The Dodd Family Abroad, Vol. I

My dear Tom,--You will be surprised at the address at the top of this letter, but not a whit more so than I am myself; how, when, and why I came here, being matters which requir...

My dear Bob,--It is quite true, I am a shameful correspondent, and your last three letters now before me, unanswered, comprise a tremendous indictment against me; but reflect fo...

Mr dear Tom,--You may see by the address that I am still here, although in somewhat different circumstances from those in which I last wrote to you. No longer "mi lor," the occu...

My dear Tom,--Before passion gets the better of me, and I forget all about it, let me acknowledge the welcome arrival of your post bill for one hundred, but for which, Heaven kn...

Dear Tom,--I got the bills all safe, and cashed two of them yesterday. They came at the right moment,--when does not money?--for we are going to leave this for Germany, one of t...

Dear Tom,--It 's no use in talking; I can't go over to Ireland now, and you know that as well as myself. Besides, what 's the good of me taking a part in the elections? Who can...

My dear Molly,--If it wasn't that I am supported in a wonderful way, and that my appetite keeps good for the bit I eat, I would n't be able to sit down here and relate the suffe...

My dear Molly,--It is only since we came to the elegant place, the hard name of which I have written at the top of this letter, that my feelings have subsided into the calm seri...

My dear Bob,--I promised to give you the earliest intelligence of the governor's return; and this is to inform you that the agreeable incident in question occurred on Wednesday...

My dear Tom,--There 's an old Turkish proverb, to the effect that, whenever a man finds himself happy, he should immediately sit down and write word of it to his friends; for th...

My dear Tom,--Your reproaches are all just, but I really have not had courage to wield a pen these last three weeks, nor have I now patience to go back on the past. Perhaps when...

You guessed rightly, my dear Bob; my letter to Vickars has turned out confoundedly ill, though I must say, all from his total want of gentlemanlike feeling. To my ineffable horr...

Dear Tom,--Yours did not reach me till yesterday, owing to some confusion at the Post-office. There is another Dodd here, who has been receiving _my_ letters, and I _his_, for t...

My dear Tom,--I am not in a humor for letter-writing, nor, indeed, for anything else that I know of. I am sick, sore, and sorry,--sick of the world, sore in my feet, and sorry o...

Dear Molly,--The blessed Saints only can tell what sufferings I have gone through the last two days, and it's more than I 'm equal to, to say how it happened! The whole family h...

Dearest Catherine,--Forgive me if I substitute for the loved appellation of infancy the more softly sounding epithet which is consecrated to verse in every language of Europe. Y...

Dear Molly,--I send you herewith a letter for Tom Pur-cell, which you 'll take care to deliver with your own hands. If you are by when he reads it, you 'll maybe perceive that i...

My dearest Kitty,--I do not, indeed, deserve your reproaches. Mine is not a heart to forget the fondest ties of early affection, nor would you charge me with this were you near...

My dearest Kittt,--True to my pledge, I sit down to continue the revelations, the first volume of which is already before you; and as I left off in a chapter of _désagréables_,...

My dear Tom,--I 'm glad old Molly has shown you Mrs. D.'s epistle, which, independent of its other claims, saves me all the trouble of explaining where we are, and how we came t...

My dear Bob,--A thousand pardons for not answering either of your two last letters. It was not, believe me, that I have not felt the most sincere interest in all that you tell m...

My dear Molly,--It will be five weeks on Tuesday next since we saw K. I., and except a bit of a note, of which I 'll speak presently, never any tidings of him has reached us! I...

MY dear Molly,--If my well-known hand did not strike you, the sight of all the black around this letter, and the mourning seal, might suggest the thought that your poor Jemima w...

Dear Bob,--Here we are, living another kind of life from our old existence at Dodsborough! We have capital quarters at the "Bellevue,"--a fine hotel, excellent dinners, and, wha...

Dearest Kitty,--What a dreadful fortnight have we passed through! We thought that poor dear James must have lost his leg; the inflammation ran so high, and the pain and the feve...

Dear Molly,--I scarcely have courage to take up my pen, and, maybe, if it was n't that I 'm driven to the necessity of writing, I could n't bring myself to the effort. You have...

My dearest Kitty,--Another delay, and more "last words"! I had thought that my poor epistle was already miles on the way towards you, wafted by the sighs of my heaving heart, bu...

My dearest Kitty,--It _was_ our names you saw in the "Morning Post"! We are "The Dodd M'Carthys." It was no use deferring the decision for papa's return; and, as I observed to m...

My dear Miss Cox,--I have long hesitated and deliberated with myself whether it were not better to appear ungrateful for my silence, than by writing inflict you with a very tire...

My dear Tom,--However Morris managed it I know not, but an order came for my liberation that same evening, with the assurance that my passport was to be made out for wherever I...

Dearest Kitty,--If anything could divert the mind from sorrow,--from the "grief that sears and scalds,"--it would be the delightful existence of this charming city, where associ...

My dear Miss Cox,--How happy would you be if only seated in the spot where I now write these lines! I am at an open window, the sill of which is a great rock, all covered with r...

Dear Mrs. Shusan,--I was meaning to write to you for the last week, but could n't by reason of the conflagration I was in, for sure any poor girl might feel it, seeing that I wa...

Dearest Kitty,--With what rapture do I once more throw myself into the arms of your affection! How devotedly do I seek the sanctuary of my dearest Kitty's heart! It is all over,...

Dear Misses Shusan,--I thought before this I 'd be back again in Bruff, but I leave it all to Providence, that maybe, all the time, is thinkin' little about me. It's not out of...

Dear Tom,--Here we are at last,--as tired and seasick a party as ever landed on the same shore! Twenty-eight hours of it, from the St. Katharine Docks, six of them bobbing oppos...

My dearest kitty,--I have only time for a few and very hurried lines, written with trembling fingers and a heart audible in its palpitations! Yes, dearest, an eventful moment ha...

Hotel of the Baths, Ostend. Dear Molly,--This is the first blessed moment of quiet I've had since I quitted home; and even now there's the _table d'hôte_ of sixty-two in the nex...

My dear Tom,--The post hadn't left this five minutes yesterday, when I remembered what I wanted to say to you. Wednesday, the 26th, is fixed for the happy occasion; and if nothi...

Dear Misses Shusan,--This comes with my heart's sorrow that I'm not at home where I was bred and born, but livin' abroad like a pelican on a dissolute island, more by token that...

Dear Mr. Purcell,--Your letter is now before me, and if I did n't know the mark of your hand before, I 'd scarce believe the sentiments was yours. It well becomes you, one that...

My dear Bob,--I copy the following paragraph from the "Galignani" of yesterday: "Considerable excitement has been caused amongst the fashionable visitors of Baden by the rumored...