,
to bring him home for Christmas, as I come back on my own little tour.
He has been in the Hartz Mountains on a walking tour, and has written a
journal thereof, which he has sent home in portions. It has cost about
as much in postage as would have bought a pair of ponies.

I contemplate starting from here on Monday, the 10th of October;
Catherine, Georgina, and the rest of them will then go home. I shall go
first by Paris and Geneva to Lausanne, for it has a separate place in my
memory. If the autumn should be very fine (just possible after such a
summer), I shall then go by Chamonix and Martigny, over the Simplon to
Milan, thence to Genoa, Leghorn, Pisa, and Naples, thence, I hope, to
Sicily. Back by Bologna, Florence, Rome, Verona, Mantua, etc., to
Venice, and home by Germany, arriving in good time for Christmas Day.
Three nights in Christmas week, I have promised to read in the Town Hall
at Birmingham, for the benefit of a new and admirable institution for
working men projected there. The Friday will be the last night, and I
shall read the "Carol" to two thousand working people, stipulating that
they shall have that night entirely to themselves.

It just occurs to me that I mean to engage, for the two months odd, a
travelling servant. I have not yet got one. If you should happen to be
interested in any good foreigner, well acquainted with the countries and
the languages, who would like such a master, how delighted I should be
to like _him_!

Ever since I have been here, I have been very hard at work, often
getting up at daybreak to write through many hours. I have never had the
least return of illness, thank God, though I was so altered (in a week)
when I came here, that I doubt if you would have known me. I am redder
and browner than ever at the present writing, with the addition of a
rather formidable and fierce moustache. Lowestoft I know, by walking
over there from Yarmouth, when I went down on an exploring expedition,
previous to "Copperfield." It is a fine place. I saw the name
"Blunderstone" on a direction-post between it and Yarmouth, and took it
from the said direction-post for the book. We imagined the Captain's
ecstasies when we saw the birth of his child in the papers. In some of
the descriptions of Chesney Wold, I have taken many bits, chiefly about
trees and shadows, from observations made at Rockingham. I wonder
whether you have ever thought so! I shall hope to hear from you again
soon, and shall n