. If I could only get to the point of being able to hold my head
up and dispense with my pocket-handkerchief for five minutes, I should
be all right.

[Sidenote: Mr. Charles Dickens.]

WESTMINSTER HOTEL, IRVING PLACE, NEW YORK,
_Wednesday, Jan. 15th, 1868._

MY DEAR CHARLEY,

Finding your letter here this afternoon on my return from Philadelphia
(where I have been reading two nights), I take advantage of a spare
half-hour in which to answer it at once, though it will not leave here
until Saturday. I had previously heard of the play, and had _The Times_.
It was a great relief and delight to me, for I had no confidence in its
success; being reduced to the confines of despair by its length. If I
could have rehearsed it, I should have taken the best part of an hour
out of it. Fechter must be very fine, and I should greatly like to see
him play the part.

I have not been very well generally, and am oppressed (and I begin to
think that I probably shall be until I leave) by a true American cold,
which I hope, for the comfort of human nature, may be peculiar to only
one of the four quarters of the world. The work, too, is very severe.
But I am going on at the same tremendous rate everywhere. The staff,
too, has had to be enlarged. Dolby was at Baltimore yesterday, is at
Washington to-day, and will come back in the night, and start away again
on Friday. We find it absolutely necessary for him to go on ahead. We
have not printed or posted a single bill here, and have just sold ninety
pounds' worth of paper we had got ready for bills. In such a rush a
short newspaper advertisement is all we want. "Doctor Marigold" made a
great hit here, and is looked forward to at Boston with especial
interest. I go to Boston for another fortnight, on end, the 24th of
February. The railway journeys distress me greatly. I get out into the
open air (upon the break), and it snows and blows, and the train bumps,
and the steam flies at me, until I am driven in again.

I have finished here (except four farewell nights in April), and begin
four nights at Brooklyn, on the opposite side of the river, to-night;
and thus oscillate between Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Washington, and
then cut into New England, and so work my way back to Boston for a
fortnight, after which come Chicago, Cincinnati, Detroit and Cleveland,
and Buffalo, and then Philadelphia, Boston, and New York farewells. I