ess you and all dear to you, my dear old Friend!

I am ever your affectionate and loving.

[Sidenote: Miss Dickens.]

PORTLAND, _Sunday, March 29th, 1868._

I should have written to you by the last mail, but I really was too
unwell to do it. The writing day was last Friday, when I ought to have
left Boston for New Bedford (fifty-five miles) before eleven in the
morning. But I was so exhausted that I could not be got up, and had to
take my chance of an evening's train producing me in time to read, which
it just did. With the return of snow, nine days ago, the "true American"
(which had lulled) came back as bad as ever. I have coughed from two or
three in the morning until five or six, and have been absolutely
sleepless. I have had no appetite besides, and no taste. Last night here
I took some laudanum, and it is the only thing that has done me good.
But the life in this climate is so very hard. When I did manage to get
from Boston to New Bedford, I read with my utmost force and vigour.
Next morning, well or ill, I must turn out at seven to get back to
Boston on my way here.

I dine at Boston at three, and at five must come on here (a hundred and
thirty miles or so), for to-morrow night; there being no Sunday train.
To-morrow night I read here in a very large place, and Tuesday morning
at six I must start again to get back to Boston once more. But after
to-morrow night, I have only the Boston and New York farewells, thank
God! I am most grateful to think that when we came to devise the details
of the tour, I foresaw that it could never be done, as Dolby and Osgood
proposed, by one unassisted man, as if he were a machine. If I had not
cut out the work, and cut out Canada, I could never have gone there, I
am quite sure. Even as it is, I have just now written to Dolby (who is
in New York), to see my doctor there, and ask him to send me some
composing medicine that I can take at night, inasmuch as without sleep I
cannot get through. However sympathetic and devoted the people are about
me, they _can not_ be got to comprehend that one's being able to do the
two hours with spirit when the time comes round, may be co-existent with
the consciousness of great depression and fatigue. I don't mind saying
all this, now that the labour is so nearly over. You shall have a
brighter account of me, please God, when I close this at Boston.