Tom
I am quite ashamed I have not returned your Leg2 but you shall have it by Harry to morrow. If you would like to purchase my Clavis3 you shall have it at a very reduced price. Cheaper in comparison than a Leg.
Yours &c
C DICKENS
PS. I suppose all this time you have had a wooden leg. I have weighed yours every saturday Night.
1 Owen Peregrine Thomas (1811–98), a day-boy with CD, 1824–6, at Wellington House Academy, Mornington Crescent, London NW; a model for Salem House in DC.
2 Probably school slang for a lexicon.
3 A Latin grammar book.
21 George Street | Monday.
My dear Miss Leigh.
I have to apologize for not keeping my promise last night; but the fact is I was so exceedingly tired from my week’s exertions that I slept on the Sofa the whole day. I therefore hope you will pardon my apparent rudeness, and that you will say as you often do “Ah Mr. Dickens it’s quite excusable.”
I called at Beadnells2 on purpose to fetch you this Morning but you had just gone which vexed me very much as I had anticipated not only the pleasure of walking with you but also of picking that bone that we have to discuss which I will embrace the first opportunity of doing.
Just this Instant as I was scoring under the second line from the top I smeared the letter which I hope you will also excuse as I am in a hurry and as “he is such a writer”!
With Compliments to Mr. and Mrs. Leigh, | I remain
| (what shall I say) Yours truly?
CHARLES DICKENS
1 Mary Anne (Marianne) Leigh, friend of Maria Beadnell.
2 George Beadnell (1773–1862), clerk in Smith, Payne & Smith’s bank, where his brother John was manager.
3 Belle Vue, Hampstead. | Wednesday Morning
My dear Maria.—(I fear I ought to say “Miss Beadnell” but I hope you will pardon my adhering to the manner in which I have been accustomed to address you.) I have taken the opputunity of returning your sister’s Album2 to write these few hurried lines for the purpose of saying that my Glover made some stupid mistake about your gloves, and I shall therefore be much obliged if you will have the kindness to inclose me one of those I had before in an envelope addressed to me here.—Pray do not think this wrong under existing circumstances. You need not fear the fact of your writing being known to any one here for I shall be very busy at home and alone all day tomorrow as my mother and sister will be in town. I have another favour to ask: it is that you will tell me when you think would be a good opputunity for me to bring the Gloves. I am most anxious indeed to see you as I wish much to speak to you particularly about the Annual.—Surely, surely you will not refuse so trivial a present: a mere common place trifle; a common present even among the merest “friends”. Do not misunderstand me: I am not desirous by making presents or by doing any other act to influence your thoughts, wishes, or feelings in the slightest degree.—I do not think I do:—I cannot hope I ever shall: but let me entreat of you do not refuse so slight a token of regard from me.
I cannot unless you will grant me an opputunity speak to you either on this, or any other subject;—I hope and trust you will not refuse: consider how long it is since I have seen you.
Trusting you will excuse haste and most anxiously waiting to hear from you which I hope and trust I shall in the course of tomorrow.
I remain | My dear—Miss Beadnell | Ever Yours Sincerely
C.D.
I hope you will like the Lines. I do not think what I write you know.—I allude, particularly to the last four Lines of the Third Verse.
1 Maria Beadnell (1810–86), daughter of George Beadnell, and CD’s first love. He met her in 1830; her parents were first tolerant and then disapproving. This is CD’s first surviving letter to her, first published in appendix to Pilgrim 7.
2 Anne Beadnell’s Album, in which he had just transcribed ‘The Bill of Fare’, a 360-line poem imitating Oliver Goldsmith’s ‘Retaliation’, see Slater, 34.
70 Margaret Street Cavendish Square | Saturday February 4th.
Dear Beard.
I intend keeping the Anniversary of my Birth Day, which occurs on Wednesday next the Eighth Instant,2 by asking a chosen few to join in a friendly quadrille.
If you will make one of our family circle by seven O’Clock, or as early as the house3 will allow you, it will give us the greatest pleasure to see you.
Believe me | Yours Truly
CHARLES DICKENS
1 Thomas Beard (1807–91), journalist. He joined the Morning Herald c.1832, where CD’s father was working. In 1834 he moved to the Morning Chronicle and worked with CD. Their friendship lasted until CD’s death.
2 CD’s birthday was in fact on 7 Feb. He always enjoyed celebrating it; this is the first surviving invitation to one of his birthday parties.
3 The House of Commons; Beard was a parliamentary reporter.
North End | Friday Evening.
My dear Kollie.
I have great pleasure in being enabled to assure you, that I shall be perfectly disengaged on Sunday next and shall expect you. I always rise out here, by Seven and therefore you may safely wend your way here before one if you can.
In reply to your enquiry respecting a sizeable poney I have also great satisfaction in being enabled to say that I can procure you a “oss” which I have had once or twice since I have been here. I am a poor judge of distance but I should certainly say that your legs would be off the ground when you are on his back. To look at the animal in question you would think (with the exception of Dog’s Meat) there was no earthly purpose to which he could be applied but when you try him joking apart I will pledge my veracity he will beat any horse hired or private that you would see in a Morning’s ride. I am his especial patron but on this occasion I will procure something smaller for myself. Pray come before One as I shall order them to be at the Door punctually at that hour, and we can mount, dismount & ride eight or ten miles without seeing a Soul the Peasantry excepted.
I suppose I must consider your “pilgrimage” as a sufficient excuse for your long absence, but I trust when the Shrine at which you pay your devotion is once more removed2 you will shew yourself a little more frequently. The people at Cecil Street3 put too much water in the hashes, lost the nutmeg grater, attended on me most miserably, dirtied the Table Cloths &c &c—and so (detesting petty miseries) I gave them warning, and have not yet fixed on “a local habitation and a name”.4
Envying you your devotions notwithstanding the pilgrimage attendant thereon and wishing you every success and happiness I remain
My dear Kollie | Yours most truly
CHARLES DICKENS
Come Early
P.S. I shall depend on your staying all night. You shall have breakfast by half past seven next Morning as I must walk to town the very first thing. CD.
1 Henry Kolle (?1808–81), bank clerk. Became engaged to Maria Beadnell’s elder sister Anne, and acted as go-between in CD’s love affair with Maria.
2 i.e. when Anne Beadnell is next away from home.
3 Cecil Street, Strand, CD’s temporary lodgings.
4 A Midsummer Night’s Dream, V.i. 17.
18 Bentinck Street | March 18th
Dear Miss Beadnell
Your own feelings will enable you to imagine far better than any attempt of mine to describe the painful struggle it has cost me to make up my mind to adopt the course which I now take—a course than which nothing can be so directly opposed to my wishes and feelings but the necessity of which becomes daily more apparent to me. Our meetings of late have been little more than so many displays of heartless indifference on the one hand while on the other they have never failed to prove a fertile source of wretchedness and misery and seeing as I cannot fail to do that I have engaged in a pursuit which has long since been worse than hopeless and a further perseverance in which can only expose me to deserved ridicule I have made up my mind to return the little present I received from you sometime since (which I have always prized as I still do far beyond anything I ever possessed) and the other enclosed mementos of our past correspondence which I am sure it must be gratifying to you to receive as after our recent relative situations they are certainly better adapted for your custody than mine. Need I say that I have not the most remote idea of hurting your feelings by the few lines which I think it necessary to write with the accompanying little parcel? I must be the last person in the world who could entertain such an intention but I feel that this is neither a matter nor a time for cold deliberate calculating trifling. My feelings upon any subject more especially upon this must be to you a matter of very little moment still I have feelings in common with other people—perhaps as far as they relate to you they have been as strong and as good as ever warmed the human heart,—and I do feel that it is mean and contemptible of me to keep by me one gift of yours or to preserve one single line or word of remembrance or affection from you. I therefore return them and I can only wish that I could as easily forget that I ever received them.
I have but one word more to say and I say it in my own vindication. The result of our past acquaintance is indeed a melancholy one to me. I have felt too long ever to lose the feeling of utter desolation and wretchedness which has succeeded our former correspondence. Thank God! I can claim for myself and feel that I deserve the merit of having ever throughout our intercourse acted fairly, intelligibly and honorably. Under kindness and encouragement one day and a total change of conduct the next I have ever been the same. I have ever acted without reserve. I have never held out encouragement which I knew I never meant; I have never indirectly sanctioned hopes which I well knew I did not intend to fulfil. I have never made a mock confidante to whom to entrust a garbled story for my own purposes, and I think I never should (though God knows I am not likely to have the opportunity) encourage one dangler as a useful shield for—an excellent set off against—others more fortunate and doubtless more deserving. I have done nothing that I could say would be very likely to hurt you. If (I can hardly believe it possible) I have said any thing which can have that effect I can only ask you to place yourself for a moment in my situation and you will find a much better excuse than I can possibly devise. A wish for your happiness altho’ it comes from me may not be the worse for being sincere and heartfelt. Accept it as it is meant and believe that nothing will ever afford me more real delight than to hear that you the object of my first, and my last love, are happy. If you are as happy as I hope you may be, you will indeed possess every blessing that this World can afford.
C.D.
1 This letter is a copy, presumably by Maria, as she returned the original to CD. She does not seem to have followed his punctuation.
Bentinck St. | Monday Morning
My dear Kolle.
I received your note the other day and of course much regretted the absence of any Member of my company on the occasion of a Grand Rehearsal. You ask me whether I do not congratulate you.1 I do most sincerely. If any one can be supposed to take a lively and real interest in such a case it is an old and mutual friend of both parties. Though perhaps I cannot lay claim to the title of an “old” friend I hope I may to that of a real one, and although unfortunately and unhappily for myself I have no fellow feeling with you2—no cause to sympathise with your past causes of annoyance, or your present prospects of happiness,—I am not the less disposed to offer my heartfelt congratulations to you because you are, or at all events will be what I never can—happy and contented; taking present grievances as happiness compared with former difficulties and looking cheerfully and steadily forward to a bright perspective of many happy years.
Now turning from feeling, and making one’s self miserable & so on, may I ask you to spare one Evening this week for the purpose of doing your two pair of side Scenes?3 I would not ask you but I really have no other resource; the time is fast approaching and I am rather nervous. Will you write and tell me when you will come and when I may send for your Scene? Thursday is a Rehearsal of Clari4 with the Band & Friday week a dress Rehearsal. You shall have your Bills when I see you—an immense audience are invited, including many Judges.—Write me an answer to these queries as soon as possible pray. The family are busy, the Corps dramatique are all anxiety, the scenery is all completing rapidly, the machinery is finished, the Curtain hemmed, the Orchestra complete—and the manager grimy.
Believe me | My dear Kolle | Truly Yours
CHARLES DICKENS
1 On his engagement to Anne Beadnell.
2 CD’s relations with Maria were now at their unhappiest.
3 Kolle was partly responsible for the scenery for the amateur theatricals.
4 Clari; or, The Maid of Milan, an opera in two acts by J. H. Payne, music by Henry R. Bishop, first performed 1823. Best known for its popular song ‘Home, Sweet Home!’
Sunday Morning | 8 O’Clock
Dear Henry.
If you are down at Strand Lane and hail “The Alert” any time until 9 we will send our boat off for you. 2
Believe me | Truly Yours
CD.
1 Henry Austin (1811/12–61†), civil engineer with an interest in sanitary reform. Pupil of Robert Stephenson; he married CD’s sister Letitia in 1837.
2 For trip by river to Greenwich.
18 Bentinck Street | Tuesday Afternoon
I do feel Miss Beadnell after my former note to you that common delicacy and a proper feeling of consideration alike require that I should without a moment’s delay inform you (as I did verbally yesterday) that I never by word or deed in the slightest manner directly or by implication made in any way a Confidante of Mary Ann Leigh, and never was I more surprised, never did I endure more heartfelt annoyance and vexation than to hear yesterday by chance that days even weeks ago she had made this observation—not having the slightest idea that she had done so of course it was out of my power to contradict it before. Situated as we have been once I have—laying out of consideration every idea of common honour not to say common honesty—too often thought of our earlier correspondence, and too often looked back to happy hopes the loss of which have made me the miserable reckless wretch I am, to breathe the slightest hint to any creature living of one single circumstance that ever passed between us—much less to her.
In replying to your last note I denied Mary Ann Leighs interference, and I did so hoping to spare you the pain of any recrimination with her. Her duplicity and disgusting falsehood however renders it quite unnecessary to conceal the part she has acted and I therefore have now no hesitation in saying that she quite unasked volunteered the information that you had made her a Confidante of all that had ever passed between us without reserve. In proof of which assertion she not only detailed facts which I undoubtedly thought she could have heard from none but yourself, but she also communicated many things which certainly never occurred at all, equally calculated to excite something even more than ordinary angry feelings.
On hearing this yesterday (and no consideration on earth shall induce me ever to forget or forgive Fanny’s1 not telling me of it before) my first impulse was to go to Clapton:2 my next to prevent misrepresentation to write immediately. I thought on reflection, however that the most considerate and proper course would be to state to you exactly what I wish to do. I ask your consent previously for this reason—because it is possible that you may think that my writing a violent note would have the effect of exciting ill nature which had better be avoided. I candidly own that I am most anxious to write. I care as little for her malice as I do for her, but as you are a party who would perhaps be mixed up with her story I think it is proper to ask you whether you object to my sending the note which I have already written. I need hardly say that if it be sent at all it should be at once and I therefore hope to receive your decision tomorrow assuring you that I will abide by it whatever it be.
I will not detain you or intrude upon your attention by any more observations. I fear I could say little, calculated to interest or please you. I have no hopes to express no wishes to communicate. I am past the one and must not think of the other. Though surprised at such inconceivable duplicity I can express no pleasure at the discovery, for I have been so long used to inward wretchedness, and real, real, misery that it matters little very little to me what others may think of or what becomes of me.—I have to apologize for troubling you at all but I hope you will believe that a sense of respect for and deference to your feelings has elicited this note to which I have once again to beg your immediate answer.
CHARLES DICKENS
1 CD’s sister.
2 Where Mary Anne Leigh lived.
18 Bentinck Street | Thursday 4 o’Clock.
I cannot forbear replying to your note this moment received Miss Beadnell because you really seem to have made two mistakes. In the first place you do not exactly understand the nature of my feelings with regard to your alledged communications to M A L1 and in the next you certainly totally and entirely misunderstand my feeling with regard to her—that you could suppose as you clearly do (that is to say if the subject is worth a thought to you) that I have ever really thought of M A L in any other than my old way you are mistaken. That she has for some reason and to suit her own purposes, of late thrown herself in my way I could plainly see and I know it was noticed by others.—For instance on the night of the play2 after we went up stairs I could not get rid of her; God knows that I have no pleasure in speaking to her or any girl living, and never had—May I say that you have ever been the sole exception? “Kind words and winning looks” have done much much with me—but not from her—unkind words and cold looks however have done much much more—That I have been the subject of both from you as your will altered and your pleasure changed, I know well—and so I think must you. I have often said before and I say again I have borne more from you than I do believe any creature breathing ever bore from a woman before. The slightest hint however even now of change or transfer of feeling I cannot bear and do not deserve.
Again. I never supposed nor did this girl give me to understand that you ever breathed a syllable against me. It is quite a mistake on your part but knowing (and there cannot be a stronger proof of my disliking her) what she was knowing her admirable qualifications for a Confidante and recollecting what had passed between ourselves I was more than hurt more than annoyed at the bare idea of your confiding the tale to her of all people living. I reflected upon it. I coupled her communication with what I saw (with a jaundiced eye perhaps) of your own conduct; on the very last occasion of seeing you before writing that note I heard even among your own friends (and there was no Mary Ann present) I heard even among them remarks on your own conduct and pity—pity Good God—for my situation and I did think (you will pardon my saying it for I am describing my then feelings and not my present) that the same light butterfly feeling which prompted the one action could influence the other—Wretched aye almost broken hearted I wrote to you—(I have the note for you returned it, and even now I do think it was written “more in sorrow than in anger”, and to my mind—I had almost said to your better judgment—it must appear to breathe anything but an unkind or bitter feeling)—You replied to the note. I wrote another and that at least was expressive of the same sentiments as I ever had felt and ever should feel towards you to my dying day. That note you sent me back by hand wrapped in a small loose piece of paper without even the formality of an envelope and that note I wrote after receiving yours. It is poor sport to trifle on a subject like this: I know what your feelings must have been and by them I regulated my conduct.
To return to the question of what is best to be done. I go to Kolle’s at 10 oClock tomorrow Evening and I will inclose to you and give to him then a copy of the note which if I send any I will send to Marianne Leigh. I do not ask your advice. All I ask is whether you see any reason to object. You will perhaps inclose it after reading it, and say whether you object to it’s going or not.
With regard to Fanny if she owed a duty to you she owed a greater one to me—and for this reason because she knew what Marianne Leigh had said of you; she heard from you what she had said of me and yet she had not the fairness the candour the feeling to let me know it—and if I were to live a hundred years I never would forgive it.
As to sending my last note back, pray do not consult my feelings but your own. Look at the note itself. Do you think it is unkind cold hasty or conciliatory? and deliberate? I shall—indeed I need—express no wish upon the subject. You will act as you think best. It is too late for me to attempt to influence your decision. I have said doubtless both in this and my former note much more than perhaps I ought or should have said had I attempted disguise or concealment to you and I have no doubt more than is agreeable to yourself. Towards you I never had and never can have an angry feeling. If you had ever felt for me one hundredth part of my feeling for you there would have been little cause of regret, little coldness little unkindness between us. My feeling on one subject was early roused it has been strong, and it will be lasting. I am in no mood to quarrel with any one for not entertaining similar sentiments and least of all Miss Beadnell with you. You will think of what I have said and act accordingly. Destitute as I am of hope or comfort I have borne much and I dare say can bear more
Yours
CHARLES DICKENS
1 Mary Anne Leigh.
2 Clari, performed 27 Apr.
Dear Miss Leigh.
I am very happy to avail myself of the opportunity of inclosing your Album (which I regret to say want of a moment’s time has quite prevented me writing in), to say a very few words relative to an observation made by you the other day to one of the Miss Beadnell’s I believe; and which has only I regret to say just reached my ears quite accidentally. I should not have noticed it at all were it merely an idle gossiping remark for one is necessarily compelled to hear so many of them and they are usually so trifling and so ridiculous, that it would be mere waste of time to notice them in any way. The remark to which I allude however is one which if it had the slightest foundation in truth—would so strongly tend to implicate me as a dishonorable babbler, with little heart and less head, that in justice to myself I cannot refrain from adverting to it—You will at once perceive I allude to your giving them to understand (if not directly by implication) that I had made you my confidante, with respect to anything which may have passed between Maria B—and myself. Now passing over any remark which may have been artfully elicited from me in any unguarded moment, I can safely say, that I never made a confidante of any one. I am perfectly willing to admit that if I had wished to secure a confidante in whom candour, secrecy and kind honorable feeling were indispensable requisites I could have looked to no one better calculated for this office than yourself: but still the making you the depository of my feelings or secrets, is an honor I never presumed to expect and one which I certainly must beg most positively to decline—A proof of self denial in which so far as I learn from other avowed confidantes of yours, I am by no means singular.
I have not hesitated to speak plainly because I feel most strongly on this subject—The allegation—if it were not grossly untrue—I again say tending so materially to inculpate me, and the assertion itself having been made (so far as I can learn at least, for it has reached me in a very circuitous manner) certainly not in the most unaffected or delicate way.
I hope you will understand that in troubling you, I am not actuated by any absurd idea of self consequence. I am perfectly aware of my own unimportance, and it is solely because I am so; because I would much rather mismanage my own affairs, than have them ably conducted by the officious interference of any one, because I do think that your interposition in this instance however well intentioned, has been productive of as much mischief as it has been uncalled for; and because I am really and sincerely desirous, of sparing you the meanness and humiliation, of acting in the petty character of an unauthorized go-between, that I have been induced to write this note—for the length of which I beg you will accept my apology.
