Liverpool, Friday, October 30, 1868.

My Dear ——­:  I ought to have written to you long ago.  But I have begun my one hundred and third Farewell Readings, and have been so busy and so fatigued that my hands have been quite full.  Here are Dolby and I again leading the kind of life that you know so well.  We stop next week (except in London) for the month of November, on account of the elections, and then go on again, with a short holiday at Christmas.  We have been doing wonders, and the crowds that pour in upon us in London are beyond all precedent or means of providing for.  I have serious thoughts of doing the murder from Oliver Twist; but it is so horrible, that I am going to try it on a dozen people in my London hall one night next month, privately, and see what effect it makes.

My reason for abandoning the Christmas number was, that I became weary of having my own writing swamped by that of other people.  This reminds me of the Ghost story.  I don’t think so well of it my dear Fields, as you do.  It seems to me to be too obviously founded on Bill Jones (in Monk Lewis’s Tales of Terror), and there is also a remembrance in it of another Sea-Ghost story entitled, I think, “Stand from Under,” and written by I don’t know whom. Stand from under is the cry from aloft when anything is going to be sent down on deck, and the ghost is aloft on a yard....

You know all about public affairs, Irish churches, and party squabbles.  A vast amount of electioneering is going on about here; but it has not hurt us; though Gladstone has been making speeches, north, east, south, and west of us.  I hear that C——­is on his way here in the Russia.  Gad’s Hill must be thrown open.....

    Your most affectionate

    CHARLES DICKENS.

We had often talked together of the addition to his repertoire of some scenes from “Oliver Twist,” and the following letter explains itself:—­

    Glasgow, Wednesday, December 16, 1868.

Mr Dear ——­:  ...And first, as you are curious about the Oliver murder, I will tell you about that trial of the same at which you ought to have assisted.  There were about a hundred people present in all.  I have changed my stage.  Besides that back screen which you know so well, there are two large screens of the same color, set off, one on either side, like the “wings” at a theatre.  And besides those again, we have a quantity of curtains of the same color, with which to close in any width of room from wall to wall.  Consequently, the figure is now completely isolated, and the slightest action becomes much more important.  This was used for the first time on the occasion.  But behind the stage—­the orchestra being very large and built for the accommodation of a numerous chorus—­there was ready, on the level of the platform, a very long table, beautifully lighted, with a large staff of men ready to open