ng-place on the Rhine, I will report progress, if it be
only in half-a-dozen words.
I am anxious to hear that you reached Genoa quite comfortably, and shall
look forward with impatience to that letter which you are to indite with
so much care and pains next Monday. My best love to Georgy, and to
Charley, and Mamey, and Katey, and Wally, and Chickenstalker. I have
treated myself to a new travelling-cap to-night (my old one being too
thin), and it is rather a prodigious affair I flatter myself.
Swiss towns, and mountains, and the Lake of Geneva, and the famous
suspension bridge at this place, and a great many other objects (with a
very low thermometer conspicuous among them), are dancing up and down
me, strangely. But I am quite collected enough, notwithstanding, to have
still a very distinct idea that this hornpipe travelling is
uncomfortable, and that I would gladly start for my palazzo out of hand
without any previous rest, stupid as I am and much as I want it.
Ever, my dear love,
Affectionately yours.
P.S.--I hope the dancing lessons will be a success. Don't fail to let me
know.
[Sidenote: Mr. W. C. Macready.]
HOTEL BRISTOL, PARIS, _Thursday Night,
Nov. 28th, 1844, Half-past Ten._
MY DEAREST MACREADY,
Since I wrote to you what would be called in law proceedings the exhibit
marked A, I have been round to the Hotel Brighton, and personally
examined and cross-examined the attendants. It is painfully clear to me
that I shall not see you to-night, nor until Tuesday, the 10th of
December, when, please God, I shall re-arrive here, on my way to my
Italian bowers. I mean to stay all the Wednesday and all the Thursday in
Paris. One night to see you act (my old delight when you little thought
of such a being in existence), and one night to read to you and Mrs.
Macready (if that scamp of Lincoln's Inn Fields has not anticipated me)
my little Christmas book, in which I have endeavoured to plant an
indignant right-hander on the eye of certain wicked Cant that makes my
blood boil, which I hope will not only cloud that eye with black and
blue, but many a gentle one with crystal of the finest sort. God forgive
me, but I think there are good things in the little story!
I took it for granted you were, as your American friends say, "in full
blast" here, and meant to have sent a card int
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