P.S.--Don't give any one my address; some of these Oxford harpies
are still unappeased. The only European I have seen was not an
University man. He was a popular Scotch novelist, and carried
Shorter Catechisms, which he distributed to my flock. I only hope
he won't make "copy" out of me and my situation.
P. R.
LETTER: From Harold Skimpole, Esq., to the Rev. Charles Honeyman,
M.A.
These letters tell their own tale of Genius and Virtue indigent and
in chains. The eloquence of a Honeyman, the accomplishments of a
Skimpole, lead only to Cursitor Street.
Coavins's, Cursitor Street, May 1.
My Dear Honeyman,--It is May-day, when even the chimney-sweeper,
developing the pleasant unconscious poetry of his nature, forgets
the flues, wreathes the flowers, and persuades himself that he is
Jack-in-the-Green. Jack who? Was he Jack Sprat, or the young
swain who mated with Jill! Who knows? The chimney-sweeper has all
I ask, all that the butterflies possess, all that Common-sense and
Business and Society deny to Harold Skimpole. He lives, he is
free, he is "in the green!" I am in Coavins's! In Cursitor Street
I cannot hear the streams warble, the birds chant, the music roll
through the stately fane, let us say, of Lady Whittlesea's.
Coavins's (as Coavins's man says) is "a 'ouse;" but how unlike, for
example, the hospitable home of our friend Jarndyce! I can sketch
Coavins's, but I cannot alter it: I can set it to music, on
Coavins's piano; but how melancholy are the jingling strains of
that dilapidated instrument! At Jarndyce's house, when I am there,
I am in possession of it: here Coavins's is in possession of me--
of the person of Harold Skimpole.
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