"My dearest Macready,—I have just come back from Paris, where the Readings—Copperfield, Dombey and Trial, and Carol and Trial, have made a sensation which modesty (my natural modesty) renders it impossible for me to describe. You know what a noble audience the Paris audience is! They were at their very noblest with me.
"I was very much concerned by hearing hurriedly from Georgey that you were ill. But when I came home at night she showed me Kate's letter, and that set me up again. Ah! you have the best of companions and nurses, and can afford to be ill now and then, for the happiness of being so brought through it. But don't do it again, yet awhile, for all that.
"Legouvé (whom you remember in Paris as writing for the Ristori) was anxious that I should bring you the enclosed. A manly and generous effort, I think? Regnier desired to be warmly remembered to you. He has been losing money in speculation, but looks just as of yore.
"Paris generally is about as wicked and extravagant as in the days of the Regency. Madame Viardot in the Orphée, most splendid. An opera of 'Faust,' a very sad and noble rendering of that sad and noble story. Stage management remarkable for some admirable, and really poetical effects of light. In the more striking situations, Mephistopheles surrounded by an infernal red atmosphere of his own. Marguerite by a pale blue mournful light. The two never blending. After Marguerite has taken the jewels placed in her way in the garden, a weird waning draws on, and the bloom fades from the flowers, and the leaves of the trees droop and lose their fresh green, and mournful shadows overhang her chamber window, which was innocently bright and gay at first. I couldn't bear it, and gave in completely.
"Fechter doing wonders over the way here with a picturesque French drama. Miss Kate Terry in a small part in it, perfectly charming. You may remember her making a noise years ago, doing a boy at an Inn in the 'Courier of Lyons'? She has a tender love-scene in this piece, which is a really beautiful and artistic thing. I saw her do it at about three in the morning of the day when the theatre opened, surrounded by shavings and carpenters, and (of course) with that inevitable hammer going; and I told Fechter 'that is the very best piece of womanly tenderness I have ever seen on the stage, and you will find no Audience can miss it.' It is a comfort to add that it was instantly seized upon, and is much talked of.
"Stanfield was very ill for some months; then suddenly picked up, and is really rosy and jovial again. Going to see him when he was very despondent, I told him the story of Fechter's piece (then in rehearsal) with appropriate action; fighting a duel with the washing-stand, defying the bedstead, and saving the life of the sofa-cushion. This so kindled his old theatrical ardour, that I think he turned the corner on the spot.
"With love to Mrs. Macready and Katie, and (be still, my heart!) Benvenuta, and the exiled Johnny (not too attentive at school, I hope?), and the personally-unknown young Parr,—Ever, my dearest Macready, your most affectionate
"Charles Dickens."
"Canterbury, Fountain Hotel,
Saturday, 15th August 1868.