Publisher's Synopsis
This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1913 edition. Excerpt: ... CHAPTER VH HOME LIFE IN EUROPE (1868-1872) Mr. And Mrs. Norton had been but a short time on English soil when they went by invitation to stay with Dickens at Gad's Hill -- "the identical spot," as Dickens, in a letter to Lady John Russell, says about the house, "where Falstaff ran away." A letter written by Norton to his mother, from Gad's Hill, was devoted largely to his own search for a house, suited to the needs of his family and not too far from London; but it contains also passages of a wider interest. To Mrs. Andrews Norton Gad's Hill Place Hioham By Rochester, Kent Sunday, August 9, 1868. My Dearest Mother, -- I wish you were here with us, to share in the pleasures of our visit to this delightful home, -- and I wish I had leisure to write to you at real length of my various interesting experiences during the days since I left you. . . . I spent Thursday evening as I have told you with Ruskin, and came back on Friday evening to Denmark Hill1 where I spent the night. I was delighted to find Ruskin looking well -- quite unchanged since we saw him, except perhaps for some lines of age, and in a perfectly sane and sweet condition of mind. No expressions could have been more full of affection than those he lavished upon me, and I had really a very happy time with him. He says he is much better this summer than for a long time before -- and he is cheerful and hard at work. The house is wonderfully full of most wonderful and beautiful things. It is a treasure house of Turners. But all this must be left for talk when we meet. 1 Ruskin's house, on the outskirts of London, where he lived till March, 1872, three months after his mother's death. After rather too fatiguing a morning in London, Sue and I met Dickens at the train at a little...
