Status Updates From The Letters of Charles Dick...

Do you care for French news? I hope not, because I don't know any. There is a melodrama, called "The French Revolution," now playing at the Cirque, in the first act of which there is the most tremendous representation of a people that can well be imagined. There are wonderful battles and so forth in the piece, but there is a power and massiveness in the mob which is positively awful.

Geneva, Saturday, October 24th, 1846.
My dear Macready,
The welcome sight of your handwriting moves me (though I have nothing to say) to show you mine,& if I could recollect the passage in Virginius I would paraphrase it,& say, "Does it seem to tremble, boy? Is it a loving autograph? Does it beam with friendship and affection?" all of which I say,as I write,with—oh Heaven!—such a splendid imitation of you,

N.B.—Observe. I think of changing my present mode of life, and am open to an engagement.
N.B. No. 2.—I will undertake not to play tragedy, though passion is my strength.
N.B. No. 3.—I consider myself a chained lion.

I have never in my life been so struck by any place as by Venice. It is the wonder of the world. Dreamy, beautiful, inconsistent, impossible, wicked, shadowy, d——able old place. I entered it by night, and the sensation of that night and the bright morning that followed is a part of me for the rest of my existence.

He is an excellent creature, and I respect him very much, so I don't mind smiling when I think of him as he appeared when addressing you and pointing to the plate, with his head a little on one side, and one of his eyes turned up languidly.

I have sent you a little book I published on the 17th of December,& which has been a most prodigious success—the greatest, I think, I have ever achieved.It pleases me to think that it will bring you home for an hour or two,& I long to hear you have read it on some quiet morning.Do they allow you to be quiet, by-the-way? "Some of our most fashionable people, sir," denounced me awfully for liking to be alone sometimes.

But I have my comedy to fly to. My only comfort! I walk up and down the street at the back of the theatre every night, and peep in at the green-room window, thinking of the time when "Dick—ins" will be called for by excited hundreds, and won't come till Mr. Webster (half Swig and half himself) shall enter from his dressing-room, and quelling the tempest with a smile,

I vow before high heaven that my blood so boils at these enormities, that when I speak about them I seem to grow twenty feet high, and to swell out in proportion. "Robbers that ye are," I think to myself when I get upon my legs, "here goes!

It was so hot at Richmond that we could scarcely breathe, and the peach and other fruit trees were in full blossom; it was so cold at Washington next day that we were shivering; but even in the same town you might often wear nothing but a shirt and trousers in the morning, and two greatcoats at night, the thermometer very frequently taking a little trip of thirty degrees between sunrise and sunset.

I really do believe that if I had not a lady with me, I should have been obliged to leave the country and go back to England. But for her they never would leave me alone by day or night, and as it is, a slave comes to me now and then in the middle of the night with a letter, and waits at the bedroom door for an answer.

I meant to have written you a long letter, but I cannot write very fast when I like the person I am writing to, because that makes me think about them, and I like you, and so I tell you. Besides, it is just eight o’clock at night, and I always go to bed at eight o’clock, except when it is my birthday, and then I sit up to supper.

What to do? It is just twelve o’clock at night and still not in bed 😬👀

Amazing read, I want all of 14,000 of Dickens letters!!!