_him_ know
_that_, with my love. I would have written to him by this mail in answer
to his, but for other occupation. Did I tell you that my landlord made
me a drink (brandy, rum, and snow the principal ingredients) called a
"Rocky Mountain sneezer"? Or that the favourite drink before you get up
is an "eye-opener"? Or that Roberts (second landlord), no sooner saw me
on the night of the first fire, than, with his property blazing, he
insisted on taking me down into a roomful of hot smoke to drink brandy
and water with him? We have not been on fire again, by-the-bye, more
than once.

There has been another fall of snow, succeeded by a heavy thaw. I have
laid down my sledge, and taken up my carriage again, in consequence. I
am nearly all right, but cannot get rid of an intolerable cold in the
head. No more news.

[Sidenote: Miss Hogarth.]

PARKER HOUSE, BOSTON, U.S., _Jan. 4th, 1868._

I write to you by this opportunity, though I really have nothing to tell
you. The work is hard and the climate is hard. We made a tremendous hit
last night with "Nickleby" and "Boots," which the Bostonians certainly
on the whole appreciate more than "Copperfield"! Dolby is always going
about with an immense bundle that looks like a sofa cushion, but it is
in reality paper money; and always works like a Trojan. His business at
night is a mere nothing, 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 a frequenter of St. James's Hall. And the
certainty with which they are all in, before I go on, is a very
acceptable mark of respect. I must add, too, that although there is a
conventional familiarity in the use of one's name in the newspapers as
"Dickens," "Charlie," and what not, I do not in the least see that
familiarity in the writers themselves. An inscrutable tone obtains in
journalism, which a stranger cannot understand. If I say in common
courtesy to one of them, when Dolby introduces, "I am much obliged to
you for your interest in me," or so forth, he seems quite shocked, and
has a bearing of perfect modesty and propriety. I am rather inclined to
think that they suppose their printed tone to be the public's love of
smartness, but it is immensely difficult to make out. All I 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 I like, is th