I am, | Dear Miss Leigh | Yours &c
CHARLES DICKENS
1 This is a copy of the note which was enclosed in the next letter to Maria.
18 Bentinck Street | Friday
Agreeably to my promise I beg to Inclose you a copy of the note I propose to send to Marianne Leigh, which you will perhaps be so good as to return me (as I have no other copy from which to write the original) as soon as possible. I had intended to have made it more severe but perhaps upon the whole the inclosed will be sufficient. Until receiving any answer you may make to my last note I will not trouble you with any further observation. Of course you will at least on this point (I mean Marianne Leigh’s note) say what you think without reserve and any course you may propose or any alteration you may suggest shall on my word and honor be instantly adopted. Should anything you may say (in returning her note) to me make me anxious to return any answer may I have your permission to forward it to you?
I find I have proceeded to the end of my note without even inserting your name. May I ask you to excuse the omission and to believe that I would gladly have addressed you in a very very different way?
CHARLES DICKENS
18 Bentinck Street. | Sunday Morning.
Dear Miss Beadnell.
I am anxious to take the earliest opportunity of writing to you again, knowing that the opportunity of addressing you through Kolle—now my only means of communicating with you—will shortly be lost, and having your own permission to write to you—I am most desirous of forwarding a note which had I received such permission earlier, I can assure you you would have received ’ere this. Before proceeding to say a word upon the subject of my present note let me beg you to believe that your request to see Marianne Leigh’s answer is rendered quite unnecessary by my previous determination to shew it you, which I shall do immediately on receiving it—that is to say if I receive any at all. If I know anything of her art or disposition however you are mistaken in supposing that her remarks will be directed against yourself. I shall be the mark at which all the anger and spleen will be directed—and I shall take it very quietly, for whatever she may say I shall positively decline to enter into any further controversy with her. I shall have no objection to break a lance paper or otherwise with any champion to whom she may please to entrust her cause but I will have no further correspondence or communication with her personally, or in writing. I have copied the note and done up the parcel which will go off by the first Clapton Coach tomorrow morning.—
And now to the object of my present note. I have considered and reconsidered the matter, and I have come to the unqualified determination that I will allow no feeling of pride no haughty dislike to making a conciliation to prevent my expressing it without reserve.—I will advert to nothing that has passed; I will not again seek to excuse any part I have acted or to justify it by any course you have ever pursued, I will revert to nothing that has ever passed between us; I will only openly and at once say that there is nothing I have more at heart, nothing I more sincerely and earnestly desire than to be reconciled to you.—It would be useless for me to repeat here what I have so often said before; it would be equally useless to look forward and state my hopes for the future—all that any one can do to raise himself by his own exertions and unceasing assiduity I have done, and will do. I have no guide by which to ascertain your present feelings and I have God knows no means of influencing them in my favor. I never have loved and I never can love any human creature breathing but yourself. We have had many differences, and we have lately been entirely separated. Absence however has not altered my feelings in the slightest degree, and the Love I now tender you is as pure, and as lasting as at any period of our former correspondence. I have now done all I can to remove our most unfortunate and to me most unhappy misunderstanding—The matter now of course rests solely with you, and you will decide as your own feelings and wishes direct you. I could say much for myself, and I could entreat a favourable consideration in my own behalf but I purposely abstain from doing so because it would be only a repetition of an oft told tale, and because I am sure that nothing I could say would have the effect of influencing your decision in any degree whatever. Need I say that to me it is a matter of vital import and the most intense anxiety?—I fear that the numerous claims which must necessarilly be made on your time and attention next week will prevent your answering this note within anything like the time which my impatience would name. Let me entreat you to consider your determination well whatever it be and let me implore you to communicate it to me as early as possible.—As I am anxious to convey this note into the City in time to get it delivered today I will at once conclude by begging you to believe me
Yours sincerely
CHARLES DICKENS
18 Bentinck Street | Cavendish Square | Thursday June 6th.
Sir.
I trust you will pardon the very great liberty I take in troubling you with any application on my own behalf, but as you have been kind enough to express an opinion in favour of my abilities as a Reporter, and as you have had opportunities of perusing my Reports, and being enabled to judge of their accuracy &c I am induced to make a request of a strictly private nature—and I can only plead my reliance on your kindness, and a natural wish on my part to enlarge the field of my exertions as an excuse of making it.
I am always entirely unemployed during the recess. I need hardly say that I have many strong inducements for wishing to be so as little as possible; and thinking that perhaps in the course of the business with which you are connected, you are frequently to a certain extent engaged in the formation of commissions, or other public Boards on which the services of a Short Hand Writer are required, I have made up my mind to take the liberty of asking you, should you ever have an opportunity of recommendation if you would object to mentioning my name.—Of course the value of a recommendation from such a quarter would be incalculable, and I trust the recommendation itself would not be misplaced.
I will not detain you further than by again apologising for writing to you, and venturing to express a hope that you will not consider my application impertinent, and consequently unworthy of notice.
I am Sir | Your most obliged Servant
CHARLES DICKENS
1 Richard Earle (1796–1848), private secretary to the Hon. Edward Stanley (later 14th Earl of Derby), at this time Secretary of State for Ireland.
Bentinck Street | Tuesday Morning
My dear Kolle
I intend with the gracious permission of yourself and Spouse to look in upon you some Evening this week. I do not write to you however for the purpose of ceremoniously making this important announcement but to beg Mrs. K’s criticism of a little paper of mine (the first of a Series) in the Monthly (not the New Monthly) Magazine of this month. I haven’t a Copy to send but if the Number falls in your way, look for the Article. It is the same that you saw lying on my table but the name is transmogrified from ‘A Sunday out of town” to “A dinner at Poplar Walk”.1
Knowing the interest (or thinking I know the interest) you are kind enough to take in my movements I have the vanity to make this communication. Best Remembrances to Mrs. K “So no more at present” from
My dear Kolle | Yours Sincerely
CHARLES DICKENS
I am so dreadfully nervous, that my hand shakes to such an extent as to prevent my writing a word legibly.
1 CD’s first published sketch.
My Dear Editor,
I celebrated a christening a few months ago in the Monthly,1 and I find that Mr. Buckstone has officiated as self-elected godfather, and carried off my child to the Adelphi, for the purpose, probably, of fulfilling one of his sponsorial duties, viz., of teaching it the vulgar tongue. 2
Now, as I claim an entire right to do ‘what I like with my own’, and as I contemplated a dramatic destination for my offspring, I must enter my protest against the kidnapping process.
It is very little consolation to me to know, when my handkerchief is gone, that I may see it flaunting with renovated beauty in Field-lane;3 and if Mr. Buckstone has too many irons in the fire to permit him to get up his own ‘things’, I don’t think he ought to be permitted to apply to my chest of drawers.
Just give him a good ‘blow up’ in your ‘magazine’,—will you?
I remain, your’s,
BOZ.
1 ‘The Bloomsbury Christening’ (Apr. 1834).
2 The first instance of CD’s work being pirated. John Buckstone (1802–79†), actor, playwright, and theatre manager, had a long run with The Christening.
3 An alley leading to Saffron Hill, the thieves’ haunt off Holborn, described in OT.
Bentinck Street | Friday Morning
Dear Tom.
On waking this morning, I was informed that my father2 (whom I have not seen, for he had gone out) had just been arrested by Shaw and Maxwell the quondam Wine People. Will you have the goodness the moment you receive this, to go over to Sloman’s in Cursitor Street3 and see him for me, and ascertain whether anything can be done?
I must work this morning, but tell him please I shall be with him about Six.—I dine at 5 if you can come up.
I fear it is an awkward business, and really I have no idea of the extent of his other embarrassments.
Believe me | Sincerely Yours
CHARLES DICKENS
I have not yet been taken,4 but no doubt that will be the next act in this “domestic tragedy”.
1 Thomas Mitton (1812–78), solicitor, one of CD’s earliest close friends. They were clerks together for a short time during 1828–9 in New Square, Lincoln’s Inn. He acted as CD’s solicitor for many years.
2 John Dickens (1785–1851), assistant clerk in the Navy Pay Office; after 1826 journalist and parliamentary reporter. His financial irresponsibility and geniality can be seen in Mr Micawber in DC.
3 A detention house for debtors.
4 Perhaps CD had backed bills for his father, and might therefore be liable to arrest too.
Furnivals Inn | Saturday Morning
Dear Henry.
I am obliged to give you the very ridiculous notice that if you come and see me tomorrow we must go out and get our dinner. I think the best way will be to walk somewhere; the fact is that I have had an explosion with nineteen out of the twenty Laundresses1 in the Inn already, and can’t get “done for”. Some Methodistical ruffian has been among ‘em, and they have all got the cant about “profaning the Sabbath”—and wiolating that commandment which embraces within its scope not only the stranger within the gates, but cattle of every description, including Laundresses.
Tomorrow is my Mother’s birth day, so I have promised on behalf of yourself and Beard that we will go from here, and spend the Evening there. If you will be down here as early as you can tomorrow morning—shall we say to breakfast; for I dont take that meal until half past ten?—we can walk to Norwood, or some pretty place where we can get a chop, and return here to our grog.
Believe me | Very Sincerely Yours
CHARLES DICKENS
1 Women servants in the Inns of Court.
Black Boy Hotel—Chelmsford | Sunday Morning
Dear Tom.
I am more anxious than I can well express to know the result of your Interview with Hodgkin,1 having set my heart on its being favourable. If you are not engaged tomorrow, will you write me a line by Return of Post, and resolve my doubts. I go into Suffolk on Tuesday Morning early but my Head Quarters will be here, and I have no doubt I shall receive at once any letter that arrives, directed as above.
I wish of all things that you were with me—Barring the grime of Solitude I have been very comfortable since I left town and trust I shall remain so until I return, which I shall do about the latter end of the week, unless I receive orders from the Office to the contrary.
Owing to the slippery state of the roads on the morning I started, I magnanimously declined the honor of driving myself, and hid my dignity in the Inside of a Stage Coach. As the Election here had not commenced, I went on to Colchester (which is a very nice town) and returned here on the following morning. Yesterday I had to start at 8 OClock for Braintree—a place 12 miles off; and being unable to get a Saddle Horse, I actually ventured on a gig,—and what is more, I actually did the four and twenty miles without upsetting it. I wish to God you could have seen me tooling in and out of the banners, drums, conservative Emblems, horsemen, and go-carts with which every little Green was filled as the processions were waiting for Sir John Tyrell and Baring.2 Every time the horse heard a drum he bounded into the hedge, on the left side of the road; and every time I got him out of that, he bounded into the hedge on the right side. When he did go however, he went along admirably. The road was clear when I returned, and with the trifling exception of breaking my Whip, I flatter myself I did the whole thing in something like style.
If any one were to ask me what in my opinion was the dullest and most stupid spot on the face of the Earth, I should decidedly say Chelmsford. Though only 29 miles from town, there is not a single shop where they sell Sunday Papers. I can’t get an Athenæum, a Literary Gazette—no not even a penny Magazine. And here I am on a wet Sunday looking out of a damned large bow window at the rain as it falls into the puddles opposite, wondering when it will be dinner time, and cursing my folly in having put no books into my Portmanteau. The only book I have seen here, is one which lies upon the sofa. It is entitled “Field Exercises and Evolutions of the Army by Sir Henry Torrens”. I have read it through so often, that I am sure I could drill a hundred Recruits from memory. There is not even anything to look at in the place, except two immense prisons, large enough to hold all the Inhabitants of the county—whom they can have been built for I can’t imagine.
I fear among the gloomy reflections which will present themselves to my mind this day that of having entailed upon you the misery of decyphering such an unconnected mass as this, will not be the least. As I thought it very likely however, that you would never get beyond the first three sentences I have comprised in them, the whole object of my letter; knowing that whether you came to the end of it or not, you would believe without a written assurance that I am
Most Sincerely Yours
CHARLES DICKENS
My best remembrances to all.
1 Thomas Hodgskin (1787–1869†), economist, political theorist, and journalist. Edited Hansard 1834–7, where Beard was presumably hoping for a post.
2 Sir John Tysson Tyrell, Bt (1795–1877), and Alexander Baring (1773–1848†), the Tory candidates, were both nominated.
Wincanton Saturday Morng
Dear Tom. I arrived here (57 miles from Exeter) at 8 yesterday Evening having finished my whack1 at the previous stage. I arranged with Neilson,2 whom I occasionally saw in the course of my journey, that I would stop where he did; & finding him housed here, I ordered dinner, beds, & breakfasts for two. I am happy to say that our friend Unwin,when on duty, is the most zealous, active, and indefatigable little fellow I ever saw: I have now, not the slightest doubt (God willing) of the success of our Express. On our first stage we had very poor horses. At the termination of the second, The Times and I changed Horses together; they had the start two or three minutes: I bribed the post boys tremendously & we came in literally neck and neck—the most beautiful sight I ever saw. The next stage, your humble, caught them before they had changed; & the next Denison preceded Unwin about two minutes, leaving Neilson here to return to Exeter tomorrow Evening & I to get up by the Telegraph at 11. The roads were extremely heavy, & as they had 4, I ordered the same at every stage & empowered Unwin to do the same until he met his horses; indorsing on the parcel that the rain rendered it a matter of absolute necessity.
I have sketched, my dear fellow in a dozen most hasty words, our progress yesternight wh I hope, but can scarcely believe, you will be able to understand. I have only time to add that I trust you will not forget my packages & cream: that I received the bag, your kindness remembered: that I shall hope to hear from you the day of your return: that I shall impress on Powell the necessity of expressing the declaration:3that I think Lyons & Roney will fail; and that I am (it’s an old story, but a true one)
Sincerely Yours
CHARLES DICKENS
1 1 His part of the report for the Morning Chronicle of Lord John Russell’s speech at the nomination meeting for South Devon, where Russell had offered himself for re-election.
2 John Finlay Neilson (1809–81), The Times reporter. He later claimed that, in this race by horse-express from Exeter, he beat CD by an hour. This letter suggests otherwise, and CD regarded it as a triumph. Denison was the other Times reporter; Unwin was a Morning Chronicle reporter.
3 i.e. printing the result of the poll immediately. John Hill Powell, Lyons, and James Edward Roney all worked at the Morning Chronicle with CD; Roney shared lodgings with CD in Buckingham Street, Adelphi (according to a Dickens family tradition, in David Copperfield’s rooms), probably in 1831.
My dearest Kate.
Need I say that my unavoidable detention in town last night, distressed me exceedingly; or that it has rendered me doubly anxious to see you this morning as early as I can? I have written a note to your Mama begging her to inform me immediately how you are, and I hope to hear that I shall be able to ask the question of you myself at an early hour.
If I were to say on paper how interested I am in the slightest word that concerns you, much more on so important a point as your health, it would look like egotism: were I to express half my solicitude in your behalf it would appear like profession without sincerity, and were I to endeavour to embody the least of the feelings I entertain for you in words, it would be a useless, and hopeless attempt. For each and all my dear Girl you must give me credit, until time has enabled me to prove the sincerity and devotion of the affection I bear you.
Keep up your spirits above all things—if the consciousness of awakening sympathy and interest in the breast of any human being be a consolation in sickness, you may take my assurance that you possess both to an extent which you can hardly imagine—nor I describe.
Believe me | My Dearest Catherine | Ever Yours Affecy.
CHARLES DICKENS
1 Catherine Hogarth (1815–79), later CD’s wife, eldest child of George and Georgina Hogarth. Met CD through her father, who was on the staff of the Morning Chronicle and actively promoted CD’s career. This is the first letter from CD that Catherine kept.
Wednesday Morning
My dear Catherine.
It is with the greatest pain that I sit down, before I go to bed to-night, to say one word which can bear the appearance of unkindness or reproach; but I owe a duty to myself as well as to you, and as I was wild enough to think that an engagement of even three weeks might pass without any such display as you have favored me with twice already, I am the more strongly induced to discharge it.
The sudden and uncalled-for coldness with which you treated me just before I left last night, both surprised and deeply hurt me—surprised, because I could not have believed that such sullen and inflexible obstinacy could exist in the breast of any girl in whose heart love had found a place; and hurt me, because I feel for you far more than I have ever professed, and feel a slight from you more than I care to tell. My object in writing to you is this. If a hasty temper produce this strange behaviour, acknowledge it when I give you the opportunity—not once or twice, but again and again. If a feeling of you know not what—a capricious restlessness of you can’t tell what, and a desire to teaze, you don’t know why, give rise to it—overcome it; it will never make you more amiable, I more fond, or either of us, more happy. If three weeks or three months of my society has wearied you, do not trifle with me, using me like any other toy as suits your humour for the moment; but make the acknowledgment to me frankly at once—I shall not forget you lightly, but you will need no second warning. Depend upon it, whatever be the cause of your unkindness—whatever give rise to these wayward fancies—that what you do not take the trouble to conceal from a Lover’s eyes, will be frequently acted before those of a husband.
I know as well, as if I were by your side at this moment, that your present impulse on reading this note is one of anger—pride perhaps, or to use a word more current with your sex—”spirit”. My dear girl, I have not the most remote intention of awakening any such feeling, and I implore you, not to entertain it for an instant. I am very little your superior in years: in no other respect can I lay claim to the title, but I venture nevertheless to give you this advice first, because I cannot turn coolly away and forget a slight from you as I might from any other girl to whom I was not warmly and deeply attached; and secondly, because if you really love me I would have you do justice to yourself, and shew me that your love for me, like mine for you, is above the ordinary trickery, and frivolous absurdity which debases the name, and renders it ludicrous.
I have written these few lines in haste, but not in anger. I am not angry, but I am hurt, for the second time. Possibly you may not understand the sense in which I use the word; if so, I hope you never may. If you knew the intensity of the feeling which has led me to forget all my friends and pursuits to spend my days at your side; if you knew but half the anxiety with which I watched your recent illness, the joy with which I hailed your recovery, and the eagerness with which I would promote your happiness, you could more readily understand the extent of the pain so easily inflicted, but so difficult to be forgotten.
Ever yours most affectionately
CHARLES DICKENS
Saturday Morning | 6 O’Clock.
My Dearest Kate.
I am so completely worn out, that I can only say I shall expect you at 12. It’s a childish wish my dear love; but I am anxious to hear and see you the moment I wake—Will you indulge me by making breakfast for me this Morning? It will give me pleasure; I hope will give you no trouble; and I am sure will be excellent practice for you against Christmas next. I shall expect you my dearest, and feel quite sure you will not disappoint me.
Believe me | My dearest Girl | Ever Yours most devoted
CHARLES DICKENS
Excuse my haste and drowsiness.
Furnivals Inn | Monday Morning
My Dearest Love.
“Barring” my cold, I am quite well this morning, as I am happy—most happy—to hear you are also. I have received the Adelphi order, and shall be with you, at a quarter before three o’clock.
—Not low this morning I hope?—You ought not to be, dear Mouse, and are very ungrateful if you are.
Love to Mary and your Mama | Believe me | Darling Tatie |
Ever yours truly and Affecy.
CHARLES DICKENS
13 Furnivals Inn | Tuesday Morning October 26th.
My Dear Sir.
Precisely the idea you suggest about the metallic bubbles, entered my brain after I left you the other day—bubbles from a spring impregnated with steel, I have heard of: but bubbles coming direct from a steel instrument would, I am inclined to think, be a natural curiosity. Are you particularly attached to the retention of the word “Bwain”—when we can’t preserve the Parody on Head’s title2—What do you think of
Sketches by Boz3
and
Cuts by Cruikshank4
or
Etchings by Boz
and
Wood Cuts by Cruikshank.
I think perhaps some such title would look more modest—whether modesty ought to have anything to do with such an affair, I must leave to your experience as a Publisher to decide.
I will go to the Chronicle Office this morning; and if I cannot get slips, procure copies, of the missing sketches. If you will have the kindness to send to Cochrane’s5 (you are more likely to get what we want than I am) for the October and November numbers of The Monthly for last year, you will find “The Steam Excursion” in one of them—I think the former. “The Great Winglebury Duel” (which is the title of the paper which will appear in The Monthly for December) I will get a proof of, in the course of a few days.
