The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1879-11-24
MONDAY MORNING. NOVEMBER "a.

IL
and sick. The air is like that Of pre-Adam,
lite ironing-day in full blast. Your respected
parent is immensely popular in Boston society,
and its cordiality and unaffected heartiness are
charming. 1 wish could carry 1t with me.
The leading New York papers have sent
men over for tomorrow night with instruc-
tons to telegraph columns of descriptions.
Great excitement and expectation everywhere.
Fields says he has looked forward to it so long
that he knows he will die at five minutes to
eight.
At the New York BARRIERS where the tickets
are on sale and the people ranged as at the
Paris theatres, spectators went up and down
offering twenty dollars for anybody,s place"
The money was in no case accepted. One man
sold two tickets for the second, third and
fourth night for zone ticket for the first, fifty
dollars, (about seven pounds ten shillings) and
brandy cocktail, which is an iced bitter
drink. The weather has been rather muggy
and languid until yesterday, when there was
the coolest wind blowing that l ever felt. In
the night it froze very hard, and to-day the
sky is beautiful.
The New York readings appear to have been
a surprise to him, and he compares his adj
tors to the audiences in Edinburgh and Paris,
finds them better even than at Boston. Again
writing to his daughter he says:
Amazing success here. A very fine audi
ence far better than at Boston. Great recep-
ton. Great "Carol" and Trial on the first
night; still greater "Copperfield' and Bob
on the second. Dolby sends you few papers
by this post. You will see from their tone
what q success it is.
cannot pay this letter, because l give it at
the latest moment to a mail officer who is GO
ing on the Cunard packet in charge of the
mails, and who is staying in this house. We
are now selling lat the halD the tickets for the
four readings of next week. At nine o'clock
this morning there were two thousand people
waiting, and they had begun to assemble in
the bitter cold as early las two o'clock.) All
night long Dolby and our man have been
stamping tickets Immediately over my head,
by the bye, and keeping me awaken This ho-
tel is quite as quiet as Mivart's, in Brook
street. Is is not much larger. There are
American hotels close by, with five hundred
bed rooms, and don't know how many board
ers; but this is conducted on what is called the
European principle" and is an admirable
mixture of first-class French and English
house. 1 keep very smart carriage and pair
and if you were to behold me driving out,
furred up to the moustache, with furs on the
coach-boy and on the driver, and with an i'm
mense white, red and yellow striped fora COW
ering, you would suppose me to be of Hunga-
rian or Polish nationality.
Will you report the success here to MIR. Fors-
ter with my love, and tell him he shall hear
from me by next mail?
Dolby sends his kindest regards He is Just
come in from our ticket sales, and has put such
an immense untidy heap of paper money on
the table that it looks like family wash. He
hardly ever dines and is always tearing about
at unreasonable hours. He works very hard,
The excitement of the readings continues
soon as they are ready, and the public pay
treble prices to the spectators who buy them
up. They are wonderfully fine audience,
even better than Edinburgh, and almost, if
not quite, as good as Paris.
Boston was, however. Dickenss favorite of
all American cities. In these letters he is con-
tinually recurring to the three-hilled city and
praising its people. The distinction between
Boston proper and Boston socially
and not municipality consdered-was at once
seized by him. One of his latest letters to Miss
Hogarth, dated Jan. 4th, 1868, reads thus
write to you by this opportunity, though
really have nothing to tell you. The work is
hard and the climate is hard. We made ire
mendous hit last night with "Nickleby and
Boots" which the Bostonians certainly on
the whole appreciate more than "Copperield
Dolby is always going about with an immense
bundle that looks like a sofa cushion, but is in
reality paper money; and always works like a
Trojan. His business at night is mere moth
ing for these people are so accustomed to take
care of themselves, that one of these immense
audiences will fall into their places with an
ease amazing to frequenter of st. James's
Hall. And the certainty with which they are
mark of respect. 1 must add, too, that al
though there is a conventional familiarity in
the use of ones name in the newspapers as
Dickens" Charlie" and what not, 1 do not
in the least see that familiarity in the writer's
themselves. An inscrUtable tone obtains in
journalism, which stranger cannot under
stand. Ii say IN common courtesy to one of
them, when Dolby introduces 81 am much
obliged to you for your interest in me" or so
forth, he seems quite shocked, and has bear
ing of perfect medesty and propriety. L am
rather inclined to think that they suppose their
printed tone to be the public's love of smart
ness, but it is immensely difficult to make out
All can as yet make out is, that my perfect
freedom from bondage, and at any moment to
go on or leave off. or otherwise do as l like, is
the only safe position to occupy.
Again; there are two apparently irreconcil-
able contrasts here. Down below in this hotel
every night are the bar loungers, dram drink
might find in Boucicault play. Within half
an hour is Cambridge, where delightful do
nestle life, simple, self-respectful, cordial and
affectionate-lS seen i'll admirable aspect.
All New England is primitive and puri:anical.
All about and around it is puddle of mixed
human mud, with no such quality in it. Per-
haps may in time sift out some tolerably in
telligent whole, but 1 certainly have not done
so yet. 1t is good sign, maybe, that it all
seems more difficult to understand than it was
when / was here before.
These letters are to be brought out in two
volumes, the first of which is now ready for
issue. The American letters take but scant
space, compared with the mass which relate to
the great novelist's literary work. This cor
respondence finds no place in the biography by
Forster, that gentleman enthusiastically
deeming letters of no importance unless adj