in Scotland. In the midst of her brilliant fortune, it is too clear to
me that she is already beckoned away to follow her dead sisters.
Macready was here from Saturday evening to yesterday morning, older but
looking wonderfully well, and (what is very rare in these times) with
the old thick sweep of hair upon his head. Georgina being left alone
here the other day, was done no good to by a great consternation among
the servants. On going downstairs, she found Marsh (the stableman)
seated with great dignity and anguish in an arm-chair, and incessantly
crying out: "I am dead." To which the women servants said with great
pathos (and with some appearance of reason): "No, you ain't, Marsh!" And
to which he persisted in replying: "Yes, I am; I am dead!" Some
neighbouring vagabond was impressed to drive a cart over to Rochester
and fetch the doctor, who said (the patient and his consolers being all
very anxious that the heart should be the scene of affliction):
"Stomach."
[Sidenote: Mr. W. Wilkie Collins.]
GAD'S HILL PLACE, HIGHAM BY ROCHESTER, KENT,
_Tuesday Night, Oct. 14th, 1862._
MY DEAR WILKIE,
Frank Beard has been here this evening, of course since I posted my this
day's letter to you, and has told me that you are not at all well, and
how he has given you something which he hopes and believes will bring
you round. It is not to convey this insignificant piece of intelligence,
or to tell you how anxious I am that you should come up with a wet sheet
and a flowing sail (as we say at sea when we are not sick), that I
write. It is simply to say what follows, which I hope may save you some
mental uneasiness. For I was stricken ill when I was doing "Bleak
House," and I shall not easily forget what I suffered under the fear of
not being able to come up to time.
Dismiss that fear (if you have it) altogether from your mind. Write to
me at Paris at any moment, and say you are unequal to your work, and
want me, and I will come to London straight and do your work. I am quite
confident that, with your notes and a few words of explanation, I could
take it up at any time and do it. Absurdly unnecessary to say that it
would be a makeshift! But I could do it at a pinch, so like you as that
no one should find out the difference. Don't make much of this offer in
your mind; it is nothing, except to ease it. If you should want help, I
am as safe as the bank. The trouble would be nothing to me, and the
triumph of overcoming a difficulty great. Think it a Christmas number,
an "Idle Apprentice," a "Lighthouse," a "Frozen Deep." I am as ready as
in any of these cases to strike in and hammer the hot iron out.
You won't want me. You will be well (and thankless!) in no time. But
there I am; and I hope that the knowledge may be a comfort to you. Call
me, and I come.
As Beard always has a sense of medical responsibility, and says anything
important about a patient in confidence, I have merely remarked here
that "Wilkie" is out of sorts. Charley (who is here with Katie) has no
other cue from me.
Ever affectionately.
[Sidenote: M. Charles Fechter.]
PARIS, RUE DU FAUBOURG ST. HONORE, 27,
_Tuesday, Nov. 4th, 1862._
MY DEAR FECHTER,
You know, I believe, how our letters crossed, and that I am here until
Christmas. Also, you know with what pleasure and readiness I should have
responded to your invitation if I had been in London.
Pray tell Paul Feval that I shall be charmed to know him, and that I
shall feel the strongest interest in making his acquaintance. It almost
puts me out of humour with Paris (and it takes a great deal to do that!)
to think that I was not at home to prevail upon him to come with you,
and be welcomed to Gad's Hill; but either there or here, I hope to
become his friend before this present old year is out. Pray tell him so.
You say nothing in your note of your Lyceum preparations. I trust they
are all going on well. There is a fine opening for you, I am sure, with
a good beginning; but the importance of a good beginning is very great.
If you ever have time and inclination to tell me in a short note what
you are about, you can scarcely interest me more, as my wishes and
strongest sympathies are for and with your success--_mais cela va sans
dire_.
I went to the Chatelet (a beautiful theatre!) the other night to see
"Rothomago," but was so mortally _gene_ with the poor nature of the
piece and of the acting, that I came out again when there was a week or
two (I mean an hour or two, but the hours seemed weeks) yet to get
through.
