After leaving Dublin I entered into an arrangement with my cousin, Charles Mason, to become my agent, and make my engagements for me, undertaking the necessary correspondence with the managers who employed me, and looking after my money transactions with them for me. I stood greatly in need of some such assistance, being quite incompetent to the management of any business, and ignorant of all the usual modes of proceeding in theatrical affairs, to a degree that rendered it highly probable that my interests would suffer severely from my ignorance. My cousin, however, only rendered me this service for a very short time, as he left England for America soon after he undertook it; after which I reverted to my former condition of comparative helplessness, making my contracts with my employers as well as I could, and protecting myself from loss, and keeping out of troublesome complications and disputes, by the light of what natural reason and rectitude I possessed; always making my engagements by the night, and thus limiting any possible loss I might sustain or inflict upon my employers, to my salary and their receipts, for one performance. I also reduced my written transactions to the very fewest and briefest communications possible, with my various theatrical correspondents, and have more than once had occasion to observe that precision, conciseness, and a rigid adherence to mere statements of terms, times, and purely indispensable details of business, were not the distinguishing features of the letters of most of the men of business with whom I corresponded.]
Queen's Hotel, Birmingham, Saturday, May 29th.
My dear Hal,
How did you get through that dreary time after we parted? I did so repent not having left some of my "good angels," my flowers, with you; for though you do not care for them as I do, I love them so much that I think they would have seemed part of myself to you. What a vision remained to me of your lonely stay in that horrid room! But the day passed, and its sorrow, as they all do; and when this reaches you, you will be comfortable and rested, and among your own people again.
From Liverpool to Crewe I had companions in the ladies' carriage in which I was; after that I had it to myself, and lay stretched on the ground for rest the whole of the rest of the way.
I finished Dr. Mays's memoir, and read through half Harriet Martineau's book, before I reached this place.
WOMEN'S TALK AND MEN'S TALK. Women are always said to talk more than men, and yet I have generally observed that when Englishwomen who are strangers to each other travel together, not a single word is exchanged between them; while men almost invariably fall into discourse together. This, I suppose, is partly from the want of subjects of general interest among women, such as politics, agriculture, national questions of importance, etc., which form excellent common ground of conversation for chance companions; while the questions of human society and considerations which concern men and women alike may be too important or too futile, too general or too special, to admit of easy discussion with strangers. The fact is, that most women's subjects of interest are so purely personal and individual that they can only be talked over with intimates.
I like Harriet Martineau's book very much, though perhaps not quite so much as I expected. What pleases me best is its spirit, the Christian faith in good, which is really delightful; though I cannot help thinking she mistakes in supposing that one must be very ill before one believes in God's sole law, good, more almost than in one's own existence.
The descriptions of natural objects are admirable, and the human loving-kindness excellent; but I think she pushes her propositions sometimes to the verge of paradox.... I am delighted to have it, and think it better reading than the Dublin Magazine.
I got here at a little after three. The house is upside down with cleansing processes, by reason of which I am put (till a smaller one can be got ready for me) into an amazingly lofty large room, with some good prints hung on the walls, and a pianoforte; seeing which privileges, I have declined transferring myself to any other apartment, and shall be made to pay accordingly.