P.S. All good angels prosper Dr. Howe. He, at least, will not like
me the less, I hope, for what I shall say of Laura.
London, 1 Devonshire Terrace, York Gate, Regent's Park, 31st
December, 1842.
My Dear Felton: Many and many happy New Years to you and yours! As
many happy children as may be quite convenient (no more)! and as
many happy meetings between them and our children, and between you
and us, as the kind fates in their utmost kindness shall favorably
decree!
The American book (to begin with that) has been a most complete and
thorough-going success. Four large editions have now been sold _and
paid for_, and it has won golden opinions from all sorts of men,
except our friend in F----, who is a miserable creature; a
disappointed man in great poverty, to whom I have ever been most
kind and considerate (I need scarcely say that); and another friend
in B----, no less a person than an illustrious gentleman named ----,
who wrote a story called ----. They have done no harm, and have
fallen short of their mark, which, of course, was to annoy me. Now I
am perfectly free from any diseased curiosity in such respects, and
whenever I hear of a notice of this kind, I never read it; whereby I
always conceive (don't you?) that I get the victory. With regard to
your slave-owners, they may cry, till they are as black in the face
as their own slaves, that Dickens lies. Dickens does not write for
their satisfaction, and Dickens will not explain for their comfort.
Dickens has the name and date of every newspaper in which every one
of those advertisements appeared, as they know perfectly well; but
Dickens does not choose to give them, and will not at any time
between this and the day of judgment....
I have been hard at work on my new book, of which the first number
has just appeared. The Paul Joneses who pursue happiness and profit
at other men's cost will no doubt enable you to read it, almost as
soon as you receive this. I hope you will like it. And I
particularly commend, my dear Felton, one Mr. Pecksniff and his
daughters to your tender regards. I have a kind of liking for them
myself.
Blessed star of morning, such a trip as we had into Cornwall, just
after Longfellow went away! The "we" means Forster, Maclise,
Stanfield (the renowned marine painter), and the Inimitable Boz. We
went down into Devonshire by the railroad, and there we hired an
open carriage from an innkeeper, patriotic in all Pickwick matters,
and went on with post horses. Sometimes we travelled all night,
sometimes all day, sometimes both. I kept the joint-stock purse,
ordered all the dinners, paid all the turnpikes, conducted facetious
conversations with the post boys, and regulated the pace at which we
travelled. Stanfield (an old sailor) consulted an enormous map on
all disputed points of wayfaring; and referred, moreover, to a
pocket-compass and other scientific instruments. The luggage was in
Forster's department; and Maclise, having nothing particular to do,
sang songs. Heavens! If you could have seen the necks of
bottles--distracting in their immense varieties of shape--peering
out of the carriage pockets! If you could have witnessed the deep
devotion of the post-boys, the wild attachment of the hostlers, the
maniac glee of the waiters. If you could have followed us into the
earthy old churches we visited, and into the strange caverns on the
gloomy sea-shore, and down into the depths of mines, and up to the
tops of giddy heights where the unspeakably green water was roaring,
I don't know how many hundred feet below! If you could have seen but
one gleam of the bright fires by which we sat in the big rooms of
ancient inns at night, until long after the small hours had come and
gone, or smelt but one steam of the HOT punch (not white, dear
Felton, like that amazing compound I sent you a taste of, but a
rich, genial, glowing brown) which came in every evening in a huge
broad china bowl! I never laughed in my life as I did on this
journey. It would have done you good to hear me. I was choking and
gasping and bursting the buckle off the back of my stock, all the
way. And Stanfield (who is very much of your figure and temperament,
but fifteen years older) got into such apoplectic entanglements
that we were often obliged to beat him on the back with portmanteaus
before we could recover him. Seriously, I do believe there never was
such a trip. And they made such sketches, those two men, in the most
romantic of our halting-places, that you would have sworn we had the
Spirit of Beauty with us, as well as the Spirit of Fun. But stop
till you come to England,--I say no more.
The actuary of the national debt couldn't calculate the number of
children who are coming here on Twelfth Night, in honor of Charley's
birthday, for which occasion I have provided a magic lantern and
divers other tremendous engines of that nature. But the best of it
is that Forster and I have purchased between us the entire stock in
trade of a conjurer, the practice and display whereof is intrusted
to me. And O my dear eyes, Felton, if you could see me conjuring the
company's watches into impossible tea-caddies, and causing pieces of
money to fly, and burning pocket-handkerchiefs without hurting 'em,
and practising in my own room, without anybody to admire, you would
never forget as long as you live. In those tricks which require a
confederate, I am assisted (by reason of his imperturbable
good-humor) by Stanfield, who always does his part exactly the wrong
way, to the unspeakable delight of all beholders. We come out on a
small scale, to-night, at Forster's, where we see the old year out
and the new one in. Particulars of shall be forwarded in my next.
I have quite made up my mind that F---- really believes he _does_
know you personally, and has all his life. He talks to me about you
with such gravity that I am afraid to grin, and feel it necessary to
look quite serious. Sometimes he _tells_ me things about you,
doesn't ask me, you know, so that I am occasionally perplexed beyond
all telling, and begin to think it was he, and not I, who went to
America. It's the queerest thing in the world.
The book I was to have given Longfellow for you is not worth sending
by itself, being only a Barnaby. But I will look up some manuscript
for you (I think I have that of the American Notes complete), and
will try to make the parcel better worth its long conveyance. With
regard to Maclise's pictures, you certainly are quite right in your
impression of them; but he is "such a discursive devil" (as he says
about himself), and flies off at such odd tangents, that I feel it
difficult to convey to you any general notion of his purpose. I will
try to do so when I write again. I want very much to know about ----
and that charming girl..... Give me full particulars. Will you
remember me cordially to Sumner, and say I thank him for his
welcome letter? The like to Hillard, with many regards to himself
and his wife, with whom I had one night a little conversation which
I shall not readily forget. The like to Washington Allston, and all
friends who care for me and have outlived my book.... Always, my
dear Felton,
With true regard and affection, yours,