Written from "Gad's Hill Place."
The letter is part of a collection, MA 1352, which consists of letters from Charles Dickens to the Baroness, to her companion Hannah (Meredith) Brown, or the latter's husband, William Brown; with 70 letters written by others to Miss Coutts or to Dickens in his capacity as her unofficial almoner; and a few others. See the collection-level record for more information.
Making editorial suggestions about an essay she has written; mentioning that, like Hannah Brown, he is "apprehensive [...] of the moist valleys," and so he is about to make a trip "into the bleak fells of Cumberland;" describing how new ideas have been coming to him recently "with surprising force and brilliancy;" saying that he notes them down in a little book; writing that when he mentioned to his family what he had been doing, they remarked on the fact that it was a Friday: "I was born on a Friday, and it is a most astonishing coincidence that I have never in my life, whatever projects I may have determined on, otherwise -- never begun a book, or begun any thing of interest to me, or done any thing of importance to me, but it was on a Friday;" describing at length the experience of playing Richard Wardour in "The Frozen Deep" opposite Maria Ternan (the young professional actress who had taken over the role of the heroine, Clara Burnham), especially the death scene; describing how deeply affected Ternan was and how her mother Frances and sister Ellen had to comfort her afterwards; saying that it made everyone, including Mark Lemon, cry; writing "I told her on the last night that I was sure she had one of the most genuine and feeling hearts in the world ; and I don't think I ever saw any thing more prettily simple and unaffected. Yet I remember her on the stage, a little child, and I dare say she was born in a country theatre."