Now if the whole collection fall something short of the two volumes, which we shall ascertain I suppose by the printing, I will be ready with two or three new Sketches to make weight; and with this view I have begged Black6 to get old Alderman Wood to take me to Newgate7—as an Amateur of course. I have long projected sketching its Interior, and I think it would tell extremely well. It would not keep you waiting, because the printer has plenty to go on with; and a day’s time is a handsome allowance for me—much less8 than I frequently had when I was writing for The Chronicle. In addition to “A Visit to Newgate”, I find in some memoranda I have by me, the following Headings. “The Cook’s Shop”—”Bedlam”—”The Prisoner’s Van”—”The Streets—Noon and Night”—”Banking-Houses”—”Fancy Lounges”—”Covent Garden”—”Hospitals”—and “Lodging-Houses”—So we shall not want subjects at all events.
I am much gratified by the kind expression of your good opinion of my Sketches contained in your note, and hope—and believe into the bargain—that your favourable augury of the success of the book may be realized, even to our joint satisfaction.
I will call on you on Thursday Morning, unless I should previously hear you are otherwise engaged.
Believe me | Dear Sir | Very truly Yours
CHARLES DICKENS
1 John Macrone (1809–37†), publisher of SB. He and CD were on very good terms until their dispute over the Agreement for “Gabriel Vardon” (Nov.–Dec. 1836).
2 The original title suggested (perhaps “Bubbles from the Bwain of Boz and the Graver of Cruikshank”) parodied Bubbles from the Brunnens of Nassau, by an Old Man, 1834—sketches of a visit to drink the mineral waters, by Sir Francis Bond Head.
3 Boz was the nickname of CD’s younger brother Augustus, called Moses after Moses Primrose in The Vicar of Wakefield; “which being facetiously pronounced through the nose, became Boses, and being shortened, became Boz” (CD’s preface to PP, 1847).
4 George Cruikshank (1792–1878†), graphic artist, and by 1835 the most popular illustrator of his day. He illustrated SB, and OT, the plot of which he later claimed to have virtually created.
5 James Cochrane (b. 1794), who had published the Monthly Magazine alone since Macrone withdrew from their partnership in Sept. 1834.
6 John Black (1783–1855†), editor of the Morning Chronicle, which he made the leading anti-Tory newspaper, strongly reformist and Benthamite. CD later referred to him as “Dear old Black! My first hearty out-and-out appreciator” (late May 1870).
7 London’s main prison at this time, and site for public executions.
8 He clearly meant “more”.
Furnivals Inn | Thursday Evening
My dearest Girl,
I had two or three interruptions this morning, and have not yet (7 o’Clock) finished my Sketch.1 although I am rapidly approaching that very desirable consummation. I fear I shall not be able to see you to-night, and therefore send out Fred.2 I have some business to transact to morrow, and fear I should only make you late if you were to wait for my escort into town—I have therefore arranged that Fred shall be with you at half past four precisely (rather before than after) if that hour will suit you.
I received a note from Fraser3 this morning in which he says that Black is out of town and has left no tickets, but that if he return by Saturday, as in all human probability he will, they are mine—the Adelphi I shall be sent to on Monday; but I hardly know how to arrange about it, as I fear I shall be late, and I do not like your traversing the West End of London, of all other parts, accompanied only by Fred.
If you knew now eagerly I long for your society this evening, or how much delight it would afford me to be able to turn round to you at our own fireside when my work is done, and seek in your kind looks and gentle manner the recreation and happiness which the moping solitude of chambers can never afford, you would believe me sincere in saying that necessity and necessity alone, induces me to forego the pleasure of your companionship for one evening in the week even. You will never do me the justice of believing it however, and all I can do until my book4 is finished will be to reflect that I shall have (God willing) many opportunities of shewing you for years to come how unjust you used to be, and of convincing you then of what I would fain convince you now—that my pursuits and labours such as they are are not more selfish than my pleasures, and that your future advancement and happiness is the main-spring of them all.
Believe me | My dear Girl | Ever Yours most affecy.
CHARLES DICKENS
1 Presumably ‘The Vocal Dressmaker’ (Bell’s Life in London, 22 Nov. 1835); it became ‘The Mistaken Milliner’, SB, second series.
2 One of CD’s younger brothers, b. 1820.
3 Thomas Fraser (?1804–69), assistant editor on the Morning Chronicle 1835–6.
4 Sketches, First Series.
Furnivals Inn | Wednesday Evening
My dearest Kate
Macrone has urged me most imperatively and pressingly to “get on”. I have made considerable progress in my “Newgate” sketch, but the subject is such a very difficult one to do justice to, and I have so much difficulty in remembering the place,1 and arranging my materials, that I really have no alternative but to remain at home to-night, and “get on” in good earnest. You know I have frequently told you that my composition is peculiar; I never can write with effect—especially in the serious way—until I have got my steam up, or in other words until I have become so excited with my subject that I cannot leave off; and hoping to arrive at this state to-night, I have, after a great deal of combating with my wish to see you, arrived at the determination I have just announced—I hope to do a good deal.
I will not do you the injustice to suppose that knowing my reason and my motive for exertion, you of all people will blame me one instant for my self-denial. You may be disappointed:—I would rather you would—at not seeing me; but you cannot feel vexed at my doing my best with the stake I have to play for—you and a home for both of us.
Write me by Fred and Believe me, my own love
Ever Yours most sincerely & affy.
CHARLES DICKENS
1 Since his visit three weeks before, he had done a week’s reporting at Bristol and Bath.
White Hart Kettering | Wednesday Morning
My dear Girl.
As I received your very welcome letter just now, and am alone for a few minutes, I think I cannot do better than sit down and write another without delay, though what on earth I am to write about I know not. This place is fearfully dull, and I have seen neither a newspaper or a book since I came down here.
You will see or hear by the Chronicle of yesterday, that we had a slight flare1 here yesterday morning, just stopping short of murder and a riot. Party feeling runs so high, and the contest is likely to be so sharp a one that I look forward to the probability of a scuffle before it is over. As the Tories are the principal party here, I am in no very good odour in the town, but I shall not spare them the more on that account in the descriptions of their behaviour I may forward to head quarters. Such a ruthless set of bloody-minded villains, I never set eyes on, in my life. In their convivial moments yesterday after the business of the day was over, they were perfect savages. If a foreigner were brought here on his first visit to an English town, to form his estimate of the national character, I am quite satisfied he would return forthwith to France, and never set foot in England again. The remark will apply in a greater or less degree to all Agricultural places during the pendency of an Election, but beastly as the electors usually are, these men are superlative blackguards. Would you believe that a large body of horsemen, mounted and armed, who galloped on a defenceless crowd yesterday, striking about them in all directions, and protecting a man who cocked a loaded pistol, were led by Clergymen, and Magistrates? Or that I saw one of these fellows with my own eyes, unbuckle one of his stirrup-leathers, and cut about him in the crowd, with the iron part of it—communicating to the blows all the additional force that swinging it at the end of the leather could give them? Anything more sickening and disgusting, or anything that roused my indignation so much, I never beheld.
I think I shall have to go over to Northampton to-day with the Times man, whose return from a gentleman’s seat in the neighbourhood, whither he went on business before I was up, I am in momentary expectation of. If so, I shall sleep at Northampton to-night, and return here in the course of tomorrow morning. The polling begins on Friday and then we shall have an incessant repetition of the sounds and sights of yesterday ‘till the Election is over—bells ringing, candidates speaking, drums sounding, a band of eight trombones (would you believe it?) blowing—men fighting, swearing drinking, and squabbling—all riotously excited, and all disgracing themselves. You will probably have heard from Fred that I shall have finished here by Monday. You shall hear from me again before then, and I will tell you the hour at which I shall expect to see you in Furnivals Inn. I expect a parcel from Fred to-night.
God bless you my dearest Katie.
Love to all, and Believe me | Ever affectionately Yours
CHARLES DICKENS
You won’t forget the direction, if you feel disposed to write again.
1 i.e. a flare-up of violence.
White Hart. Kettering. | Friday Noon
My dear Kate.
I am overjoyed to say that I have received a communication from the Office to the effect that it will be unnecessary for me to remain here for the Declaration of the Poll on Monday. I shall therefore leave by the “Peveril” tomorrow night at a quarter past one, and shall be in town about nine o’Clock on the following Morning.—I shall lie down for an hour or two, and be out at Brompton to dinner on Sunday.
I am very sorry my dear Girl that you should have thought my letter of the other day stiff and formal—I don’t know how it is, but I am quite certain I had no notion of its being so, and if it really were (which I can hardly believe) it was quite unintentional. The noise and confusion here this morning—which is the first day of polling is so great that my head is actually splitting. There are about forty flags on either side, two tremendous bands, one hundred and fifty constables, and vehicles of every kind, sort, and description. These last mentioned nuisances are constantly driving about and in and out and up [and] down the town, conveying voters to the Poll; and the voters themselves are drinking and guzzling and howling and roaring in every house of Entertainment there is. Our house is so full, and the blue swine, or in other words the conservative electors are such beasts that we have retired into my bed room—a large apartment at the extreme end of a long gallery, with a couple of windows commanding an interesting view of the stable yard. There is a little passage leading to the room at the entrance of which is a door which we have fastened, and on the outside of which we have affixed a poker as a temporary knocker. Here we have removed the Bagatelle Board, and here we sit secure from interruption, with the bedstead wheeled into a corner. I have just ordered dinner in this curious den for five people—cod and oyster sauce, Roast beef, and a pair of ducks, plum pudding, and Mince Pies. Bearing in mind your objection to my doing anything in the Ducrow1 way, I persuaded on the Times, Post, and Advertizer, to alter their original plan of making a day of it yesterday on saddle-horses, to hiring a four wheeled chaise. A driver was chosen by ballot, and your humble servant was unanimously appointed Guard. We started at about 11 oClock for the Duke of Buccleugh’s seat2 which is about 4 or 5 miles from hence: went over the House, dined at a country public house, and returned after dark, when our driver being very near-sighted and slightly overcome with potations of ale, and egg flip, ingeniously drove the party into a “water-splash”. The Guard dismounted—the water being up to the calves of his legs—and after a great deal of dragging, splashing, and shouting, succeeded in leading the Horse back to the road, and we all arrived here in time for coffee. On the preceding day I was at Northampton, and “flore”3 slightly.
And now my dear Girl I have only time to add that business and want of space combined, compel me to close my letter abruptly. Its stiffness and formality I must leave you to judge of. The assurance that the prospect of seeing you two days earlier than I expected, gives me the utmost joy, I must judge of myself: only assuring you that it is most sincere and heartfelt. I am most happy to hear you have not been “coss”—though I perceive you have not yet subdued one part of your disposition—your distrustful feelings and want of confidence. However this may be, you may rest satisfied that I love you dearly—far too well to feel hurt by what in any one else would have annoyed me greatly. Tell Fred I had no time to write to him; and not to take any proofs to Brompton on Saturday Night, as I should like to see them when I return on Sunday Morning. Love to all. God bless you Pig, and Believe me (if you have any faith in your nature) Ever Yours most Sincerely & Affecy.
CHARLES DICKENS
Damn the Tories—They’ll win here I am afraid.4
1 Andrew Ducrow (1793–1842†), popular equestrian performer.
2 Boughton House, about 2½ miles from Kettering.
3 Probably an allusion to a convivial party.
4 They did, by a majority of 597 (poll 3107).
St. James’s Square | Monday
My Dear Sir
I called on you this morning although with very little hope of finding you returned so soon. When you come back, will you be kind enough to write to Cruikshank impressing the necessity of dispatch upon him?—I think he requires the spur.
I will call on Thursday Morning and shall perhaps succeed in finding you at home.
Believe me | Very truly Yours
CHARLES DICKENS
Furnivals Inn | Sunday Evening
My Dearest Life
You must not be “coss” with what I cannot help. I like the matter of what I have done to-day, very much, but the quantity is not sufficient to justify my coming out to-night. If the representations I have so often made to you, about my working as a duty, and not as a pleasure, be not sufficient to keep you in the good humour, which you, of all people in the World should preserve—why then, my dear, you must be out of temper, and there is no help for it.
I can fancy, if you began to read this note with a frown, that a smile has taken its place by this time: and so I shall speak rationally about what I have been doing, as I hope I shall always be able to do, to my own Wife.—I have at this moment, got Pickwick, and his friends, on the Rochester Coach, and they are going on swimmingly, in company with a very different character from any I have yet described, who I flatter myself will make a decided hit.1 I want to get them from the Ball, to their Inn, before I go to bed—and I think that will take me until one or two o’Clock, at the earliest. The Publishers will be here in the Morning, so you will readily suppose I have no alternative but to stick at my Desk.
Write me a long note by Fred, but if you can avoid crossing2 it, do: for my eyes are none of the best at night, and I feel some difficulty in reading it by candle-light. I hope and believe I shall be able to get out between my turns, tomorrow night—about half past 9. But should I be prevented, I hereby solemnly pledge myself to be out, God willing, on Tuesday. Tell me all the news about Braham3—
Believe me | My dearest Love | Ever Yours most affecy.
CHARLES DICKENS
I wish you were a fixture here—I should like to have you by me—so much.
1 Jingle.
2 i.e. using the same sheet of paper twice, the second page written on top of the first at right angles.
3 John Braham (1777?–1856†), popular English tenor; in Dec. 1835 opened St. James’s Theatre, known as ‘Braham’s Folly’.
15 Furnivals Inn. | Thursday March 31st. 1836
My Dear Uncle.
The great success of my book,2 and the name it has established for me among the Publishers, enables me to settle at an earlier period than I at first supposed possible; I have therefore fixed Saturday next, for my marriage with Miss Hogarth—the daughter of a gentleman who has recently distinguished himself by a celebrated work on Music, who was the most intimate friend and companion of Sir Walter Scott,3 and one of the most eminent among the Literati of Edinburgh.
There is no Member of my family to whom I should be prouder to introduce my wife, than yourself, but I am compelled to say—and I am sure that you cannot blame me for doing so—that the same cause which has led me for a long time past, to deny myself the pleasure and advantage of your society, prevents my doing so. If I could not as a single man, I cannot as a married one, visit at a relation’s house from which my father is excluded:4 nor can I see any relatives here, who would not treat him, as they would myself.
This is a very painful subject, and I have many associations connected with you, which render it much more painful in this case, than in any other. I cannot forget that I was once your little companion and nurse, through a weary illness, nor shall I ever cease to remember the many proofs you have given me, in later days, of your interest, and affection.
When I say, Uncle, that I should be more happy than I can possibly express, if you would place it in my power, to know you once again on those terms of intimacy and friendship, I so sincerely desire, I hope you will not misunderstand my meaning. I do not ask you—I should conceive that I lowered and disgraced myself, if I did—to alter your determination. I may think that time might have softened the determined ani[mosity5 y]ears ; I may [ ] do an injustice ( [ ] I have no doubt) to my father’s real character. I cannot, however, be an impartial judge, because I cannot be an unprejudiced one; and I do not presume therefore to arraign your decision.
Nothing that has occurred to me in my life, has given me greater pain, than thus denying myself the society of yourself and Aunt. I have only to add that the contents of this letter are unknown to everybody but Aunt Charlton,6 to whom I have written on the same subject: and that come what may, I shall ever be, at heart,
Dear Uncle | Your most affectionate Nephew
[CHARLES DICKENS]
1 Thomas Culliford Barrow (?1793–1857), Mrs John Dickens’s eldest brother.
2 SB, First Series.
3 Walter Scott (1771–1832†), poet and novelist; major influence on CD.
4 In 1819 Barrow had guaranteed an annuity of £26 to a third party in return for £200 paid to CD’s father, who was unable to pay the annuity; in 1821 Barrow was called upon to repay the £200 himself. Hence the exclusion of John Dickens from Barrow’s house.
5 Signature at end of letter has been cut away, affecting three lines on other side.
6 CD’s maternal great-aunt (b. 1786).
15 Furnivals Inn | Thursday Evening
My Dear Sir—
I had intended to write you, to say how much gratified I feel by the pains you have bestowed on our mutual friend Mr. Pickwick, and how much the result of your labours, has surpassed my expectations. I am happy to be able to congratulate you, the publishers, and myself, on the success of the undertaking, which appears to have been most complete.
I have now, another reason for troubling you. It is this. I am extremely anxious about “The Stroller’s Tale”2—the more especially as many literary friends, on whose judgment I place great reliance, think it will create considerable sensation. I have seen your design for an Etching to accompany it. I think it extremely good, but still, it is not quite my idea; and as I feel so very solicitous to have it as complete as possible, I shall feel personally obliged, if you will make another drawing. It will give me great pleasure to see you, as well as the drawing, when it is completed. With this view, I have asked Chapman and Hall, to take a glass of grog with me on Sunday Evening (the only night I am disengaged), when I hope you will be able to look in.3
The alteration I want, I will endeavour to explain. I think the woman should be younger—the “dismal man” decidedly should, and he should be less miserable in appearance. To communicate an interest to the plate, his whole appearance should express more sympathy and solicitude: and while I represented the sick man as emaciated and dying, I would not make him too repulsive. The furniture of the room, you have depicted, admirably.
I have ventured to make these suggestions, feeling assured that you will consider them in the spirit in which I submit them to your judgment. I shall be happy to hear from you, that I may expect to see you on Sunday Evening—4
Dear Sir | Very truly Yours
CHARLES DICKENS
1 Robert Seymour (1796–1836†), illustrator and caricaturist.
2 The first of the nine stories interpolated into PP.
3 This was their only meeting.
4 Seymour provided illustrations for the first two numbers of PP, but committed suicide on 20 Apr.
Furnivals Inn. | Tuesday Evening | November 1st 1836.
My Dear Sirs,
I have been exceedingly gratified by your very kind letter; not so much by the intelligence you communicate to me of Pickwick’s success, and the consequent advantage it holds out to me (though they are something) as by the very kind tone in which it is couched, and the very handsome terms in which your intelligence is communicated.
I am well aware of the lingering disease under which Mr. Pickwick has recently laboured, and of the great aggravation of the symptoms which has gradually taken place.2 You may rest assured that the disease has reached its height, and that it will now take a favourable turn. Avoiding all showy promises, I will endeavour to prove to you, before this day week, that I am serious and in earnest. I only entreat you to recollect two things—first that I have many other occupations; and secondly that spirits are not to be forced up to Pickwick point, every day. Although thank God I have as few worldly cares as most people, you would scarcely believe how often I sit down to begin a number, and feeling unequal to the task, do what is far better than writing, under such circumstances—get up, and wait till I am. It is needless for me to say how cordially I am interested in its success, or how proud I am of it. If I were to live a hundred years, and write three novels in each, I should never be so proud of any of them, as I am of Pickwick, feeling as I do, that it has made its own way, and hoping, as I must own I do hope, that long after my hand is withered as the pens it held, Pickwick will be found on many a dusty shelf with many a better work.
There—enough of Pickwick, and now for future periodicals. I should be the most insensible, and at the same time the most jolter-headed scribe alive, if I had ever entertained the most remote idea of dissolving our most pleasant and friendly connection. So I hereby nominate and appoint William Hall and Edward Chapman of No. 186 Strand, their heirs, executors, administrators, and assigns, my periodical publishers, until I am advertised in the daily papers, as having been compressed into my last edition—one volume, boards, with brass plates; and in common with my very kind friend of the Advertiser, I hope it may be long before I come out in so unique a form.3
I had intended when I began this Letter, to close it by saying how much—how very much—I feel your honorable conduct. But as I know I should grow very sentimental if I said anything more about it, I will not trust myself to add more than that I am My dear Sirs,
Most faithfully yours
CHARLES DICKENS
1 William Hall (1800/1–47†) and Edward Chapman (1804–80†); booksellers and publishers. CD broke with them in 1844 but returned in 1859.
2 i.e. CD’s increasing failure to produce his monthly instalments on time.
3 The Morning Advertiser reviewed all PP to date on 25 Oct. 1836, concluding: ‘We sincerely hope that our youthful author may long be spared to contribute to the entertainment of the public, and that peace and health may attend his fireside.’
Furnivals Inn | Wednesday Evening Novr. 2nd.
My dear Sir.
I have well weighed the subject on which we conversed this morning; and feeling perfectly satisfied that it will not interfere with Pickwick, shall be happy to undertake the editorship of the new Magazine,2 on the following conditions being settled between us.