My dear Fechter, very faithfully yours always.
[Sidenote: Mr. Clarkson Stanfield, R.A.]
PARIS, RUE DU FAUBOURG ST. HONORE, 27,
_Friday, Dec. 5th, 1862._
MY DEAR STANNY,
We have been here for two months, and I shall probably come back here
after Christmas (we go home for Christmas week) and stay on into
February. But I shall write and propose a theatre before Christmas is
out, so this is to warn you to get yourself into working pantomime
order!
I hope Wills has duly sent you our new Christmas number. As you may like
to know what I myself wrote of it, understand the Dick contributions to
be, _his leaving it till called for_, and _his wonderful end_, _his
boots_, and _his brown paper parcel_.
Since you were at Gad's Hill I have been travelling a good deal, and
looking up many odd things for use. I want to know how you are in health
and spirits, and it would be the greatest of pleasures to me to have a
line under your hand.
God bless you and yours with all the blessings of the time of year, and
of all times!
Ever your affectionate and faithful
DICK.
[Sidenote: M. Charles Fechter.]
PARIS, _Saturday, Dec. 6th, 1862._
MY DEAR FECHTER,
I have read "The White Rose" attentively, and think it an extremely good
play. It is vigorously written with a great knowledge of the stage, and
presents many striking situations. I think the close particularly fine,
impressive, bold, and new.
But I greatly doubt the expediency of your doing _any_ historical play
early in your management. By the words "historical play," I mean a play
founded on any incident in English history. Our public are accustomed to
associate historical plays with Shakespeare. In any other hands, I
believe they care very little for crowns and dukedoms. What you want is
something with an interest of a more domestic and general nature--an
interest as romantic as you please, but having a more general and wider
response than a disputed succession to the throne can have for
Englishmen at this time of day. Such interest culminated in the last
Stuart, and has worn itself out. It would be uphill work to evoke an
interest in Perkin Warbeck.
I do not doubt the play's being well received, but my fear is that these
people would be looked upon as mere abstractions, and would have but a
cold welcome in consequence, and would not lay hold of your audience.
Now, when you _have_ laid hold of your audience and have accustomed them
to your theatre, you may produce "The White Rose," with far greater
justice to the author, and to the manager also. Wait. Feel your way.
Perkin Warbeck is too far removed from analogy with the sympathies and
lives of the people for a beginning.
My dear Fechter, ever faithfully yours.
[Sidenote: Miss Mary Boyle.]
GAD'S HILL PLACE, HIGHAM BY ROCHESTER, KENT,
_Saturday, Dec. 27th, 1862._
MY DEAR MARY,
I must send you my Christmas greeting and happy New Year wishes in
return for yours; most heartily and fervently reciprocating your
interest and affection. You are among the few whom I most care for and
best love.
Being in London two evenings in the opening week, I tried to persuade my
legs (for whose judgment I have the highest respect) to go to an evening
party. But I _could not_ induce them to pass Leicester Square. The
faltering presentiment under which they laboured so impressed me, that
at that point I yielded to their terrors. They immediately ran away to
the east, and I accompanied them to the Olympic, where I saw a very good
play, "Camilla's Husband," very well played. Real merit in Mr. Neville
and Miss Saville.
We came across directly after the gale, with the Channel all bestrewn
with floating wreck, and with a hundred and fifty sick schoolboys from
Calais on board. I am going back on the morning after Fechter's opening
night, and have promised to read "Copperfield" at the Embassy, for a
British charity.
Georgy continues wonderfully well, and she and Mary send you their best
love. The house is pervaded by boys; and every boy has (as usual) an
unaccountable and awful power of producing himself in every part of the
house at every moment, apparently in fourteen pairs of creaking boots.
My dear Mary, ever affectionately your
JOE.
FOOTNOTES:
[7] Lieutenant Andrew Gordon, R.N., son of the Sheriff of Midlothian.
1863.
NARRATIVE.
At the beginning of this year, Charles Dickens was in Paris for the
purpose of giving a reading at the English Embassy.
