ESTER, KENT,
_Thursday, March 31st, 1863._

MY DEAREST MACREADY,

I mean to go on reading into June. For the sake of the finer effects (in
"Copperfield" principally), I have changed from St. James's Hall to the
Hanover Square Room. The latter is quite a wonderful room for sound, and
so easy that the least inflection will tell anywhere in the place
exactly as it leaves your lips; but I miss my dear old shilling
galleries--six or eight hundred strong--with a certain roaring sea of
response in them, that you have stood upon the beach of many and many a
time.

The summer, I hope and trust, will quicken the pace at which you grow
stronger again. I am but in dull spirits myself just now, or I should
remonstrate with you on your slowness.

Having two little boys sent home from school "to see the illuminations"
on the marriage-night, I chartered an enormous van, at a cost of five
pounds, and we started in majesty from the office in London, fourteen
strong. We crossed Waterloo Bridge with the happy design of beginning
the sight at London Bridge, and working our way through the City to
Regent Street. In a by-street in the Borough, over against a dead wall
and under a railway bridge, we were blocked for four hours. We were
obliged to walk home at last, having seen nothing whatever. The wretched
van turned up in the course of the next morning; and the best of it was
that at Rochester here they illuminated the fine old castle, and really
made a very splendid and picturesque thing (so my neighbours tell me).

With love to Mrs. Macready and Katie,

Ever, my dearest Macready, your most affectionate.

[Sidenote: Mr. W. Wilkie Collins.]

GAD'S HILL PLACE, HIGHAM BY ROCHESTER, KENT,
_Wednesday, April 22nd, 1863._

ON THE DEATH OF MR. EGG.

EXTRACT.

Ah, poor Egg! I knew what you would think and feel about it. When we saw
him in Paris on his way out I was struck by his extreme nervousness, and
derived from it an uneasy foreboding of his state. What a large piece of
a good many years he seems to have taken with him! How often have I
thought, since the news of his death came, of his putting his part in
the saucepan (with the cover on) when we rehearsed "The Lighthouse;" of
his falling out of the hammock when we rehearsed "The Frozen Deep;" of
his learning Italian numbers when he ate the g