I should like in my agreement to have my duties specifically set forth, together with the emoluments you propose, and a stipulation relative to the quantity of matter I am to furnish monthly, which I understand is never to exceed a sheet. As I should immediately throw up my connection with the Chronicle in the event of my closing with you, I make it a sine quā non that my engagement is for a year certain. I have little doubt that it would last for many years, but as I must resign a certain income elsewhere, this condition is indispensable.
The terms I leave to you to propose. I need not enlarge on the rapidly increasing value of my time and writings to myself, or on the assistance “Boz’s” name just now, would prove to the circulation, because I am persuaded that no one is better able to form a correct estimate on both points, than you are.
I thought it might facilitate our dispatch of business on Friday, if I stated these points at once. Within four and twenty hours after you make me a definite proposal, I will return a final answer. Of course I understand that until we agree to make it public, the project remains a secret.
I am | Dear Sir | Very faithfully Yours
CHARLES DICKENS
1 Richard Bentley (1794–1871†), prominent publisher. CD later quarrelled with him, and finally broke with the ‘Burlington Street Brigand’ in 1839.
2 Bentley’s Miscellany.
15 Furnivals Inn. | Friday Morning
Dear Sir.
If you imagine that I was guilty of the least intentional disrespect in not returning to the office the other day, you do me the greatest injustice. Having left Mrs. Dickens in a shop hard by; and having consumed in waiting at the office and going to Cecil Street, a much longer time than I supposed I should have been absent, I did not choose to leave her any longer in a strange place; knowing as I did how very easily I could account for my not returning (if you had thought anything of it at all, which I considered highly improbable) when I did see you. I have not called since, because I have been very ill, and have not left the house for several days, and have since been obliged to devote my whole time, morning and night, to recovering the ground I had lost by indisposition.
You will permit me to assure you, very respectfully that you are greatly mistaken in imagining that I had forgotten that I was to supply a Sketch weekly. I merely pursued the same course as I adopted when I wrote the Sketches before. We had the same agreement then, but I wrote sometimes two in one week, sometimes none, as suited my convenience, and that of the paper. The very circumstance of the revising Barristers’ Courts being open at the time, assured me that the Chronicle would sustain no injury by my doing so. Its columns must have been pretty full, for on one occasion, a Sketch was lying at the Office, I think three days, before it was inserted. I have only to add that I shall return the six guineas with the utmost pleasure, and that I wish I could return at the same time every additional six pence beyond my regular salary as a reporter that I have received from the Establishment, although I have rendered in return for it, the money’s worth.
I should have been well content to have left; and to have considered the constrained and abrupt terms of your former letter, as one of those matters of course which so often pass between master and servant, when the servant gives his month’s warning, and takes his services elsewhere. But I will say now, in the same frankness and honesty with which you express your feelings to me, that I did expect on leaving, to receive some slight written acknowledgment from the Proprietors of the Morning Chronicle of the sense they entertained of the services I had performed. I may say now, that on many occasions at a sacrifice of health, rest, and personal comfort, I have again and again, on important expresses in my zeal for the interests of the paper, done what was always before considered impossible, and what in all probability will never be accomplished again. During the whole period of my engagement wherever there was difficult and harassing duty to be performed—travelling at a few hours’ notice hundreds of miles in the depth of winter—leaving hot and crowded rooms to write, the night through, in a close damp chaise—tearing along, and writing the most important speeches, under every possible circumstance of disadvantage and difficulty—for that duty have I been selected. And I did not think when I made great efforts to perform it, and to eclipse (as I have done, again and again) other papers with double the means, that my reward at last would be a regret that I had ever enjoyed a few week’s rest, and a fear lest at the close of two years, I should have received six pounds six, too much! I have, however, the satisfaction of knowing that there is not another Newspaper Office in London where these services have not been watched and appreciated—that there is not one of my colleagues who will not cheerfully bear testimony to them—and with the respect and esteem of both Editors and reporters, I am happy to say that I can afford to part with the thanks of the Proprietors, although I feel much hurt, and much surprised at the conduct they think proper to pursue towards me.
Depend upon it, Sir, that if you would stimulate those about you to any exertions beyond their ordinary routine of duty, and gather round you competent successors to the young men whom you will constantly find quitting a most arduous and thankless profession, as other prospects dawn upon them, this is not the way to do it.
I am | Dear Sir | Faithfully Yours
CHARLES DICKENS
1 Sir John Easthope (1784–1865†), Liberal politician and chief proprietor of the Morning Chronicle.
I think the Sergeant should look younger, and a great deal more sly, and knowing—he should be looking at Pickwick too, smiling compassionately at his innocence. The other fellows are noble—CD
1 Hablot Knight Browne, ‘Phiz’ (1815–82†), artist and illustrator. Succeeded Robert Buss (who had replaced Seymour) as illustrator of PP. Illustrated all CD’s novels (except OT) up to and including TTC, 1859.
Doughty St. | Sunday Night
My Dear Sir
We are in deep and severe distress. Miss Hogarth1 after accompanying Mrs. Dickens & myself to the Theatre last night, was suddenly taken severely ill, and despite our best endeavours to save her, expired in my arms at two O’Clock this afternoon.
Faithfully Yours
CHARLES DICKENS2
1 Catherine’s 17-year-old sister Mary, described by CD as ‘the grace and life of our home’.
2 Signature very shaky, and the flourish omitted.
Collins’s Farm. North End | Hampstead | Wednesday Evening
My Dear Beard.
I received your kind letter in due course. I should have written to you myself, to communicate the dreadful occurrence, but I had so many distressing appeals to my attention and exertions, that I was compelled to postpone doing so for a time.
I presume you heard from my father, that on the Saturday Night we had been to the Theatre—that we returned home as usual—that poor Mary was in the same health and spirits in which you have so often seen her—that almost immediately after she went up stairs to bed she was taken ill—and that next day she died. Thank God she died in my arms, and the very last words she whispered were of me.
Of our sufferings at the time, and all through the dreary week that ensued, I will say nothing—no one can imagine what they were. You have seen a good deal of her, and can feel for us, and imagine what a blank she has left behind. The first burst of my grief has passed, and I can think and speak of her, calmly and dispassionately. I solemnly believe that so perfect a creature never breathed. I knew her inmost heart, and her real worth and value. She had not a fault.
Mrs. Hogarth has suffered and still continues to suffer most deep and bitter anguish. Kate, I am glad to say, made such strong efforts to console her, that she unconsciously summoned up all her fortitude at the same time, and brought it to her own assistance. She knows that if ever a mortal went to Heaven, her sister is there; she has nothing to remember but a long course of affection and attachment, perhaps never exceeded. Not one cross word or angry look on either side, even as children, rises in judgment against her; and she is now so calm and cheerful that I wonder to see her.
I have been so shaken and unnerved by the loss of one whom I so dearly loved that I have been compelled to lay aside all thoughts of my usual monthly work, for once;1 and we have come here for quiet and change. We have a cottage of our own, with large gardens, and everything else on a small but comfortable scale. Kate is very anxious indeed to see you and as I can assure you that you will derive any thing but pain from seeing her, I hope you will join us in the old way. Name your own time, and believe me that there is no one whom it would give us so much pleasure to welcome as yourself.
Believe me My Dear Beard | Ever Faithfully Yours
CHARLES DICKENS
1 There was no June number of either PP or OT.
48 Doughty Street. | Friday Morning
My Dear Forster.
Let me beg your acceptance of the accompanying Nos. of the Miscellany,—not as a matter of business, or with any view to notices thereof, past present or to come, but because I should really be greatly disappointed if I wrote anything which you had not an early opportunity of reading. This looks very like vanity I dare say, but I do not mean it so. Believe me that it affords me great pleasure to hear that you continue to read my writings, and far greater gratification than I can well describe to you to hear from your own lips that poor Oliver “affects” you—which I take to be the highest of all praise.
Believe me with great sincerity | Faithfully Yours
CHARLES DICKENS
I shall expect you on Tuesday, remember.
1 John Forster (1812–76†), writer, editor, and critic. A friend, supporter, and adviser to many writers, including Leigh Hunt, Bulwer Lytton, Charles Lamb, and Robert Browning. From Oct. 1837 onwards he read, in MS or proof, everything that CD wrote. A close and affectionate friendship developed between them, and CD must soon have become aware of his notorious rudeness. Forster wrote the first biography of CD, having been authorized to do so. CD ended a long letter of praise for Forster’s Life and Adventures of Oliver Goldsmith: ‘I desire no better for my fame when my personal dustyness shall be past the controul of my love of order, than such a biographer and such a Critic’ (22 Apr. 1848). Forster left his collection of CD’s manuscripts to what is now the National Art Library at the V&A.
48 Doughty St.—Mecklenburgh Square | Saturday June 3rd. 1837.
My Dear Sir.
Beard, our mutual friend, was to have been the medium of an introduction between us, but as he has not seen you for some time, I venture to introduce myself as “Boz”, and when I tell you why I have not had patience to wait for his intervention, I dare say you will feel highly gratified.
In my next number of Oliver Twist, I must have a magistrate; and casting about for a magistrate whose harshness and insolence would render him a fit subject to be “shewn up” I have, as a necessary consequence, stumbled upon Mr. Laing2 of Hatton Garden celebrity. I know the man’s character perfectly well, but as it would be necessary to describe his appearance also, I ought to have seen him, which (fortunately or unfortunately as the case may be) I have never done.
In this dilemma it occurred to me that perhaps I might under your auspices be smuggled into the Hatton Garden office for a few moments some morning. If you can further my object, I shall be really very greatly obliged to you.
I am staying at Hampstead at present; but if you will direct a line to my house in town, stating when I shall call on you, or you on me, I will be punctual. Whether you can render me the assistance I require, or not, I shall be happy to avail myself of that opportunity of becoming known to you.
Believe me | My Dear Sir | Faithfully Yours
CHARLES DICKENS
1 Thomas Haines, for many years a respected reporter at the Mansion House police office.
2 Allan Laing (1788–1862), notoriously severe Hatton Garden police magistrate. CD pilloried him as Mr Fang in the July instalment of OT ch. 11.
Hotel Rignolle. | Calais, le 2nd. July 1837
My Dear Forster.
We1 arrived here in great state this morning—I very sick, and Missis very well. Just as the boat was leaving Dovor, a breathless Boots put a letter from town, and “The Examiner” into my hands, the latter of which, I verily believe preserved me from that dismal extremity of qualmishness into which I am accustomed to sink when I have “the blue above and the blue below”. I have always thought that the “silence wheresoe’er I go”2 is a beautiful touch of Barry Cornwall’s (otherwise Procter) descriptive of the depression produced by sea-voyaging. I know it’s remarkably silent wherever I go, when I’m on the briny.
But seriously—how can I thank you for your beautiful notice?3—Can I do so better than by saying that I feel your rich, deep appreciation of my intent and meaning more than the most glowing abstract praise that could possibly be lavished upon me? You know I have ever done so, for it was your feeling for me and mine for you that first brought us together, and I hope will keep us so, till death do us part. Your notices make me grateful but very proud; so have a care of them, or you will turn my head.
We have arranged for a post coach to take us to Ghent, Brussels, Antwerp, and a hundred other places that I cannot recollect now and couldn’t spell if I did. We went this afternoon in a barouche to some gardens where the people dance, and where they were footing it most heartily—especially the women who in their short petticoats and light caps look uncommonly agreeable. A gentleman in a blue surtout and silken Berlins4 accompanied us from the Hotel, and acted as Curator.5 He even waltzed with a very smart lady (just to show us, condescendingly, how it ought to be done) and waltzed elegantly too. We rang for slippers after we came back, and it turned out that this gentleman was the “Boots”. Isn’t this French?
I think we shall be home on Sunday Night or Monday Morning—I shall see you, please God, directly we return—at least, so soon as my sea-sickness shall have disappeared. Meanwhile curse my negligence for having forgotten Bentley’s letter, and mislaid the draught. I sent another to him by the same Post which brings this,—very nearly the same I think. Mrs. D and Browne beg their best remembrances; and I beg you (no hard task I hope) to believe me ever
Faithfully and sincerely Yours
CHARLES DICKENS
1 CD, Catherine, and Hablot K. Browne; CD’s first trip abroad.
2 From ‘The Sea’, B. W. Procter’s English Songs, 1832.
3 Forster’s highly complimentary review of PP No. 15 in The Examiner of 2 July.
4 Knitted gloves of Berlin wool.
5 i.e. guide.
Doughty Street. | Monday Evening
My Dear Sir
I have purposely abstained from replying to your note before, in order that if our friend Mr. Clarke communicated with you again, you might be enabled to tell him with perfect truth that you had heard nothing from me.
My reason is this—if I were in the slightest instance whatever, to adopt any information so communicated, however much I invented upon it, the World would be informed one of these days—after my death perhaps—that I was not the sole author of the Pickwick Papers—that there were a great many other parties concerned—that a gentleman in the Fleet Prison perfectly well remembered stating in nearly the same words—&c &c &c. In short I prefer drawing upon my own imagination in such cases. Mr. Clarke’s own story I have put into a Cobbler’s mouth who tells it in the next number; and this is the only reality in the whole business of and concerning the Fleet. Fictitious narratives place the enormities of the system in a much stronger point of view, and they enable one to escape the personalities and endless absurdities into which there is a certainty of rushing if you take any man’s account of his own grievances.
If you should receive any other application from the same quarter, perhaps you will have the goodness to say that you communicated the first to me, and there an end of it.
Believe me ever My Dear Sir | Faithfully and sincerely Yours
CHARLES DICKENS
Pray present my best Compts. to Mrs. & Miss Beadnell.
48 Doughty Street. | Saturday September 16th. 1837.
Sir.
When I left town, I placed a number of accepted articles in the Printer’s hands, with directions to set them up in sheets, beginning at the commencement of the number, and to send proofs to me. The whole of this arrangement has been altered by you; proofs of articles which I never saw in Manuscript have been forwarded to me; and notwithstanding my written notice to the Printer that I would revise no such papers, this course has been persisted in, and a second sheet sent.
By these proceedings I have been actually superseded in my office as Editor of the Miscellany; they are in direct violation of my agreement with you, and a gross insult to me. I therefore beg to inform you that henceforth I decline conducting the Miscellany or contributing to it in any way; but in order that you may suffer no inconvenience or embarrassment from the shortness of this notice, I will write a paper this month, and edit the Magazine this month—no longer.
As I feel this course of treatment most strongly, I beg you to understand that it is my firm intention to abide by this determination, regarding the propriety of which, my feeling of what is due to myself, is strengthened by the best advice from others.
I am | Sir, | Yours
CHARLES DICKENS1
1 CD continued to edit Bentley’s Miscellany until Jan. 1839.
Doughty Street. | Thursday Night
My Dear Mrs. Hogarth.
I need not thank you for your present of yesterday;2 for you know the mournful pleasure I shall take in wearing it and the care with which I shall prize it, until—so far as relates to this life—I am like her.
I have never had her ring off my finger by day or night, except for an instant at a time to wash my hands, since she died. I have never had her sweetness and excellence absent from my mind so long. I can solemnly say that waking or sleeping I have never once lost the recollection of our hard trial and sorrow, and I feel that I never shall.
It will be a great relief to my heart when I find you sufficiently calm upon this sad subject to claim the promise I made you when she lay dead in this house, never to shrink from speaking of her as if her memory were to be avoided, but rather to take a melancholy pleasure in recalling the times when we were all so happy—so happy that increase of fame and prosperity has only widened the gap in my affections by causing me to think how she would have shared and enhanced all our joys, and how proud I should have been (as God knows I always was) to possess the affection of the gentlest and purest creature that ever shed a light on earth. I wish you could know how I weary now for the three rooms in Furnival’s Inn, and how I miss that pleasant smile and those sweet words which, bestowed upon an evening’s work in our merry banterings round the fire, were more precious to me than the applause of a whole world would be. I can recal everything we said and did in those happy days, and could shew you every passage and line we read together.
You and I will probably be oftener alone together in Kate’s coming confinement, which will be a truly heavy time to me, reminding me how we spent the last. I see now that you are capable of making great efforts even against the affliction you have to deplore, and I hope that then our words may be where our thoughts are, and that we may call up these old memories,—not as shadows of the bitter past, but as lights upon a happier future.
Believe me My Dear Mrs. Hogarth, | Ever truly and affectionately Yours
CHARLES DICKENS
1 Catherine’s mother.
2 A chain of Mary Hogarth’s hair.
48 Doughty Street London. | Thursday December 21st. 1837.
Sir.
I have to acknowledge the receipt of your letter informing me of the institution of an “Edinburgh Pickwick Club”—and conveying to me from its Members a most gratifying and welcome assurance of their good-will and regard.
I believe with you that this is the first society of the kind, established North of the Tweed, and I cannot tell you how much delight it has afforded me to hear of its existence. All my relations by marriage are of Scotland. Many of my dearest living friends are natives of your fine city, and my most cherished recollections are of a dearly loved friend and companion who drew her first breath in Edinburgh and died beside me.
I need not, I am sure, tell you that these are all reasons for endearing to me the place and everything savouring of it. If I wanted any additional sources of gratification beyond those which you acquaint me with, I should find them in the tone of your intelligence and the terms of your letter.
If a word of encouragement from me, can as you say endow you with double life, you will be the most lively club in all the Empire, from this time; for every hearty wish that I can muster for your long-continued welfare and prosperity, is freely yours. Mr. Pickwick’s heart is among you always.
Nothing in the course of my brief career—numerous as my causes for gratification have been—has afforded me so much delight as the being so pleasantly and cheerily remembered by the rising spirits of distant places in their moments of relaxation and enjoyment. Trusting that I may long hold a place in your remembrances and that whenever I visit Scotland again I may find you flourishing with greater vigour than ever,
I am | Sir | Very faithfully Yours
CHARLES DICKENS
Dr. Forster
I shall expect you—chops await you.
CD.
Greta Bridge. | Thursday February 1st. 1838.
My Dearest Kate.
I am afraid you will receive this, later than I could wish, as the Mail does not come through this place until 2 o’Clock tomorrow Morning. However, I have availed myself of the very first opportunity of writing, so the fault is that mail’s, and not this.
We reached Grantham between 9 and 10 on Tuesday night, and found everything prepared for our reception in the very best Inn I have ever put up at. It is odd enough that an old lady who had been outside all day and came in towards dinner time turned out to be the Mistress of a Yorkshire School returning from the holiday-stay in London. She was a very queer old body, and shewed us a long letter she was carrying to one of the boys from his father, containing a severe lecture (enforced and aided by many texts from Scripture) on his refusing to eat boiled meat. She was very communicative, drank a great deal of brandy and water, and towards evening became insensible, in which state we left her.
Yesterday we were up again shortly after 7 and came on upon our journey by the Glasgow Mail which charged us the remarkably low sum of six pounds, four for two places inside. We had a very droll male companion until seven oClock in the evening, and a most delicious lady’s maid for twenty miles who implored us to keep a sharp look-out at the coach windows as she expected her carriage was coming to meet her and she was afraid of missing it. We had many delightful vauntings of the same kind; and in the end it is scarcely necessary to say that the Coach did not come, and a very dirty girl did.
As we came further North, the snow grew deeper. About eight o’Clock it began to fall heavily, and as we crossed the wild heaths hereabout, there was no vestige of a track.The Mail kept on well, however, and at eleven we reached a bare place with a house standing alone in the midst of a dreary moor, which the Guard informed us was Greta Bridge. I was in a perfect agony of apprehension, for it was fearfully cold and there were no outward signs of anybody being up in the house. But to our great joy we discovered a comfortable room with drawn curtains and a most blazing fire. In half an hour they gave us a smoking supper and a bottle of mulled port (in which we drank your health) and then we retired to a couple of capital bedrooms in each of which was a rousing fire half way up the chimney.
We have had for breakfast, toasts, cakes, a yorkshire pie, a piece of beef about the size and much the shape of my portmanteau, tea, coffee, ham and eggs—and are now going to look about us. Having finished our discoveries, we start in a postchaise for Barnard Castle which is only four miles off, and there I deliver the letter given me by Mitton’s friend. All the schools are round about that place, and a dozen old abbies besides, which we shall visit by some means or other tomorrow. We shall reach York on Saturday I hope, and (God willing) I trust I shall be at home on Wednesday Morning. If anything should occur to prevent me, I will write to you from York, but I think that is not likely.