He remained in Paris until the beginning of February, staying with his
servant "John" at the Hotel du Helder. There was a series of readings in
London this season at the Hanover Square Rooms. The Christmas number of
"All the Year Round" was entitled "Mrs. Lirriper's Lodgings," to which
Charles Dickens contributed the first and last chapter.
The Lyceum Theatre, under the management of M. Fechter, was opened in
January with "The Duke's Motto," and the letter given here has reference
to this first night.
We regret very much having no letters to Lady Molesworth, who was an old
and dear friend of Charles Dickens. But this lady explains to us that
she has long ceased to preserve any letters addressed to her.
The "Mr. and Mrs. Humphery" (now Sir William and Lady Humphery)
mentioned in the first letter for this year, were dear and intimate
friends of his eldest daughter, and were frequent guests in her father's
house. Mrs. Humphery and her sister Lady Olliffe were daughters of the
late Mr. William Cubitt, M.P.
We have in this year the first letter of Charles Dickens to Mr. Percy
Fitzgerald. This gentleman had been a valuable contributor to his
journal before he became personally known to Charles Dickens. The
acquaintance once made soon ripened into friendship, and for the future
Mr. Fitzgerald was a constant and always a welcome visitor to Gad's
Hill.
The letter to Mr. Charles Reade alludes to his story, "Hard Cash," which
was then appearing in "All the Year Round." As a writer, and as a
friend, he was held by Charles Dickens in the highest estimation.
Charles Dickens's correspondence with his solicitor and excellent
friend, Mr. Frederic Ouvry (now a vice-president of the Society of
Antiquaries), was almost entirely of a business character; but we are
glad to give one or two notes to that gentleman, although of little
public interest, in order to have the name in our book of one of the
kindest of our own friends.
[Sidenote: Miss Dickens.]
PARIS, HOTEL DU HELDER, RUE DU HELDER,
_Friday, Jan. 16th, 1863._
MY DEAREST MAMIE,
As I send a line to your aunt to-day and know that you will not see it,
I send another to you to report my safe (and neuralgic) arrival here. My
little rooms are perfectly comfortable, and I like the hotel better than
any I have ever put up at in Paris. John's amazement at, and
appreciation of, Paris are indescribable. He goes about with his mouth
open, staring at everything and being tumbled over by everybody.
The state dinner at the Embassy, yesterday, coming off in the room where
I am to read, the carpenters did not get in until this morning. But
their platforms were ready--or supposed to be--and the preparations are
in brisk progress. I think it will be a handsome affair to look at--a
very handsome one. There seems to be great artistic curiosity in Paris,
to know what kind of thing the reading is.
I know a "rela-shon" (with one weak eye), who is in the gunmaking line,
very near here. There is a strong family resemblance--but no muzzle.
Lady Molesworth and I have not begun to "toddle" yet, but have exchanged
affectionate greetings. I am going round to see her presently, and I
dine with her on Sunday. The only remaining news is, that I am beset by
mysterious adorers, and smuggle myself in and out of the house in the
meanest and basest manner.
With kind regard to Mr. and Mrs. Humphery,
Ever, my dearest Mamey, your affectionate Father.
P.S.--_Hommage a Madame B.!_
[Sidenote: Monsieur Regnier.]
PARIS, _Sunday, Feb. 1st, 1863._
MY DEAR REGNIER,
I was charmed by the receipt of your cordial and sympathetic letter, and
I shall always preserve it carefully as a most noble tribute from a
great and real artist.
I wished you had been at the Embassy on Friday evening. The audience was
a fine one, and the "Carol" is particularly well adapted to the purpose.
It is an uncommon pleasure to me to learn that I am to meet you on
Tuesday, for there are not many men whom I meet with greater pleasure
than you. Heaven! how the years roll by! We are quite old friends now,
in counting by years. If we add sympathies, we have been friends at
least a thousand years.
Affectionately yours ever.
[Sidenote: Miss Dickens.]
