LETTSOM.
"This is a liberty I suppose great men take with each other....
"Perhaps you may have been struck at the lateness of the hour set by Mr.
Bromfield for dinner [5 o'clock!], but that is considered quite early in London.

I will tell you the fashionable hours.

A person to be genteel must rise at twelve o'clock, breakfast at two, dine at six, and sup at the same time, and go to bed about three o'clock the next morning.

This may appear extravagant, but it is actually practised by the greatest of the fashionables of London....
"I think you will not complain of the shortness of this letter.

I only wish you now had it to relieve your minds from anxiety, for, while I am writing, I can imagine mama wishing that she could hear of my arrival, and thinking of thousands of accidents that may have befallen me, and _I wish that in an instant I could communicate the information;_ but three thousand miles are not passed over in an instant and we must wait four long weeks before we can hear from each other." (The italics are mine, for on the outside of this letter written by Morse in pencil are the words:-- "A longing for the telegraph even in this letter.") "There has a ghost made its appearance a few streets only from me which has alarmed the whole city.