I wish you would call on Mrs. Bartley and thank her for her letter; you can tell her when I expected to be in York.
A thousand loves and kisses to the darling boy whom I see in my mind’s eye crawling about the floor of this Yorkshire Inn. Don’t leave him alone too much. Bless his heart I would give two sovereigns for a kiss. Remember me too, to Frederick who I hope is attentive to you. Take care of yourself my dearest, and let me find by your letter at the York Post Office that you are in both good health and good spirits.
Is it not extraordinary that the same dreams which have constantly visited me since poor Mary died, follow me everywhere? After all the change of scene and fatigue, I have dreamt of her ever since I left home, and no doubt shall ‘till I return. I should be sorry to lose such visions for they are very happy ones—if it be only the seeing her in one’s sleep—I would fain believe too, sometimes, that her spirit may have some influence over them, but their perpetual repetition is extraordinary.1
Love to all friends. | Ever my dear Kate your affectionated husband
CHARLES DICKENS
1 The result of his telling Catherine about the dreams was that they stopped completely.
48 Doughty Street. | Friday Morning
My Dear Sir.
Supposing we arrange preliminaries to our mutual satisfaction, I propose to dramatize Oliver for the first night of next Season.2
I have never seen Mrs. Honnor to the best of my recollection, but from the mere circumstance of her being a Mrs, I should say at once that she was “a many sizes too large” for Oliver Twist. If it be played by a female, it should be a very sharp girl of thirteen or fourteen—not more, or the character would be an absurdity.
I don’t see the possibility of any other house doing it before your next opening night.3 If they do, it must be done in a very extraordinary manner, as the story (unlike that of Pickwick) is an involved and complicated one. I am quite satisfied that nobody can have heard what I mean to do with the different characters in the end, inasmuch as at present I don’t quite know, myself; so we are tolerably safe on that head.
Any way, I am quite sure that your name as the Jew and mine as the author would knock any other attempts quite out of the field. I do not however see the least possibility of any other Theatre being able to steal a march upon you.
Believe me always | Truly Yours
CHARLES DICKENS
1 Frederick Yates (1797–1842†), actor and theatre manager.
2 Nothing came of this project.
3 Five different versions of OT were performed before Yates’s production at the Adelphi in Feb. 1839. Gilbert À Beckett’s version appeared in Mar. 1838, half-way through publication of the novel.
Doughty Street | Saturday Morning
My Dear Sir
I write—fortunately for you—short notes, having no time (if I had the inclination) to make them longer.
I will take soundings in Counting-House Quarters and report about that very deep mine to which you devote yourself, in due course. 2
I don’t think I shall be in town again until next Saturday, but between twelve and two on that day I shall be here. I have I am sorry to say several unfixed dinner engagements afoot, but I have at present no reason to fear that any one of them will clash with whatever day may suit Leigh Hunt3 best. I merely stipulate that you discharge me at an early hour, as I shall go back to Twickenham that night.
With reference to that question of yours concerning Oliver Twist I scarcely know what answer I can give you. I suppose like most authors I look over what I write with exceeding pleasure and think (to use the words of the elder Mr. Weller) “in my innocence that it’s all wery capital”. I thought that passage a good one when I wrote it, certainly, and I felt it strongly (as I do almost every word I put on paper) while I wrote it, but how it came I can’t tell. It came like all my other ideas, such as they are, ready made to the point of the pen—and down it went. Draw your own conclusion and hug the theory closely. 4
I strongly object to printing anything in italics but a word here and there which requires particular emphasis, and that not often. It is framing and glazing an idea and desiring the ladies and gentleman to walk up and admire it. The truth is, that I am a very modest man, and furthermore that if readers cannot detect the point of a passage without having their attention called to it by the writer, I would much rather they lost it and looked out for something else.
Faithfully Yours
CHARLES DICKENS
1 George Henry Lewes (1817–78†), writer and critic, and appreciative early reviewer of CD. They became friends; Lewes acted in CD’s amateur company. He was later the partner of Marian Evans (George Eliot).
2 Lewes had presumably offered to write for Bentley’s Miscellany.
3 Leigh Hunt (1784–1859†), poet, journalist, and literary critic. With his brother John, founder of the reformist weekly The Examiner; imprisoned 1813–15 for libelling the Prince of Wales. CD drew on him for Skimpole in BH.
4 The passage in the summer Nos. of OT which probably attracted Lewes, with his interest in mental phenomena, is the description in ch. 34 of Oliver’s state suspended between sleeping and waking.
Gammon Lodge | Saturday Evening | June 23rd. 1838
Sir.
I am requested to inform you that at a numerous meeting of the Gammon Aeronautical Balloon association for the encouragement of Science and the Consumption of Spirits of Wine—Thomas Beard Esquire, Mrs. Charles Dickens, Charles Dickens Esquire, the Snodgering Blee, Popem Jee2 and other distinguished characters being present and assenting—the vote of censure of which I inclose a copy was unanimously passed upon you for gross negligence in the discharge of your duty, and most unjustifiable disregard of the best interests of the Society.
I am Sir | Your most obedt. Servant
CHARLES DICKENS
Honorary Secretary
1 A balloon club for the children at Twickenham: Forster was president and had to supply the balloons. Serious balloon ascents were in the news.
2 Charley and Mamie. These are the first known of CD’s many nicknames for his children.
July 27th. 1838.
Dr. Sir.
Poets tell us that love is blind;—I fear indifference is more so. It is many months since I sent you a slight gage d’amour; it is many years (do not be alarmed, I am still very young) since I first became acquainted with your worth and excellence. I have seen you—met you—read your works—heard you speak—listened, in a breathless state, to your eloquent and manly expression of the sentiments which do you honor; and still by no word or sign have I discovered that you recognized in me the giver of the simple worthless riding whip which I have often seen in your hand, and once (when you [ ] it) nearly touched.
Mr. Forster—dear Mr. Forster let me say, as it is but on paper, and through the distant medium of an anonymous communication—I have loved you, and I could have wished, and have wished with all a woman’s ardour that you were mine. You are no ordinary man. When I tell you this, believe that love—a love of which I am not ashamed, but proud, since its object exalts even that great passion—has rendered me superior to the common foibles of my sex. I love you still, but I know neither jealousy, envy, nor hatred. You love another. Heaven send you may be happy—as happy, Mr. Forster, as you deserve. As happy as in the wildest dreams of your youth you can ever have hoped to become.
I have but one object in writing, and that is soon stated. I might say two, since it will be a consolation to know that your eye traces these lines—but I will not. Think me capricious—strange—romantic—what you will—but when this engagement arising out of the acquaintance you have recently formed, is ratified (it may be already, I have no reason to doubt it) return that whip to the booking office of the Golden Cross Charing Cross,2 directed “To T.B.K. To be called for.” I shall receive it within four and twenty hours. The Reflection that you have used it, kept it, had it by you, looked upon it, wondered whence it came, and perhaps felt proud of it at times, will support me under the heavy infliction of knowing that you are another’s.
Dear Mr. Forster, bless you. In the society of your future wife, and your excellent friends Mr. Dickens, Mr. Serjeant Talfourd3 and Mr. Macready4 who respect and admire you as a kindred spirit and find their genius mirrored in your own, may you be happy;—happier Dear Mr. Forster than
Louisa.
1 A joke letter, untidily written, with numerous cancellations, alterations, and blots.
2 The famous coaching inn, features in SB, PP, and DC.
3 Thomas Talfourd (1795–1854†), writer, judge, and politician. A man of charm and conviviality, at the heart of CD’s social circle and model for Tommy Traddles in DC.
4 William Macready (1793–1873†), leading actor of his generation and theatre manager at Covent Garden and Drury Lane. He sought to raise the artistic and moral reputation of the stage, promoting Shakespeare and new dramatists, while driving prostitutes from public areas of the theatre. His friendship with CD was unbroken from 1837.
Doughty Street | Monday Evening.
My Dear Sir.
Pray keep the English Authors as long as you please. I only wish the collection were a more comprehensive and interesting one.
I am ashamed to confess that—in the hurry of many engagements—I have quite forgotten your request.2 That I may forget it no longer, I will tell you “all I know” at once.
I was born at Portsmouth, an English Seaport town principally remarkable for mud, Jews, and Sailors, on the 7th. of February 1812. My father holding in those days a situation under Government in the Navy Pay Office, which called him in the discharge of his duty to different places, I came to London, a child of two years old, left it again at six, and then left it again for another Sea Port town—Chatham—where I remained some six or seven years, and then came back to London with my parents and half a dozen brothers and sisters, whereof I was second in seniority.
I had begun an irregular rambling education under a clergyman at Chatham, and I finished it at a good school in London—tolerably early, for my father was not a rich man, and I had to begin the world. So I began in a Lawyer’s office—which is a very little world, and a very dull one—and leaving it at the expiration of two years, devoted myself for some time to the acquirement of such general literature as I could pick up in the Library of the British Museum,—and to the study of Short Hand, with a view to trying what I could do as a reporter—not for the Newspapers, but legal authorities—in our Ecclesiastical Courts. I was very successful in this pursuit—was induced to join the Mirror of Parliament—a publication, which was at that time devoted solely to the Debates—and afterwards to attach myself to the Morning Chronicle, where I remained until the four or five first numbers of the Pickwick Papers had appeared, and in the columns of which Journal most of my shorter sketches were originally published. Some few appeared in the old Monthly Magazine. I may tell you that I was considered very remarkable at the Chronicle for an extraordinary facility in writing and so forth—that I was very liberally paid during my whole connection with the paper—and that, when I quitted it, Pickwick was rapidly approaching the zenith of its fame and popularity.*
The rest of my career up to this time, you know. I may add for your guidance in any little notes you may throw together of my “Life and adventures” that I was a great reader as a child, being well versed in most of our English Novelists before I was ten3 years old—that I wrote tragedies and got other children to act them—that I won prizes at school, and great fame—that I am positively assured I was a very clever boy—that I am now married to the eldest daughter of Mr. Hogarth of Edinburgh, a gentleman who has published two well-known Works on Music and was a great friend and companion of Sir Walter Scott’s—and that, being now in my twenty-seventh year, I hope with God’s blessing to retain my health, spirits, fancy, and perseverance (such as they are) for many years to come.
As to my means of observation, they have been pretty extensive. I have been abroad in the world from a mere child, and have lived in London and travelled by fits and starts through a great part of England, a little of Scotland, and less of France, with my eyes open. Heaven send that some kind wind may ere long blow me to Germany!
There—I have said more about myself in this one note than I should venture to say elsewhere in twenty years. If you can make anything of such a jumble of matter, and—more than all—interest anybody in it, your ability, my dear Sir, will have exalted your subject.
Believe me | Very truly Yours
CHARLES DICKENS
If it be any consolation to the German Ladies to know that I have two children, pray tell them so.
*The Sketches, I should have told you, had been previously collected and published with amazing success, and have since gone through many editions.
1 Johann Kuenzel (1810–73), German scholar and author. In England 1838–41 as tutor in the Duke of Sutherland’s household.
2 For particulars about himself, to be published in the Konversationslexikon, Leipzig. CD’s first autobiographical account of himself.
3 CD began to write ‘twelve’, crossed it out, and wrote ‘ten’ instead.
Doughty Street | Tuesday night
My Dear Forster
I need not tell you how delighted I have been with the notice in the Edinburgh.1 It is all even I could wish, and what more can I say!
Hard at work still.—Nancy is no more. I shewed what I have done to Kate last night who was in an unspeakable “state”, from which and my own impression I augur well. When I have sent Sikes to the Devil, I must have yours.
Ever Faithfully
CHARLES DICKENS
1 Thomas Lister’s article acclaimed CD as the ‘truest and most spirited delineator of English life, amongst the middle and lower classes, since the days of Smollett and Fielding. . . . What Hogarth was in painting, such very nearly is Mr. Dickens in prose fiction,’ Edinburgh Review, 1838.
Doughty Street | Saturday Morning
My dear Cruikshank
I find on writing it, that the scene of Sikes’s escape will not do for illustration. It is so very complicated, with such a multitude of figures, such violent action, and torchlight to boot, that a small plate could not take in the slightest idea of it.
I am expecting to see you with some designs. When I do, we will settle upon the substitute for this.1 I shall finish (please God) next week.
Always Believe me | Faithfully Yours
CHARLES DICKENS
1 Cruikshank illustrated part of the scene as ‘The Last Chance’, showing Sikes and his dog on the roof.
48 Doughty Street | Thursday Morning
My Dear Sir.
I am very glad indeed that Nickleby1 is doing so well. You are right about the popularity of the work, for its sale has left even that of Pickwick far behind.
My general objection to the adaptation of any unfinished work of mine simply is, that being badly done and worse acted it tends to vulgarize the characters, to destroy or weaken in the minds of those who see them the impressions I have endeavoured to create, and consequently to lessen the after-interest in their progress. No such objection can exist for a moment where the thing is so admirably done in every respect as you have done it in this instance. I felt it an act of common justice after seeing the piece, to withdraw all objection to its publication, and to say thus much to the parties interested in it, without reserve. 2
Would you think me very unreasonable if I asked you not to compare Nicholas with Tom and Jerry?3
If you can spare us a private box for next Tuesday, I shall be much obliged to you. If it be on the stage so much the better, as I shall really be glad of an opportunity to tell Mrs Keeley4 and O Smith5 how very highly I appreciate their Smike and Newman Noggs. I put you out of the question altogether, for that glorious Mantalini is beyond all praise.
Faithfully Yours
CHARLES DICKENS
1 Yates’s production at the Adelphi.
2 PP, OT, and NN had all been dramatized long before completion.
3 The heroes of Pierce Egan’s popular Life in London, or the Day and Night Scenes of Jerry Hawthorn, Esq. and Corinthian Tom, 1821. The comparison was presumably made on the playbills. CD would have disliked Egan’s coarse language and glorification of fast Regency life.
4 Mary Ann Keeley (1805–99†), successful actress, played in many adaptations of CD’s novels. Wife of actor Robert Keeley; CD greatly admired them both.
5 Richard John Smith (1786–1855†), actor, known as O Smith for his success as Obi in the melodrama Three Fingered Jack. Played Hugh in BR, and Scrooge.
Doughty Street. London. | December the twelfth | 1838.
Respected Sir.
I have given Squeers one cut on the neck and two on the head, at which he appeared much surprised and began to cry, which being a cowardly thing is just what I should have expected from him—wouldn’t you?
I have carefully done what you told me in your letter, about the lamb and the two sheeps for the little boys. They have also had some good ale and porter, and some wine. I am sorry you didn’t say what wine you would like them to have. I gave them some sherry which they liked very much, except one boy who was a little sick and choaked a good deal. He was rather greedy, and that’s the truth, and I believe it went the wrong way, which I say served him right, and I hope you will say so, too.
Nicholas had his roast lamb as you said he was to, but he could not eat it all, and says if you do not mind his doing so, he should like to have the rest hashed tomorrow, with some greens which he is very fond of and so am I. I said I was sure you would give him leave. He said he did not like to have his porter hot, for he thought it spoilt the flavour, so I let him have it cold. You should have seen him drink it. I thought he never would have left off. I also gave him three pounds of money—all in six pences to make it seem more—and he said directly that he should give more than half of it to his mama and sister and divide the rest with poor Smike. And I say he is a good fellow for saying so, and if anybody says he isn’t, I am ready to fight him whenever they like.—There.
Fanny Squeers shall be attended to, depend upon it. Your drawing of her is very like, except that I don’t think the hair is quite curly enough. The nose is particularly like hers, and so are the legs. She is a nasty disagreeable thing and I know it will make her very cross when she sees it, and what I say is that I hope it may. You will say the same, I know—at least I think you will.
I meant to have written you a longer letter but I cannot write very fast when I like the person I am writing to, because that makes me think about them, and I like you and so I tell you. Besides it is just eight o’clock at night, and I always go to bed at eight o’Clock except when it is my birthday, and then I sit up to supper. So I will not say anything more besides this—and that is my love to you and Neptune, and if you will drink my health every Christmas Day, I will drink yours—Come.
I am | Respected Sir | Your affectionate friend
CHARLES DICKENS
I don’t write my name very plain, but you know what it is, you know, so never mind.
1 William Hughes (1833–1907), aged 5, younger brother of the author of Tom Brown’s Schooldays.
Doughty Street | December 29th. 1838.
My Dear Mrs. Hall.
I am exceedingly obliged to you for your kind note, and the interesting anecdote which you tell so well. I have laid it by in the MS of the first number of Nickleby, and shall keep it there in confirmation of the truth of my little picture.
Depend upon it that the rascalities of those Yorkshire schoolmasters cannot easily be exaggerated, and that I have kept down the strong truth and thrown as much comicality over it as I could, rather than disgust and weary the reader with its fouler aspects. The identical scoundrel you speak of, I saw—curiously enough. His name is Shaw;2 the action was tried (I believe) eight or ten years since, and if I am not much mistaken another action was brought against him by the parents of a miserable child, a cancer in whose head he opened with an inky penknife, and so caused his death.3The country for miles round was covered, when I was there, with deep snow. There is an old Church near the school, and the first grave-stone I stumbled on that dreary winter afternoon was placed above the grave of a boy, eighteen long years old, who had died—suddenly, the inscription said; I suppose his heart broke—the Camel falls down “suddenly” when they heap the last load upon his back—died at that wretched place. I think his ghost put Smike into my head, upon the spot.
I went down in an assumed name, taking a plausible letter to an old Yorkshire attorney from another attorney in town, telling him how a friend had been left a widow, and wanted to place her boys at a Yorkshire school in hopes of thawing the frozen compassion of her relations. The man of business gave an introduction to one or two schools, but at night he came down to the Inn where I was stopping, and after much hesitation and confusion—he was a large-headed flat-nosed red-faced old fellow—said with a degree of feeling one would not have given him credit for, that the matter had been upon his mind all day—that they were sad places for mothers to send their orphan boys too—that he hoped I would not give up him as my adviser—but that she had better do anything with them—let them hold horses, run errands—fling them in any way upon the mercy of the World—rather than trust them there. This was an attorney, a well-fed man of business, and a rough Yorkshireman!
Mrs. Dickens and myself will be delighted to see the friend you speak of—we unite in regards to yourself and Mr. Hall4—and I throw myself single-handed upon your good nature, and beseech you to forgive me this long story—which you ought to do, as you have been the means of drawing it from me. Believe me, Dear Mrs. Hall
Very faithfully Yours
CHARLES DICKENS
1 Anna Maria Hall (1800–81†). Prolific writer and editor, and active philanthropist. Married to Samuel Carter Hall.
2 William Shaw, owner of Bowes Academy, Yorkshire; widely recognized as the original of Squeers. CD and Browne visited him on 2 Feb. 1838.
3 CD confuses Shaw with the Yorkshire schoolmaster whom he was told about as a boy. See his preface to NN, 1848.
4 Samuel Carter Hall (1800–89†), prolific journal editor and writer. Champion of modern British artists, and active in temperance and other philanthropic movements. Claimed to have known almost every distinguished artist and writer of his day, and thought to be a model for Pecksniff in MC.
Doughty Street | Monday Morning
My Dear Forster
With this you will receive a copy of a letter, which I am going to send to Bentley tomorrow morning.1 Keep it for I have no other.
From what I have already said to you, you will have been led to expect that I entertained some such intention. I know you will not endeavour to dissuade me from sending it for such an attempt would be utterly useless. Go it MUST.
It is no fiction to say that at present I cannot write this tale. The immense profits which Oliver has realised to its publisher, and is still realising; the paltry, wretched, miserable sum it brought to me (not equal to what is every day paid for a novel that sells fifteen hundred copies at most); the recollection of this, and the consciousness that I have still the slavery and drudgery of another work on the same journeyman-terms; the consciousness that my books are enriching everybody connected with them but myself, and that I, with such a popularity as I have acquired, am struggling in old toils, and wasting my energies in the very height and freshness of my fame, and the best part of my life, to fill the pockets of others, while for those who are nearest and dearest to me I can realise little more than a genteel subsistence: all this puts me out of heart and spirits: and I cannot—cannot and will not—under such circumstances that keep me down with an iron hand, distress myself by beginning this tale until I have had time to breathe; and until the intervention of the summer, and some cheerful days in the country, shall have restored me to a more genial and composed state of feeling.
