ys.

[Sidenote: Miss Hogarth.]

KENNEDY'S HOTEL, EDINBURGH, _Sunday, Dec. 6th, 1868._

We got down here to our time to the moment; and, considering the length
of the journey, very easily. I made a calculation on the road, that the
railway travelling over such a distance involves something more than
thirty thousand shocks to the nerves. Dolby didn't like it at all.

The signals for a gale were up at Berwick, and along the road between
there and here. It came on just as we arrived, and blew tremendously
hard all night. The wind is still very high, though the sky is bright
and the sun shining. We couldn't sleep for the noise.

We are very comfortably quartered. I fancy that the "business" will be
on the whole better here than in Glasgow, where trade is said to be very
bad. But I think I shall be pretty correct in both places as to the run
being on the final readings.

We are going up Arthur's Seat presently, which will be a pull for our
fat friend.

Scott, in a new Mephistopheles hat, baffles imagination and description.

[Sidenote: Mr. W. Wilkie Collins.]

KENNEDY'S HOTEL, EDINBURGH, _Tuesday, Dec. 8th, 1868._

MY DEAR WILKIE,

I am hard at it here as usual, though with an audience so finely
perceptive that the labour is much diminished. I have got together in a
very short space the conclusion of "Oliver Twist" that you suggested,
and am trying it daily with the object of rising from that blank state
of horror into a fierce and passionate rush for the end. As yet I cannot
make a certain effect of it; but when I shall have gone over it as many
score of times as over the rest of that reading, perhaps I may strike
one out.

I shall be very glad to hear when you have done your play, and I _am_
glad to hear that you like the steamer. I agree with you about the
reading perfectly. In No. 3 you will see an exact account of some places
I visited at Ratcliffe. There are two little instances in it of
something comic rising up in the midst of the direst misery, that struck
me very humorously at the time.

As I have determined not to do the "Oliver Murder" until after the 5th
of January, when I shall ascertain its effect on a great audience, it is
curious to notice how the shadow of its coming affects the Scotch mind.
There was such a disposition to hold back for it here (until I return to
finish in February) that we had next to no "let" when we arrived. It all
came with a rush yest