Faithfully yours.
Miss Hogarth.
Bedford Hotel, Brighton, Thursday, Nov. 7th, 1861.
My dear Georgy,
* * * * * *
The Duchess of Cambridge comes to-night to "Copperfield." The bad weather has not in the least touched us, and beyond all doubt a great deal of money has been left untaken at each place.
The storm was most magnificent at Dover. All the great side of The Lord Warden next the sea had to be emptied, the break of the sea was so prodigious, and the noise was so utterly confounding. The sea came in like a great sky of immense clouds, for ever breaking suddenly into furious rain. All kinds of wreck were washed in. Miss Birmingham and I saw, among other things, a very pretty brass-bound chest being thrown about like a feather. On Tuesday night, the unhappy Ostend packet could not get in, neither could she go back, and she beat about the Channel until noon yesterday. I saw her come in then, with five men at the wheel; such a picture of misery, as to the crew (of passengers there were no signs), as you can scarcely imagine.
The effect at Hastings and at Dover really seems to have outdone the best usual impression, and at Dover they wouldn't go, but sat applauding like mad. The most delicate audience I have seen in any provincial place is Canterbury. The audience with the greatest sense of humour certainly is Dover. The people in the stalls set the example of laughing, in the most curiously unreserved way; and they really laughed when Squeers read the boys' letters, with such cordial enjoyment, that the contagion extended to me, for one couldn't hear them without laughing too.
So, thank God, all goes well, and the recompense for the trouble is in every way great. There is rather an alarming breakdown at Newcastle, in respect of all the bills having been, in some inscrutable way, lost on the road. I have resolved to send Berry there, with full powers to do all manner of things, early next week.