There—for six months Barnaby Rudge stands over. And but for you, it should stand over altogether. For I do most solemnly declare that morally, before God and man, I hold myself released from such hard bargains as these,2 after I have done so much for those who drove them. This net that has been wound about me so chafes me, so exasperates and irritates my mind, that to break it at whatever cost—that I should care nothing for—is my constant impulse. But I have not yielded to it. I merely declare that I must have a postponement very common in all literary agreements; and for the time I have mentioned—six months from the conclusion of Oliver in the Miscellany—I wash my hands of any fresh accumulation of labour, and resolve to proceed as cheerfully as I can with that which already presses upon me.
Always faithfully Yours
CHARLES DICKENS
1 Requiring a postponement of six months before beginning BR in Bentley’s Miscellany. It was finally published in MHC in 1841.
2 The terms for BR would have given CD £800, £40 less than he had had for OT.
48 Doughty Street | Sunday Morning March 3rd.
My Dear Sir.
I read your note last night with heartfelt pain and sorrow. But I hope and believe that from the very depth and strength of your affection for your dead child, will arise your best and truest consolation.
The certainty of a bright and happy world beyond the Grave, which such young and untried creatures (half Angels here) must be called away by God to people—the thought that in that blessed region of peace and rest there is one spirit who may well be supposed to love and watch over those whom she loved so dearly when on earth— the happiness of being always able to think of her as a young and promising girl, and not as one whom years and long sorrow and suffering had changed—above all, the thought of one day joining her again where sorrow and separation are unknown— these are all sources of consolation which none but those who have suffered deep affliction can know in all their force, and which will whisper comfort and resignation to you and your poor wife.
To many, these would sound as very very slight considerations to fortify the mind against such a loss. It is nearly two years ago since I lost in one short night a young and lovely creature whom—I can say even to you now—I loved with the warmest affection that our nature is capable of, and in whom I had the fondest father’s pride. The first burst of anguish over, I have never thought of her with pain—never. I have never connected her idea with the grave in which she lies. I look upon it as I sometimes do upon the clothes she used to wear. They will moulder away in their secret places, as her earthly form will in the ground, but I have long since learnt to separate her from all this litter of dust and ashes, and to picture her to myself with every well-remembered grace and beauty heightened by the light of Heaven and the power of that Merciful Being who would never try our earthly affections so severely but to make their objects happy, and lead our thoughts to follow them.
I venture to hope my dear Sir, that the day is not far distant when you will be able to think of this dear child with a softened regret which will have nothing of bitterness in its composition—when it will be a melancholy but not a painful satisfaction to call up old looks and thoughts and turns of speech—and when you will be able to reflect with a grateful heart that those who yield most promise and are most richly endowed, commonly die young, as though from the first they were the objects of the Almighty’s peculiar love and care. It is, no doubt, a heavy blow to lose so sweet a child; but who that loved her would call her back, if any soul could return to tell the bliss of that distant land to which she has winged her early flight?
Receive my Dear Sir the assurance I cannot refrain from conveying to you at such a time as this, of my earnest and sincere sympathy and warm regard. And may the influence which the blessed spirits of those who have toiled on earth, have been supposed by many good and wise men to exercise over sorrowing mortals, bring comfort to you and yours in this sad bereavement.
My Dear Sir, I am always, | Faithfully Yours
CHARLES DICKENS
1 William Bradbury (1800–69†), in partnership with Frederick Evans (1803–70†), as printers and publishers. Until CD quarrelled with Chapman & Hall in 1844, they were his printers; thereafter they were his publishers until 1858. Proprietors of Punch from Dec. 1841. For many years CD had the highest opinion of them both as printers and publishers, and relations were very cordial.
New London Inn. Exeter. | Tuesday Night.
My Dear Forster.
I took a cottage for them1 this morning. If they are not pleased with it—I shall be grievously disappointed; that’s all. It is at a place called Alphington, exactly one mile beyond Exeter on the Dawlish, I think, but I know on the Plymouth-Road. There are two white cottages together, built of brick with thatched roofs. One is theirs and the other belongs to their landlady one Mrs. Pannell. I almost forget the number of rooms and cannot say positively until I have been there again, but I can report on solemn affirmation that on the ground floor there are an excellent parlor, a nice kitchen, and a little third room of comfortable proportions; and that in the yard behind there are meat-safes cellars coal holes wood houses and such like accomodations in rural abundance. Upstairs there is really a beautiful little room over the parlor which I am furnishing as a drawingroom, and I am not sure whether there are two or three bedrooms besides. There is a splendid garden and the rent of the whole (the landlady paying all taxes) is twenty pounds a year! The paint and paper throughout is new and fresh and cheerful-looking: the place is clean beyond all description; and the neighbourhood I suppose the most beautiful in this most beautiful of English counties.
Mrs. Pannell of whom I must make most especial mention is a Devonshire widow with whom I had the honor of taking lunch to-day. She is a fat, infirm, splendidly-fresh-faced country dame, rising sixty and recovering from an attack “on the Nerves”—I thought they never went off the stones,2 but I find they try country air with the best of us. In the event of my mother’s being ill at any time, I really think the vicinity of this good dame (the very picture of respectability and good humour) will be the greatest possible comfort. Her furniture and domestic arrangements are a capital picture, but that, with sundry imitations of herself and some “ladies” who called while I was there (evidently with a view to the property) I must reserve ’till I see you, when I anticipate a hearty laugh. The cottages communicate at the back—that is, our people pass close behind hers to get to their garden—she bears the highest character with the bankers and the clergyman—who formerly lived in my cottage himself—and is a kind-hearted worthy capital specimen of the sort of life, if she is properly managed, or I have no eye for the real and no idea of finding it out.
The good lady’s brother and his wife live in the next nearest cottage, and the brother transacts the good lady’s business, the nerves not admitting of her transacting it herself, although they leave her in her debilitated state something sharper than the finest lancet. Now the brother having coughed all night ’till he coughed himself into such a perspiration that you might have “wringed his hair”, according to the asseverations of eye witnesses, his wife was sent for to negociate with me, and if you could have seen me sitting in the kitchen with the two old women, endeavouring to make them comprehend that I had no evil intentions or covert designs and that I had come down all that way to take some cottage and had happened to walk down that road and see that particular one, you would never have forgotten it. Then to see the servant-girl run backwards and forwards to the sick man, and when the sick man had signed one agreement which I drew up and the old woman instantly put away in a disused tea-caddy, to see the trouble and the number of messages it took before the sick man could be brought to sign another (a duplicate) that we might have one apiece, was one of the richest scraps of genuine drollery I ever saw in all my days. How, when the business was over, we became conversational—how I was facetious and at the same time virtuous and domestic—how I drank toasts in the beer, and stated on interrogotary that I was a married man and the father of two blessed infants—how the ladies marvelled thereat—how one of the ladies, having been in London, enquired where I lived and being told, remembered that Doughty Street and the Foundling Hospital were in the Old Kent Road, which I didn’t contradict,—all this and a great deal more must come with Stebbing when I return, and will make us laugh then I hope, and makes me laugh now to think of. Of my subsequent visit to the Upholsterer recommended by Mrs. Pannell—of the absence of the upholsterer’s wife and the timidity of the upholster, fearful of acting in her absence—of my sitting behind a high desk in a little dark shop calling over the articles in requisition and checking off the prices as the upholsterer exhibited the goods and called them out—of my coming over the upholsterer’s daughter with many virtuous endearments to propitiate the establishment and reduce the bill—of these matters I say nothing, either, for the same reason as that just mentioned. The discovery of the cottage I seriously look upon as a blessing (not to speak it profanely) upon our efforts in this, I hope no longer sad, cause. I had heard nothing from the Bank and walked straight there, by some strange impulse, directly after breakfast. I am sure they may be happy there, if they will. If I were older and my course of activity were run, I am sure I could, with God’s blessing, for many and many a year.
The Theatre is open here, and Charles Kean3 is playing for his last night to-night. If it had been the “rig’lar” drama I should have gone, but I was afraid Sir Giles Overreach (are there two r’s?) might upset me so I stayed away. My quarters are excellent and the head-waiter is such a Waiter! Knowles—not Sheridan Knowles,4 but Knowles of the Cheatham Hill Road—is an ass to him. This sounds bold but truth is stranger than fiction. By the bye, not the least comical thing that has occurred was the visit of the upholsterer (with some further calculations) since I began this letter. I think they took me here for the wonderful Being I am; they were amazingly sedulous, and no doubt looked for my being visited by the nobility and gentry of the neighbourhood. My first and only visitor came to-night.—A ruddy-faced man in faded black with extracts from a feather bed all over him—an extraordinary and quite miraculously dirty face—a thick stick—and the personal appearance altogether of an amiable bailiff in a green old age. I have not seen the proper waiter since, and more than suspect I shall not recover this blow. He was announced (by the waiter) as “a person”. I expect my bill every minute.
I have left so little room for business that I must be brief. I wrote to-day for my mother to come down on Thursday, and inclosed her—for herself—the wherewithal. Please to advance to father for himself and Augustus to follow on Saturday five pounds. Don’t forget your letter by Friday’s post, and let it be a long one. If you should have time to see little Evans or Hicks you will relieve my mind by telling them how it is that they will not get the copy for the next No. as soon as I promised. I want my mother for some matters of curtains, blinds, and so forth in which—with her—I can save greatly. Forgive this jumble of incoherence (penned under the pressure of two other letters and some sleepiness) and believe me my dear Forster if I need ask it
Always Your attached friend
CHARLES DICKENS
I hope to be home on Monday Evening at half past eight.
The waiter is laughing outside the door with another waiter—This is the latest intelligence of my condition.
I open this on Wednesday Morning to say that Charles Kean is gone, and I have moved into his sitting room. I am sitting at this instant in his wery chair!!! I was bursting into the water-closet this morning, when a man’s voice (of tragic quality) cried out—“There is somebody here.” It was his. I shall reserve this for his Biographer.
1 CD’s parents and youngest brother Augustus (b. 1827). CD wanted his father out of London.
2 Paving-stones, i.e. the town.
3 Charles Kean (1811–68†), actor and theatre manager. Much acclaimed for his Hamlet in 1838, he and Macready were rivals. Sir Giles Overreach is in Philip Massinger’s A New Way to Pay Old Debts (1633).
4 James Sheridan Knowles, the playwright.
Elm Cottage Petersham | Friday June 28th. 1839.
My Dear Maclise.
When I had read your note, I fell into a stupefaction from which I have not yet recovered, and under which I am still labouring so heavily that I have only sense and energy sufficient to say “Come down—Come down—Revive yourself by country air—Come down—and that without loss of time—and leave the rest to me, and I’ll warrant you good health for 12 months at least. Come to the Shakspeare on Saturday bring your bag with you, and return with me and the trusty Topping.”2
Beard is hearty, new and thicker ropes have been put up at the tree, the little birds have flown, their very nests have disappeared, the roads about are jewelled after dusk by glow-worms, the leaves are all out and the flowers too, swimming feats from Petersham to Richmond Bridge have been achieved before breakfast, I myself have risen at 6 and plunged head foremost into the water to the astonishment and admiration of all beholders, a series of performances have been invented for the swing which out-Blackmore Mr. Blackmore.3 You haven’t a notion of the glories we have been working, which to be appreciated must be seen.
Your intelligence has so exhausted me, that I have but strength enough for one more word COME; and in that one strong gasp, I sink backward on the large sofa, and can add no more.
Ill! He ill!4
Any time while the—
Sick a gettin’ up—5
My strength is gone
1 Daniel Maclise (1806–70†), one of the most admired painters of his day; met CD in 1836. They became close friends, although they drifted apart in later years as Maclise suffered from depression and became reclusive. His celebrated portrait of CD was painted in 1839.
2 William Topping, CD’s manservant.
3 The ‘undaunted Mr. Blackmore’ is described in ‘Vauxhall-Gardens by Day’, SB. A contemporary advertisement acclaims his ‘peculiar and surprising exercises on the Slack Rope’.
4 CD has drawn quavery lines under this and the next line; the writing of the last three lines is increasingly shaky.
5 ‘Sich a Getting Up Stairs’ was a popular comic American song.
— A hairdresser’s shop at night1—not a dashing one, but a barber’s. Morleena Kenwig[s] on a tall chair having her hair dressed by an underbred attendant with his hair parted down the middle, and frizzed up into curls at the sides. Another customer, who is being shaved, has just turned his head in the direction of Miss Kenwigs, and she and Newman Noggs (who has brought her there, and has been whiling away the time with an old newspaper), recognise, with manifestations of surprise, and Morleena with emotion, Mr. Lillyvick, the collector. Mr. Lillyvick’s bristly beard expresses great neglect of his person, and he looks very grim and in the utmost despondency.—
1 The subject for the first illustration for the Aug. NN, ‘Great excitement of Miss Kenwigs at the hairdresser’s Shop’, ch. 52.
Elm Cottage Petersham | Thursday July 25th. 1839.
My Dear Madam
The tales you have sent me will be quite sufficient in point of quantity to make the little book for your own distribution, in which I will immediately have them printed for you—indeed, I would suggest the omission of the tale about the pin cushion, as it does not seem to me very likely to please and you will have quite enough for your purpose without it.
There is some want of explanation concerning Brownwing himself and the little girls to whom he addresses his tales. That, if you please, I will supply. A very few words will render this quite intelligible to children, and as I have marked the passages where they appear to be wanted, I can perhaps set this right more readily than you could.
In acknowledging the receipt of your parcel, and requesting you to let me know whether you will like your name in the little title page and the addition (as I suppose you will) of the name of your school, I feel it necessary to suggest to you whether you do not think there are some passages in the story “The loss of beauty” which are calculated (and very naturally so) to give offence to the very class of persons with whom you desire to stand well—whether it does not appear to be designed more for the correction of parents than the instruction of children—whether the points about the grandmama do not touch upon very delicate ground and one upon which there is always more or less of sore feeling in families where there is a grandmama and whether, the teaching children (who always apply stories to their own cases) to decide so positively in her favour against their own parent is exactly judicious and very likely to create a prepossession in your own favour? You should be a better judge of this than I, but I know you will rather thank me than be displeased for mentioning these doubts as they have occurred to me on reading your tales.
There is one other point upon which I have at all times and in all cases so strong and violent a feeling, that (although I do not ask you to make any alteration, for my opinions are peculiar, I daresay, and quite as likely to be wrong as yours) I cannot forbear expressing my opinion upon it. I do most decidedly object, and have a most invincible and powerful repugnance to that frequent reference to the Almighty in small matters, which so many excellent persons consider necessary in the education of children. I think it monstrous to hold the source of inconceivable mercy and goodness perpetually up to them as an avenging and wrathful God who—making them in His wisdom children before they are men and women—is to punish them awfully for every little venial offence which is almost a necessary part of that stage of life. I object decidedly to endeavouring to impress them with a fear of death, before they can be rationally supposed to become accountable creatures, and so great a horror do I feel at the thought of imbuing with strict doctrines those who have just reflection enough to know that if God be as rigid and just as they are told He is, their fathers and mothers and three fourths of their relations and friends must be doomed to Eternal Perdition, and if I were left to choose between the two evils I would far rather that my children acquired their first principles of religion from a contemplation of nature and all the goodness and beneficence of the Great Being Who created it, than I would suffer them with such strict construction ever to open a Bible or a Prayer Book, or enter a place of Worship. I do declare to you my dear Madam, that I daily see such evil and misery springing up from this fatal mistake, that whenever I see the slightest approach to it, I cannot in my conscience let it go by without my most solemn protest.
I am always Dear Madam | Faithfully Yours
CHARLES DICKENS
Broadstairs. | Wednesday Afternoon.
My Dear Forster.
I plainly see that I must come to town on Saturday, or I shall delay the proofs terribly, and perhaps endanger the appearance of the No. This necessity will bring one pleasure with it, for it will enable us to come back together on Sunday, and further to dine together on Saturday if you will give me a chop. I am very anxious that you should see the conclusion of Nickleby, the preface &c before it finally leaves my hands. I have therefore written to Hicks telling him to send proofs to your chambers on Saturday evening, and a note beforehand, saying when they may be expected. If you don’t object, we will devote the evening to a careful reading. Will you send for me to Doughty Street telling them to have a bed ready for me, and ordering Topping to be at your place to take my bag? I shall be with you (I hope) between 4 and 5.
I have not written to Macready, for they have not yet sent me the little page of Dedication, which is merely “To W C. Macready Esquire the following pages are inscribed, as a slight token of admiration and regard, by his friend the Author”— duly set out in lines and various types of course. I will write to him when I get it. Meanwhile will you let him know that I have fixed the Nickleby dinner for Saturday the 5th. of October —place, the Albion in Aldersgate Street. Time, six for half past exactly.
I shall not finish entirely, before Friday—sending Hicks the last 20 pages of MS by the Night coach. I have had pretty stiff work as you may suppose, and I have taken great pains. I shall be more glad than I can tell you to see you again, and look forward to Saturday and the evenings that are to follow it, with most joyful anticipation.
The discovery is made,1 Ralph is dead, the loves have come all right, Tim Linkinwater has proposed, and I have now only to break up Dotheboys and the book together. I have had a good notion for Barnaby, of which more anon.
It has been blowing great guns here for the last three days, and last night—I wish you could have seen it—there was such a sea! Fred (who is here) and I, staggered down to the Pier and creeping under the lee of a large boat which was high and dry, watched it breaking for nearly an hour. Of course we came back wet through, but it was most superb. One steamboat after getting to Ramsgate could not make her way into the harbour and was obliged to go back to Margate and put in there, and the boat from London didn’t come at all. Heaven knows what became of it—nobody here does.
What a strange thing it is that all sorts of fine things happen in London when I’m away! I almost blame myself for the death of that poor girl who leaped off the Monument—she would never have done it if I had been in town; neither would the two men have found the skeleton in the Sewers. If it had been a female skeleton, I should have written to the coroner and stated my conviction that it must be Mrs. Sheppard. A famous subject for an illustration by George—Jonathan Wild forcing Mrs. Sheppard down the grown-up seat of a gloomy privy, and Blueskin or any such second robber cramming a child (anybody’s child) down the little hole— Mr. Wood looking on in horror—and two other spectators, one with a fiendish smile and the other with a torch, aiding and abetting!2
My love to Macready, and to you—and no more at present from yours ever faithfully CD—except best regards from all here.
1 That Ralph Nickleby was Smike’s father.
2 A parody of Cruikshank’s illustration to Jack Sheppard in the current No. of Bentley’s Miscellany, ‘Jonathan Wild throwing Sir Rowland Trenchard down the well-hole’. Blueskin was Sheppard’s partner; Mr Wood a respectable carpenter.
Broadstairs. | September 27th. 1839.
Dr. Sir.
I can have no objection to your stating either to the Editor of Tait’s Magazine, or of Blackwood’s, the substance of what I wrote to you concerning your Songs, or (if you have the note by you) the exact terms in which I expressed myself.
I should have answered your letter before, but I have been out of town, in different places, for some months and did not receive it in due course. This is the reason why I have not returned your play long ago. I shall be in town towards the end of next week, and will send it to you.
I am sorry to say—and would not say, but that I know you wish me to speak plainly, and that I ought to do so—that of the play itself, I cannot speak favorably. The production is most honorable and creditable to you, but it would not benefit you, either in pocket or reputation, if it were printed;—and acted, I do not think it ever could be. Not to mention that the verse contains most singular instances of inverted expressions (which I may describe more familiarly as putting the cart before the horse) and many words not to be found in the language— not to mention these faults which are easily susceptible of correction, there are some in the plot and characters, which seem to me incurable. The father is such a dolt, and the villain such a villain, the girl so especially credulous and the means used to deceive them so very slight and transparent, that the reader cannot sympathize with their distresses. Action too is terribly wanting, and the characters not being strongly marked (except in improbabilities) the dialogues grow tedious and wearisome. I read it with great care, and not long ago either, but I don’t remember at this moment any difference in the mode or matter of their speech which enables me to distinguish, in recollection, one character from the other— except the maiden lady and the villain, of whom the former is very good, and the latter but an average villain who speaks in dashes and interjections and constantly interrupts himself.
