[London—Tuesday, 11 May 1869]
Tuesday. May 11th London. Have seen Mr. Dickens! At last we can rest. I must confess the excitement was rather strong for all of us. He has been to our hotel 4 times today, beside a long walk with Jamie along the banks of the Thames. This afternoon he sat a long time telling us about Henry Chorley a very old friend of his and of J. also. It seems that C. has a way of sometimes taking too much wine, though he has never been known to do so under Mr. Dickens’s roof, who, never having seen him in this condition used to assure his friends that he believed Chorley had reformed, whereupon they would invite Chorley and he would immediately fall into a perfectly unpresentable condition—so he has quite given up the idea of trying to do anything about him. Mr Dickens went on to tell us a tale with regard to C. and his servants full of a weird comicality such as only he can give to such scenes. Like master like man the servants would all at times get drunk together. (Wrote the story out in a letter to Lowell.)
