Then Came A
Quarrel With An Old Friend, Wilkes - Not The Least Vexatious
Result Of That Forlorn Championship Of Bute's Government In The
Briton.
And finally, in part, obviously, as a consequence of all
this nervous breakdown, a succession of severe catarrhs,
premonitory in his case of consumption, the serious illness of
the wife he adored, and the death of his darling, the "little
Boss" of former years, now on the verge of womanhood.
To a man of
his extraordinarily strong affections such a series of ills was
too overwhelming. He resolved to break up his establishment at
Chelsea, and to seek a remedy in flight from present evils to a
foreign residence. Dickens went to hibernate on the Riviera upon
a somewhat similar pretext, though fortunately without the same
cause, as far as his health was concerned.
Now note another very characteristic feature of these Travel
Letters. Smollett went abroad not for pleasure, but virtually of
necessity. Not only were circumstances at home proving rather too
much for him, but also, like Stevenson, he was specifically
"ordered South" by his physicians, and he went with the
deliberate intention of making as much money as possible out of
his Travel papers. In his case he wrote long letters on the spot
to his medical and other friends at home. When he got back in the
summer of 1765 one of his first cares was to put the Letters
together. It had always been his intention carefully to revise
them for the press.
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