I think so highly of the exertions you have made and the difficulties against which you have struggled, that I am unwilling you should suppose you had no mart for worthy labour, and were kept down by obstacles against which you could not contend. I firmly believe that if this play had been written by Sheridan Knowles or Sir Edward Bulwer,2 it would not have been acted. I am sure it would not, from what I know of the proceedings of both those gentlemen, and the friendly criticism and judgment to which they have several times submitted. Remember how very difficult it is to produce a good play, how very few men can do it, and how many fail and how few try—or if they do try, ever permit their trials to see the light.
Calling these things to mind, you will not (I am sure) be discouraged or hurt by what I tell you—remembering too, that I communicate but my individual opinion, and that I am as likely to commit an error in judgment as anybody else.
Yours truly
CHARLES DICKENS
1 John Overs (1808–44†), author and cabinet-maker. CD helped him with his writing; advised him on its publication; wrote to several periodical editors on his behalf, and corrected the proofs of his Evenings of a Working Man, 1844, for which he wrote a commendatory preface. He also gave him financial help, and got him a job at Macready’s theatre. Forty-two letters from CD to Overs survive.
2 Edward George Earle Lytton Bulwer (1803–73†), politician and popular writer, who published under the name Edward Bulwer Lytton. He and CD had long admired each other’s work; their joint founding of the Guild of Literature and Art drew them together in 1850.
I will dine with you. I intended to spend the evening in strict meditation (as I did last night); but perhaps I had better go out, lest all work and no play should make me a dull boy. I have a list of titles too, but the final title I have determined on—or something very near it. I have a notion of this old file in the queer house, opening the book by an account of himself, and, among other peculiarities, of his affection for an old quaint queer-cased clock; showing how that when they have sat alone together in the long evenings, he has got accustomed to its voice, and come to consider it as the voice of a friend; how its striking, in the night, has seemed like an assurance to him that it was still a cheerful watcher at his chamber-door; and how its very face has seemed to have something of welcome in its dusty features, and to relax from its grimness when he has looked at it from his chimney-corner. Then I mean to tell how that he has kept odd manuscripts in the old, deep, dark, silent closet where the weights are; and taken them from thence to read (mixing up his enjoyments with some notion of his clock); and how, when the club came to be formed, they, by reason of their punctuality and his regard for this dumb servant, took their name from it. And thus I shall call the book either Old Humphrey’s Clock, or Master Humphrey’s Clock; beginning with a woodcut of old Humphrey and his clock, and explaining the why and wherefore. All Humphrey’s own papers will be dated then From my clock-side, and I have divers thoughts about the best means of introducing the others. I thought about this all day yesterday and all last night till I went to bed. I am sure I can make a good thing of this opening, which I have thoroughly warmed up to in consequence.
I Devonshire Terrace | Monday January 13th. 1840
My Dear Cattermole.
I am going to propound a mightily grave matter to you. My new periodical work appears—or I should rather say the first No. does—on Saturday the 28th. of March; and as it has to be sent to America and Germany and must therefore be considerably in advance, it is now in hand—I having in fact begun it on Saturday last. Instead of being published in monthly parts at a shilling each, only, it will be published in weekly parts at three pence and monthly parts at a shilling—my object being to baffle the imitators and make it as novel as possible. The plan is a new one—I mean the plan of the fiction—and it will comprehend a great variety of tales. The title is, “Master Humphrey’s Clock”.
Now, among other improvements, I have turned my attention to the illustrations, meaning to have wood-cuts dropped into the text, and no separate plates. I want to know whether you would object to make me a little sketch for a wood-cut— in indian ink would be quite sufficient—about the size of the inclosed scrap: the subject an old quaint room with antique Elizabethian furniture, and in the chimney-corner an extraordinary old clock— the clock belonging to Master Humphrey in fact—and no figures. This I should drop into the text at the head of my opening page.
I want to know besides—as Chapman and Hall are my partners in the matter there need be no delicacy about my asking or your answering the question—what would be your charge for such a thing, and whether (if the work answers our expectations) you would like to repeat the joke at regular intervals, and if so, on what terms. I should tell you that I intend asking Maclise to join me likewise,2 and that the copying the drawing on wood, and the cutting, will be done in first-rate style. We are justified by past experience in supposing that the sale would be enormous, and the popularity very great; and when I explain to you the notion I have in my head, I think you will see that it opens a vast number of very good subjects.
I want to talk the matter over with you, and wish you would fix your own time and place—either here, or at your house, or at the Athenaeum,3 though this would be the best place, because I have my papers about me. If you could take a chop with me, for instance, on Tuesday or Wednesday, I could tell you more in two minutes than in twenty letters, albeit I have endeavoured to make this as business-like and stupid as need be.
Of course all these tremendous arrangements are as yet a profound secret, or there would be fifty Humphreys in the field.4 So write me a line like a worthy gentleman, and convey my best remembrances to your worthy lady.
Believe me always, My Dear Cattermole | Faithfully Yours
CHARLES DICKENS
1 George Cattermole (1800–68†), watercolour painter and illustrator, skilled in antiquarian and architectural subjects. Co-illustrator of BR and OCS. Friendly with CD (who affectionately nicknamed him Kittenmoles), and acted in his amateur company.
2 Maclise provided one illustration, Cattermole c. 40, and Browne 132.
3 The London club.
4 Cf. Richard III, V. vii. II: ‘I think there be six Richmonds in the field.’
Devonshire Terrace | Thursday Afternoon
My Dear Maclise
I send you a copy of Pickwick and the two little books.2 Let the authorship of the last-named trifles remain in the bosom of your family.
The last aggravating word has touched that tender chord in my heart which you understand so well. Have you heard from Forster this morning? I have, but oh what a mockery it is. He does not love her.
I have seen my wife—spoken to her—been in her society. I burst into tears on hearing the voices of my infant children. I loathe my parents. I hate my house. I love nobody here but the Raven,3 and I only love him because he seems to have no feeling in common with anybody. What is to be done. Heavens my friend, what is to be done!
What if I murder Chapman and Hall. This thought has occurred to me several times. If I did this she would hear of me; perhaps sign the warrant for my execution with her own dear hand. What if I murder myself. Mr. Wakley is a beast—a coarse unsympathizing coroner—and would not understand such feelings as mine. I feel that, and lay down my razor as the thought occurs to me. Is there no sentimental coroner? I have heard of Mr. Baker but I don’t know how his mind is constituted. I have also heard of Mr. Higgs, but the name is not promising. I think there is one named Grubb. Perhaps he has high feeling and could comprehend me. The Serpentine is in his district, but then the Humane Society4 steps in. They might disfigure me with drags—perhaps save me and expect me at the next Anniversary Dinner to walk round Free-Mason’s Hall with a bible under my arm. She would never love me after that. —All is difficulty and darkness.
What is to be done? Would any alliance with the Chartists serve us? They have no doubt in contemplation attacks upon the palace, and being plain men would very likely resign her to us with great cheerfulness. Let us then toss—the best out of three—and the loser to poison himself. Is this feasible?
I dreamt of Lady Fanny Cowper5 all night, but I didn’t love her, sleeping, nor do I now that I am awake although I did but a few days back. I feel tenderly towards your sister because she knows our secret. With the great exception that I need not name, she is now the only woman on Earth that I do not shrink from in horror. Here is a state of mind!
How are you to-day. It will be some consolation to me to receive a detail of your sufferings. On Saturday Morning I shall call upon you. Conceive my misery until then! Tonight—tomorrow—all tories— nothing but slight and insult upon her generous head—Gracious Powers where will this end!
I am utterly miserable and unfitted for my calling. What the upshot will be, I don’t know, but something tremendous I am sure.—I feel that I am wandering.
Your distracted friend
CHARLES DICKENS
1 Written large and bold. Following Queen Victoria’s marriage in 1840, CD pretended he had ‘fallen hopelessly in love’ with her. The joke may have been based on attempts by various madmen to enter Buckingham Palace and Windsor Castle.
2 CD’s Sketches of Young Couples and Sketches of Young Gentlemen had recently been published anonymously.
3 CD had two pet ravens in succession; see his preface to BR.
4 Its principal depot was on the Serpentine, a spot associated with suicides.
5 The Queen’s favourite Maid of Honour.
1 Devonshire Terrace | Tuesday May 12th. 1840.
My Dear Hunt.
A crowd of thanks, treading on each others’ heels and tripping one another up most pleasantly—a crowd of thanks, I say, for that Rustic Walk which I have just taken with you, and for the dinner,1 and for the no-mention of the bill, or of the little squat doll-looking tumbler which you knocked over with your elbow when you were talking so merrily, and broke. As to the apostrophe I wouldn’t lay a hand upon it for the world; and shew me the printer who dares to mar it!
I should have been exceedingly glad to shake hands with your son;2 but when he called, I was on a rustic walk with Maclise, and was doing all that you did—only not so well—and eating lamb chops, and drinking beer, and laughing like a coal-heaver,—and all this at the Eel Pie House on Twickenham Island, which teaches one geography on the practical method, and illustrates that problem about the tract of country “entirely surrounded by water”, rendering it intelligible and pleasant to the meanest capacity.
Good God how well I know that room! Don’t you remember a queer, cool, odd kind of smell it has, suggestive of porter and even pipes at an enormous distance? Don’t you remember the tea-board, and the sand, and the press on the landing outside full of clean linen intensely white? Don’t you recollect the little pile of clean spittoons in one nook near the fireplace, looking like a collection of petrified three-cornered hats once worn by the dead-and-gone old codgers who used to sit and smoke there? The very sound of the bell—flat like a sheep-bell as if it had caught its tones from listening to it in its idle, shady, drowsy time of rest—the jingling wire more noisy than the bell—I have it in my ears. And closing my eyes, I’m down stairs in the bar where the soda water comes out of the window seat on which the landlady sits o’ fine evenings, where the lemons hang in a grove each in its own particular net, where “the cheese” is kept, with great store of biscuits hard by in a wicker basket—where those wonderful bottles are, that hold cordials. You know ‘em? great masses of grapes painted on ’em in green, blue, and yellow, and the semblance of an extraordinary knot of ribbon supporting the emblem of a label, whereon is the name of the compound? On one of these is “Lovitch”. Great Heaven what is Lovitch? Has it any connection with peppermint, or is it another name for nectar? Tell me my heart, can this be Love-itch.
Oh Hunt I’m so lazy, and all along o’ you! The sun is in my eyes, the hum of the fields in my ears, the dust upon my feet—and a boy, redolent of the steam engine and sweltering in warm ink is slumbering in the passage, waiting for “Copy”.
Tell your son I can shake hands with him though he comes without a letter in his palm. And believe me always
Heartily Yours, in the faith,
CHARLES DICKENS
1 Hunt had clearly sent CD a MS copy of his poem extolling the pleasures of a country walk and dinner in an old inn. The ‘apostrophe’ probably refers to the opening lines of ‘The Dinner’: ‘Blessings be thine, and a less hard old sofa, | Thou poor apartment.’
2 Thornton Leigh Hunt (1810–73†), journalist, and later collaborator on the Leader with Lewes; fathered four children with Lewes’s wife.
37 Albion Street Broadstairs. | Monday Night June 1st. 1840
My Dear Beard.
With that tremendous energy which characterizes the proceedings of this establishment, we thought of coming here one day last week, and accordingly came this very morning. We have been in the house two hours, and the dining-parlor closet already displays a good array of bottles, duly arranged by the writer hereof— the Spirits labelled “Gin”, “Brandy”, “Hollands” in autograph character—and the wine tasted and approved. The castors already boast mushroom ketchup, harvey, cayenne, and such like condiments; the writing table is set forth with a neatness peculiar to your estimable friend; and the furniture in all the rooms has been entirely re-arranged by the same extraordinary character. The sea is rolling away, like nothing but the sea, in front of the house, and there are two pretty little spare bedrooms waiting to be occupied.
We mean to stay here a Month, and to return, please God, for another Month in the beginning of September. For occasional manly sports in July and August, I shall endeavour to find some queer cabin at Cobham in Kent.
Meantime verbum sap. Every Saturday Morning at 9 o’Clock there is a Ramsgate steamer leaving London Bridge Wharf, which, being boarded off this place by a boat belonging to it, will deposit you in the family’s arms. On Monday Mornings you can leave here either at 8 or 9, and be in town, as you please, at about ½ past 3 or ½ past 4.
Therefore, as I am very tired and just now going to bed preparatory to close work tomorrow, I merely forward you these instructions, expecting by return of post a becoming assurance of your duty and submission.
My Dear Beard | Heartily Yours
CHARLES DICKENS
It’s now four o’clock and I have been at work since half-past eight. I have really dried myself up into a condition which would almost justify me in pitching off the cliff, head first—but I must get richer before I indulge in a crowning luxury. Number 15,1 which I began to-day, I anticipate great things from. There is a description of getting gradually out of town, and passing through neighbourhoods of distinct and various characters, with which, if I had read it as anybody else’s writing, I think I should have been very much struck. The child and the old man are on their journey of course, and the subject is a very pretty one.
Pondering on what might be done to help off the unsold stock of OT when he had regained the copyright from Bentley, CD suggests:
Would it not be best to print new title-pages to the copies in sheets and publish them as a new edition, with an interesting Preface? I am talking about all this as though the treaty were concluded, but I hope and trust that in effect it is, for negotiation and delay are worse to me than drawn daggers.
1 OCS chs. 15 and 16 (published 11 July).
I Devonshire Terrace | York Gate Regents park | Friday 3rd July 1840
My Lord.
I make no apology for addressing a few words to you, as I trust you will feel that none is needed. The subject to which I take the liberty of calling your attention is one of great importance, and one to which the Government of which you are so distinguished and worthy a Member, has long directed its enlightened and merciful attention.2
I believe there are few persons more strongly impressed with the excellence and wisdom of the alterations that have been silently working for some years in our treatment and punishment of criminals, than I am. But I fear that their value is not sufficiently appreciated or felt—and that their effect in deterring offenders from the commission of guilty deeds, is very materially impaired—in consequence of their nature and extent not being sufficiently known. The terrors of transportation and confinement under the present system, are known to few but those who have penetrated to the heart of parliamentary reports and commissioners’ enquiries; by that class for whose especial benefit and correction they are intended, they are known least of all.
I have felt this for a long time, and have had my old thoughts upon the subject wakened up afresh by the sentence passed upon the convict Gould3 the other day, which is shorn of its impressiveness and example by the one unfortunate circumstance that the people do not know, and do not suspect, what his real punishment is. They remember to have read in the newspapers how some men who were transported to New South Wales thirty years ago, died worth their ten and twenty thousand pounds apiece; and they have a dim idea that the transport-ships are rather close, and the climates to which they go, very bright and hot; beyond this, they know and think nothing about it.
It has occurred to me that a strong and vivid description of the terrors of Norfolk Island4 and such-like places, told in a homely Narrative with a great appearance of truth and reality and circulated in some very cheap and easy form (if with the direct authority of the Government, so much the better) would have a very powerful impression on the minds of the badly-disposed, and would do a great deal to promote the object that your Lordship and all good Governors have at heart. I think, even, that if it were read in prisons, jails for untried criminals, and houses of correction whither they are sent for short terms, it would have a deep and salutary effect in inspiring all rising convicts with a tremendous fear of the higher penalties of the law. Am I am sure that the more these penalties are known and surrounded with terrors, the more they will be avoided by the young and wavering.
If this very hasty and meagre hint of the idea I have, is intelligible to you My Lord, I have merely to add that I am ready, and should be very glad, to undertake this task and to place the best description I could produce in your hands, to be used as you think best, but I would have it on the pillow of every prisoner in England.5 You will permit me to add, further, that I make this offer as a humble tribute of my respect for the liberal and wise Government under which the people live at present,6 and that so far from seeking any fee or reward, I would beg, if I did this at all, to be understood as doing it quite disinterestedly and gratuitously, otherwise I should lose my chief pride and pleasure in the theme.
I am My Lord | Your faithful Servant
CHARLES DICKENS
1 Constantine Henry Phipps, 1st Marquess of Normanby (1797–1863†), politician and diplomatist. MP with liberal views, held office in Melbourne’s government. CD later met his son, Lord Mulgrave, on the trip to America, 1842, and visited the Normanbys in 1844. D&S is dedicated ‘with great esteem to the Marchioness of Normanby’.
2 i .e. the appointment, in 1833, of the Commissioners on Criminal Law, enjoined to rationalize the structure of non-capital crimes and punishments. In their Fourth Report, 1839, after legislation had removed the death penalty for the majority of offences, they set out to control judicial discretion in sentences of transportation and imprisonment.
3 Richard Gould, acquitted for the murder of John Templeman on 14 Apr. He confessed to being an accomplice in the murder, hoping to receive the reward of £200 authorized by Lord Normanby for the apprehension of the murderer and knowing he could not be retried for the crime. He was tried for burglary on 22 June and sentenced to transportation for life. Reported in The Times.
4 The penal station situated between Australia and New Zealand, the most severe of the convict settlements.
5 CD’s offer was not accepted.
6 Lord Melbourne’s Whig government, 1835–41.
I Devonshire Terrace, York Gate | 6th. July 1840.
My Dear Sir.
A kind of impossible possibility occurred to me this morning, and filled me with a shadowy dread. I have determined to apply to you to solve my doubts. Miss Coutts’s2 card for the fifteenth has solemn mention of a Royal Duke and Duchess— are gentlemen expected to wear court-dresses in consequence?
Forgiving my troubling you. I have already appeared in that very extraordinary costume and am prepared for the worst; but I have no confidence in my legs, and should be glad to hear that the etiquette went in favor of trowsers.
My Dear Sir Believe me | Faithfully Yours
CHARLES DICKENS
1 Edward Marjoribanks (1776–1868), partner in Coutts’s Bank, where CD banked from 1837.
2 Angela Burdett Coutts (1814–1906†), heiress and philanthropist. Probably first met CD in 1838 through Edward Marjoribanks. In 1837 she inherited a fortune from her grandfather’s second wife; CD helped guide her many charitable enterprises and they also became good friends. MC is dedicated to her.
Devonshire Terrace. | Sunday July 19th. 1840.
Dear Sir.
As I have not the complete MS of Oliver (I wish I had, as it would one day have an interest for my children) I am enabled to send you a scrap, in compliance with your request; and have much pleasure in doing so.
Pray make my regards to your lady, and give her from me the other little packet inclosed. It is the first specimen of the kind I have parted with—except to a hair-dresser—and will most likely be the last, for if I were to be liberal in this respect, my next portrait would certainly be that of a perfectly bald gentleman.
Believe me Dear Sir | Faithfully Yours
CHARLES DICKENS
P.S. I should tell you perhaps as a kind of certificate of the Oliver scrap, that it is a portion of the original and only draught.—I never copy.
1 Charles Edwards Lester (1815–90) of New York, journalist and writer of history and biography.
Devonshire Terrace | Monday August 17th.
My Dear Macready.
Many thanks for the book. I think so well of it as to have it bound, and when that’s done, you must put your name in it for me.
Tuesday the Twenty Fifth shall (God willing) be the day1 We have arranged accordingly. Time and so forth we will settle next Sunday.
What can I say to you, about last night?2 Frankly, nothing. Nothing can enhance the estimation in which I hold you, or the affectionate and sincere attachment I bear towards you, my dear friend,—and not even your manly and generous interposition can make me eloquent upon a subject on which I feel so deeply and singly.
I am very much grieved, and yet I am not penitent and cannot be, reason with myself as I will. With all the regard I have for Forster, and with all the close friendship between us, I cannot close my eyes to the fact that we do not quarrel with other men; and the more I think of it, the more I feel confident in the belief that there is no man, alive or dead, who tries his friends as he does. I declare to you solemnly, that when I think of his manner (far worse than his matter) I turn burning hot, and am ashamed and in a manner degraded to have been the subject of it.
