, we shall meet, please God!

Always, my dear Jerrold,
Cordially yours.

[Sidenote: Mr. W. C. Macready.]

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, and if I could recollect the passage in Virginius
I would paraphrase it, and 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, and finally give you one of those grasps and shakes with which I
have seen you make the young Icilius stagger again.

Here I am, running away from a bad headache as Tristram Shandy ran away
from death, and lodging for a week in the Hotel de l'Ecu de Geneve,
wherein there is a large mirror shattered by a cannon-ball in the late
revolution. A revolution, whatever its merits, achieved by free spirits,
nobly generous and moderate, even in the first transports of victory,
elevated by a splendid popular education, and bent on freedom from all
tyrants, whether their crowns be shaven or golden. The newspapers may
tell you what they please. I believe there is no country on earth but
Switzerland in which a violent change could have been effected in the
Christian spirit shown in this place, or in the same proud, independent,
gallant style. Not one halfpennyworth of property was lost, stolen, or
strayed. Not one atom of party malice survived the smoke of the last
gun. Nothing is expressed in the Government addresses to the citizens
but a regard for the general happiness, and injunctions to forget all
animosities; which they are practically obeying at every turn, though
the late Government (of whose spirit I had some previous knowledge) did
load the guns with such material as should occasion gangrene in the
wounds, and though the wounded _do_ die, consequently, every day, in the
hospital, of sores that in themselves were nothing.

_You_ a mountaineer! _You_ examine (I have seen you do it) the point of
your young son's baton de montagne before he went up into the snow! And
_you_ talk of coming to Lausanne in March! Why, Lord love your heart,
William Tell, times are changed since you lived at Altorf. There is not
a mountain pass open until June. The snow is closing in on all the
panorama