellers, I could make a party of at least forty
people who understand and speak En