I have found the soul of goodness in this evil3 thing at all events, and when I think of all you said and did, I would not recal (if I had the power) one atom of my passion and intemperance, which carried with it a breath of yours.
Ever believe me | My Dear Macready | Yours affectionately and heartily
CHARLES DICKENS
1 For Katey’s christening: Macready was godfather.
2 In his diary Macready recorded the ‘painful scene’ after dinner, with Forster displaying his ‘usual want of tact’ and CD flying into a ‘violent … passion’.
3 Cf. Henry V, IV. i. 4.
You will receive the proof herewith. I have altered it. You must let it stand now. I really think the dead mankind a million fathoms deep, the best thing in the sentence.1 I have a notion of the dreadful silence down there, and of the stars shining down upon their drowned eyes—the fruit, let me tell you, of a solitary walk by starlight on the cliffs. As to the child-image I have made a note of it for alteration. In number thirty there will be some cutting needed, I think. I have, however, something in my eye near the beginning which I can easily take out. You will recognize a description of the road we travelled between Birmingham and Wolverhampton: but I had conceived it so well in my mind that the execution doesn’t please me quite as well as I expected. I shall be curious to know whether you think there’s anything in the notion of the man and his furnace-fire.2 It would have been a good thing to have opened a new story with, I have been thinking since.
1 OCS ch. 42.
2 OCS ch. 44.
Devonshire Terrace. | Wednesday 14th. October
My Dear Sir.
Designers, printers, publishers, wood-cutters—in short, the whole of the works of Master Humphrey’s Clock dine here next Tuesday at Six for half past exactly, to celebrate the completion of the first Volume. I look upon you as an essential part of the publication; and count surely on your joining us.
I regretted to hear from my brother Fred, that you had not been very well—though I look upon your being anything but well and cheerful, as a sort of practical joke; not an agreeable thing, but still a thing too preposterous to be considered seriously.
Always Heartily Yours
CHARLES DICKENS
1 Thomas Hill (1790–1840†), book-collector and part proprietor of the Monthly Mirror; kind-hearted and hospitable.
Friday November twentieth Eighteen forty My Dear Mac
I have been writing all day, and mean to take a great, London, backslums kind of walk tonight, seeking adventures in knight errant style. Will you come with me? And (as a preparation, will you dine with us at a quarter before 5? —Leg of mutton stuffed with oysters.
Reply “Yes”.
Always & Ever
CD
I Devonshire Terrace | York Gate Regents Park. Twenty fifth November 1840.
Sir.
I have read the little poems you sent me (and which I now return), and in compliance with your request, have to give you my opinion of them. I am by no means satisfied, nor do I wish you to be, that my conclusions are infallible; and I scarcely expect, and certainly do not desire, that you should attach any weight to them, whatever.
First, as the more grateful task, let me say what I have to say of praise. You are a very young man you tell me, with other occupations to employ your time; and you can only cultivate these thoughts and aspirations by stealth. A love of the good and beautiful, and a desire to illustrate it in one so circumstanced is always a thing to be commended—to be very highly commended. It should increase your own happiness whether it adds to the happiness and entertainment of mankind or no, and from pursuits so worthy and humanizing, I would not turn you aside by one discouraging word. The pursuit of excellence in any path which has the light of Truth upon it, is, in the abstract, a noble employment, and like the search for the Philosopher’s Stone will reward you with a hundred incidental discoveries though you fall short of the one great object of your desire.
Beyond this, I think that you have many good thoughts—occasionally a power of expressing them, very simply and well—a love of nature and all creation—and, of course, (for these are its necessary companions) deep feeling and strong sympathy.
On the other hand, you have very much to learn. Your versification is often harsh and irregular, your conceits strained and unnatural, your images fraught with more sound than sense. The first fault is one which only time and reading can remove; a few instances of the other two, I have marked as they have struck me in the perusal. To spell a tiger from all thoughts of harm—to clasp blood springs with tendril fingers (which appears difficult, to say the least)—to make the sun unfurl his bannered robe—to engrave words with fire—to describe the birds as couching with gasping pants of bliss—to tear a man to pieces with links—to fold love’s banner o’er a lady’s brow—are so near being absurdities that I hardly know what else to call them. You may find, I know, startling and monstrous conceits in the writings of our greatest Poets; but you must remember that they were great, not because of these blots, but in despite of them, having for every one a crowd of beautiful and grand thoughts which bore down all before them. Never imitate the eccentricities of genius, but toil after it in its truer flights. They are not so easy to follow, but they lead to higher regions.
You have too much about faëry land, and faëry things—by far too much mention of nerves and heart strings—more agonies of despondency than suit my taste— mysterious promptings too in your own breast which are much better there, than anywhere else. It is not the province of a Poet to harp upon his own discontents, or to teach other people that they ought to be discontented. Leave Byron to his gloomy greatness, and do you
Find tongues in trees, books in the running brooks,
Sermons in stones, and good in everything.2
The young painter’s last dream pleased me very much in its opening; the change of time and coming on of morning are very beautifully described, and the aspect of his room and the familiar things about it I really think highly of. But surely in the close of this piece you have quite perverted its proper object and intention. To make that face his comfort and trust—to fill him with the assurance of meeting it one day in Heaven—to make him dying, attended, as it were, by an angel of his own creation—to inspire him with gentle visions of the reality sitting by his bedside and shedding a light even on the dark path of Death—and so to let him gently pass away, whispering of it and seeking the hand to clasp in his—would be to complete a very affecting and moving picture. But, to have him struggling with Death in all its horrors, yelling about foul fiends and bats’ wings, with starting eyes and rattles in his throat, is a ghastly, sickening, hideous end, with no beauty, no moral, nothing in it but a repulsive and most painful idea. If he had been the hero of an epic in seventy books, and had out-Lucifered Lucifer in every line of them, you could scarcely have punished him at last in a more revolting manner. I do hope that you will write this piece again with some such alteration. If you ever do so, I shall be glad to see it.
“Withered Leaves” opens, I think, very prettily. But it is not so well sustained, and treads rather closely at last (in the idea; not in the manner of expressing it) upon a song of Mr. Lover’s, founded on an Irish Superstition. It is called, if I remember right, the Four Leaved Shamrock.3 The Ode to the Moon, very good. These are the only data I have, by which to form an opinion of your powers.
The advice I have to give you, is given in a very few words. I don’t think you would ever find a publisher for a volume of such compositions unless at your own expence; and if you could, and have anything in you, the time would very soon come, when you would most heartily regret the having rushed into print. There are a great many people who write as well—many who write better. If you are to pass them, or are to take any place in the procession of Fame, you will do so none the later for keeping these effusions in your desk. At the same time, I see no objection to your sending some piece of moderate length—the painter for instance, but not in its present form—to such a Magazine as Blackwood’s; and no improbability—no unusual improbability I mean—in the way of its acceptance and insertion. If you do this, give yourself the advantage of plain penmanship and a sheet of paper large enough to hold the lines, or it will never be read. And don’t write to the Editor to tell him who you are or what you are, for he will care very little about that, and the public will care less.
It is impossible for me to say on such means as you have given me, whether I think you ever will be a great man, or whether you have God’s gifts to become one. Some men would consider it their bounden duty to warn you off the dangerous ground of Poetry, but that I will not do,—firstly because I know you would still trespass there as boldly as ever, and secondly because for aught I know the land may be yours by right. Therefore, I make such remarks upon your writings as occur to me in reading them, and point out to you the course you would do best to take—the course I took myself when I was about one and twenty—and the course most writers have adopted when unknown and untried.
It is impossible that being unknown and untried, I could introduce you to a publisher with any beneficial result. I could not say that I thought your book would pay (that would be his first question); I could not even tell him that it was likely to attract public attention. I know but a dozen leaves of it, and if I said of those leaves to him, what I have said to you, he would be perfectly satisfied; and with the utmost deference and respect, and with the sincerest possible thanks, would decline the honor I proposed to confer upon him, and express the deepest gratitude for the preference.
You wish to know whether you do right in sacrificing so much time to what may fail at last. If you do so at the cost of any bitterness of heart, or any disgust with the employment in which you are engaged, you certainly do wrong. If you have strength of mind to do your duty cheerfully, and to make these toils a relaxation and solace of which nobody can deprive you, you do right. This is a question which none but yourself can determine. It is settled easily. When you have finished something carefully and to please yourself, make the trial I have suggested. If it fail in one quarter, try it again in another. If it fail in half a dozen, and each failure bring with it vexation and disappointment, lock up your papers, burn your pen, and thank Heaven you are not obliged to live by it.
Faithfully Yours
CHARLES DICKENS
1 Robert Horrell wrote to CD under the assumed name of S. Harford. He was a young solicitor’s clerk in Exeter who later went to Australia for his health but died in his twenties. CD wrote seven letters to him: this is the second.
2 As You Like It, II. i. 16–17.
3 One of Samuel Lover’s ‘Songs of the Superstitions of Ireland’ (Songs and Ballads, 1839).
Dr. George
The child lying dead in the little sleeping room which is behind the oaken screen. It is winter time, so there are no flowers; but upon her breast, and pillow, and about her bed, there may be slips of holly, and berries, and such free green things.—Window overgrown with ivy—. The little boy who had that talk with her about angels, may be by the bedside, if you like it so, but I think it will be quieter and more peaceful if she is quite alone. I want it to express the most beautiful repose and tranquillity, and to have something of a happy look, if death can.1
2nd.
The child has been buried inside the church, and the old man who cannot be made to understand that she is dead, repairs to the grave every day, and sits there all day long, waiting for her arrival, to begin another journey. His staff and knapsack, her little bonnet and basket, &c lie beside him. “She’ll come tomorrow” he says when it gets dark, and goes sorrowfully home. I think an hour-glass running out, would help the notion.—Perhaps her little things upon his knee, or in his hands—2
I am breaking my heart over this story, and cannot bear to finish it.
Love to Missis | Ever & always heartily
CD
1 Cattermole drew Nell alone in the ‘little sleeping room’, OCS ch. 71.
2 Cattermole’s drawing is in OCS ch. 72.
Devonshire Terrace. | Tuesday Morning | Fifth January.
My Dear Forster.
On the whole we were tremendous last night, though rather slack at first. We had two very long Sir Roger de Coverleys,1 and after supper about eight very good Charades. Among them was conspicuous “Morning Herald” invented by your humble.
I shall certainly not stir out today, for we were not home until half-past five, and not up until half-past twelve. Unless I look very sharp, I shall not have done the No. by tomorrow night2—for I drank punch last evening in considerable quantities.
Always Faithfully
CD.
As you don’t say how the face is, I suppose it was a false alarm.
1 An English country dance.
2 OCS chs. 69 and 70.
Done! Done!!!1 Why bless you, I shall not be done till Wednesday night. I only began yesterday, and this part of the story is not to be galloped over, I can tell you. I think it will come famously—but I am the wretchedest of the wretched. It casts the most horrible shadow upon me, and it is as much as I can do to keep moving at all. I tremble to approach the place a great deal more than Kit; a great deal more than Mr. Garland; a great deal more than the Single Gentleman. I shan’t recover it for a long time. Nobody will miss her like I shall. It is such a very painful thing to me, that I really cannot express my sorrow. Old wounds bleed afresh when I only think of the way of doing it: what the actual doing it will be, God knows. I can’t preach to myself the schoolmaster’s consolation, though I try. Dear Mary died yesterday, when I think of this sad story. I don’t know what to say about dining to-morrow—perhaps you’ll send up to-morrow morning for news? That’ll be the best way. I have refused several invitations for this week and next, determining to go nowhere till I had done. I am afraid of disturbing the state I have been trying to get into, and having to fetch it all back again.
1 i.e the closing chapters of OCS.
Devonshire Terrace | Monday Seventeenth January | 1841.
My Dear Forster.
I can’t help letting you know how much your yesterday’s letter pleased me.1 I felt sure you liked the Chapters when we read them on Thursday night, but it was a great delight to have my impression so strongly and heartily confirmed.
You know how little value I should set on what I had done, if all the world cried out that it was good, and those whose good opinion and approval I value most, were silent. The assurance that this little closing of the scene, touches and is felt by you so strongly, is better to me than a thousand most sweet voices out of doors.2
When I first began (on your valued suggestion) to keep my thoughts upon this ending of the tale, I resolved to try and do something which might be read by people about whom Death had been,—with a softened feeling, and with consolation. I was moved, therefore, to have poor Bradbury’s note yesterday,3 and was glad to think he felt as I would have had him.
After you left last night I took my desk up stairs, and writing until four o’Clock this morning, finished the old story. It makes me very melancholy to think that all these people are lost to me for ever, and I feel as if I never could become attached to any new set of characters.
I wish you would give my love to Macready (I suppose you dine there today) and tell him that on Friday night, I will send him the next week’s number, in order that he may read the two together, which I should like him very much to do. Tomorrow morning, please God, I shall be with you—about twelve.
Always My Dear Forster | Your affectionate friend
CHARLES DICKENS
1 Forster had described the death of ‘dear little Nell’ as ‘your literary masterpiece’.
2 Cf. Coriolanus, II. iii. 169.
3 William Bradbury, who as printer would have read the chapters in MS, had lost his young daughter in 1839.
Devonshire Terrace | Saturday Evening |January Thirtieth | 1841.
My Dear George.
I send you the first four Slips of No. 48,1 containing the description of the Locksmith’s house, which I think will make a good subject, and one you will like. If you put the ’Prentice in it, shew nothing more than his paper cap, because he will be an important character in the story, and you will need to know more about him as he is minutely described. I may as well say that he is very short. Should you wish to put the locksmith in, you will find him described in No. 2 of Barnaby (which I told C and H to send you)—Browne has done him in one little thing, but so very slightly that you will not require to see his sketch, I think.
Now, I must know what you think about the Raven,2 my buck, otherwise I am in this fix.—I have given Browne no subject for this No., and time is flying. If you would like to have the Raven’s first appearance, and don’t object to having both subjects, so be it. I shall be delighted. If otherwise, I must feed that hero forthwith.
I cannot close this hasty note, my dear fellow, without saying that I have deeply felt your hearty and most invaluable co-operation in the beautiful illustrations you have made for the last story—that I look at them with a pleasure I cannot describe to you in words—and that it is impossible for me to say how sensible I am of your earnest and friendly aid. Believe me that this is the very first time any designs for what I have written have touched and moved me, and caused me to feel that they expressed the idea I had in my mind. I am most sincerely and affectionately grateful to you, and am full of pleasure and delight.
Believe me,
My Dear Cattermole | Always Heartily Yours
C.D
Over
We are just the same at home. But next week, I should say, must put us all to rights.3
1 Of MHC, chs. 3 and 4 of BR.
2 On 28 Jan. CD had asked Cattermole ‘whether you feel Ravens in general, and would fancy Barnaby’s raven in particular. … I have been studying my bird, and think I could make a very queer character of him.’ Cattermole declined, and Browne did all the illustrations containing Grip the raven.
3 CD’s fourth child, Walter, was born on 8 Feb.
Devonshire Terrace. | Saturday Sixth March 1841.
My Dear Mitton.
I return you the form of advertisement, corrected;1 and have marked upon the back the papers in which it must be inserted, which, indeed, are all the morning and evening ones. The Sundays we may leave alone.
Let there be no misunderstanding, for this is a very serious matter, relative to what I said to you this morning. Mind. If he communicate with you, the following are the only conditions to which I will assent.
First. That he goes abroad—to Calais, Boulogne, or Antwerp. The last, I think, is the best place, but let him please himself.
Secondly. That he takes Augustus with him, whom, immediately on their arrival, I will send as a weekly boarder to the best school I can find in the place, and clothe, and find in pocket money. I say weekly boarder, because I should wish the boy, for more reasons than one, to be at home from Saturday night to Monday Morning.
Thirdly. That if my mother should object to go—I think it very likely she may, but I have had no communication whatever with her upon the subject—he allows her out of his pension, for her support, forty pounds a year.
On these conditions, I will allow him £20 a year, which will make his income a hundred—a very good one mind, abroad—put the amount of the last quarter’s allowance to whatever the furniture at Alphington will fetch, and apply the amount to paying or compounding for the Devonshire debts—and I will give him besides £io to leave England with.
If these concessions are accepted, you have full power from me to carry them out immediately. But I will consent to nothing short of, or beyond them; and I know after the solemn injunctions I have laid upon you to the contrary, that you will not hold yourself justified in entertaining any other proposition for a moment.2
Always | Dear Mitton | Faithfully Yours
CHARLES DICKENS
1 CD’s father had borrowed money from CD’s acquaintance Thomas Latimer in Exeter, promising that CD’s publishers would pay. CD apologized to Latimer for this ‘moral outrage which words can scarcely censure enough’, and placed an advertisement in all the main London newspapers, announcing that ‘Charles Dickens will not discharge or liquidate any debt or debts, save those of his own or his wife’s contracting’.
2 John Dickens did not accept this plan and continued to live at Alphington.
Devonshire Terrace. | Friday Evening | March The Twelfth 1841.
My Dear Maclise.
You will be greatly shocked and grieved to hear that the Raven1 is no more.
He expired to-day at a few minutes after Twelve o’Clock at noon. He had been ailing (as I told you t’other night) for a few days, but we anticipated no serious result, conjecturing that a portion of the white paint he swallowed last summer might be lingering about his vitals without having any serious effect upon his constitution. Yesterday afternoon he was taken so much worse that I sent an express for the medical gentleman (Mr. Herring)2 who promptly attended, and administered a powerful dose of castor oil. Under the influence of this medicine, he recovered so far as to be able at 8 o’Clock p.m. to bite Topping. His night was peaceful. This morning at daybreak he appeared better; received (agreeably to the doctor’s directions) another dose of castor oil; and partook plentifully of some warm gruel, the flavor of which he appeared to relish. Towards eleven o’Clock he was so much worse that it was found necessary to muffle the stable knocker. At half past, or thereabouts, he was heard talking to himself about the horse and Topping’s family, and to add some incoherent expressions which are supposed to have been either a foreboding of his approaching dissolution, or some wishes relative to the disposal of his little property—consisting chiefly of halfpence which he had buried in different parts of the garden. On the clock striking twelve he appeared slightly agitated, but he soon recovered, walked twice or thrice along the coach-house, stopped to bark, staggered, exclaimed “Halloa old girl!” (his favorite expression) and died.
He behaved throughout with a decent fortitude, equanimity, and selfpossession, which cannot be too much admired. I deeply regret that being in ignorance of his danger I did not attend to receive his last instructions. Something remarkable about his eyes occasioned Topping to run for the doctor at Twelve. When they returned together our friend was gone. It was the medical gentleman who informed me of his decease. He did it with great caution and delicacy, preparing me by the remark that “a jolly queer start had taken place”, but the shock was very great notwithstanding.
I am not wholly free from suspicions of poison—a malicious butcher has been heard to say that he would “do” for him—his plea was, that he would not be molested in taking orders down the Mews, by any bird that wore a tail—other persons have also been heard to threaten—among others, Charles Knight3 who has just started a weekly publication, price fourpence; Barnaby being, as you know, Threepence. I have directed a post mortem examination, and the body has been removed to Mr. Herring’s school of Anatomy for that purpose.
I could wish, if you can take the trouble, that you would inclose this to Forster when you have read it. I cannot discharge the painful task of communication more than once. Were they Ravens who took Manna to somebody in the wilderness? At times I hope they were, and at others I fear they were not, or they would certainly have stolen it by the way. In profound sorrow, I am ever Your bereaved friend. CD.
Kate is as well as can be expected, but terribly low as you may suppose. The children seem rather glad of it. He bit their ancles. But that was play——
1 One of the two ravens who were the originals of Grip in BR. Stuffed, in a glass case, he fetched £126 in Christie’s sale of 9 July 1870. At some time CD wrote a letter to the raven who was being looked after by Edwin Landseer while CD was out of London.
2 William Herring, dealer in birds and live animals, 21 Quickset Row, London W.
3 Charles Knight (1791–1873†), writer, and publisher for the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge. London, edited by him, issued in weekly parts 1841–4, at 4d. Later wrote for HW.