My dear Mrs. Lehmann,
I hope you will see Nancy with the light of a great audience upon her some time between this and May; always supposing that she should not prove too weird and woeful for the general public.
You know the aspect of this city on a Sunday, and how gay and bright it is. The merry music of the blithe bells, the waving flags, the prettily-decorated houses with their draperies of various colours, and the radiant countenances at the windows and in the streets, how charming they are! The usual preparations are making for the band in the open air, in the afternoon; and the usual pretty children (selected for that purpose) are at this moment hanging garlands round the Scott monument, preparatory to the innocent Sunday dance round that edifice, with which the diversions invariably close. It is pleasant to think that these customs were themselves of the early Christians, those early birds who didn't catch the worm—and nothing else—and choke their young with it.
Faithfully yours always.
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.