HOTEL DU HELDER, PARIS, _Sunday, Feb. 1st, 1863._
MY DEAREST MAMIE,
I cannot give you any idea of the success of the readings here, because
no one can imagine the scene of last Friday night at the Embassy. Such
audiences and such enthusiasm I have never seen, but the thing
culminated on Friday night in a two hours' storm of excitement and
pleasure. They actually recommenced and applauded right away into their
carriages and down the street.
You know your parent's horror of being lionised, and will not be
surprised to hear that I am half dead of it. I cannot leave here until
Thursday (though I am every hour in danger of running away) because I
have to dine out, to say nothing of breakfasting--think of me
breakfasting!--every intervening day. But my project is to send John
home on Thursday, and then to go on a little perfectly quiet tour for
about ten days, touching the sea at Boulogne. When I get there, I will
write to your aunt (in case you should not be at home), saying when I
shall arrive at the office. I must go to the office instead of Gad's,
because I have much to do with Forster about Elliotson.
I enclose a short note for each of the little boys. Give Harry ten
shillings pocket-money, and Plorn six.
The Olliffe girls, very nice. Florence at the readings, prodigiously
excited.
[Sidenote: Miss Hogarth.]
PARIS, _Sunday, Feb. 1st, 1863._
From my hurried note to Mamie, you will get some faint general idea of a
new star's having arisen in Paris. But of its brightness you can have no
adequate conception.
[John has locked me up and gone out, and the little bell at the door is
ringing demoniacally while I write.]
You have never heard me read yet. I have been twice goaded and lifted
out of myself into a state that astonished _me_ almost as much as the
audience. I have a cold, but no neuralgia, and am "as well as can be
expected."
I forgot to tell Mamie that I went (with Lady Molesworth) to hear
"Faust" last night. It is a splendid work, in which that noble and sad
story is most nobly and sadly rendered, and perfectly delighted me. But
I think it requires too much of the audience to do for a London opera
house. The composer must be a very remarkable man indeed. Some
management of light throughout the story is also very poetical and fine.
We had Carvalho's box. I could hardly bear the thing, it affected me so.
But, as a certain Frenchman said, "No weakness, Danton!" So I leave off.
[Sidenote: M. Charles Fechter.]
PARIS, _Wednesday, Feb. 4th, 1863._
MY DEAR FECHTER,
A thousand congratulations on your great success! Never mind what they
say, or do, _pour vous ecraser_; you have the game in your hands. The
romantic drama, thoroughly well done (with a touch of Shakespeare now
and then), is the speciality of your theatre. Give the public the
picturesque, romantic drama, with yourself in it; and (as I told you in
the beginning) you may throw down your gauntlet in defiance of all
comers.
It is a most brilliant success indeed, and it thoroughly rejoices my
heart!
Unfortunately I cannot now hope to see "Maquet," because I am packing up
and going out to dinner (it is late in the afternoon), and I leave
to-morrow morning when all sensible people, except myself, are in bed;
and I do not come back to Paris or near it. I had hoped to see him at
breakfast last Monday, but he was not there. Paul Feval was there, and I
found him a capital fellow. If I can do anything to help you on with
"Maquet"[8] when I come back I will most gladly do it.
My readings here have had the finest possible reception, and have
achieved a most noble success. I never before read to such fine
audiences, so very quick of perception, and so enthusiastically
responsive.
I shall be heartily pleased to see you again, my dear Fechter, and to
share your triumphs with the real earnestness of a real friend. And so
go on and prosper, and believe me, as I truly am,
Most cordially yours.
[Sidenote: Mr. W. C. Macready.]
OFFICE OF "ALL THE YEAR ROUND,"
_Thursday, Feb. 19th, 1863._
MY DEAREST MACREADY,
I have just come back from Paris, where the readings--"Copperfield,"
"Dombey" and "Trial," and "Carol" and "Trial"--have made a sensation
which modesty (my natural modesty) renders it impossible for me to
describe. You know what a noble audience the Paris audience is! They
were at their very noblest with me.
I was very much concerned by hearing hurriedly from Georgy that you
were ill. But when I came home at night, she showed me Katie's letter,
and that set me up again. Ah, you have the best of companions and
nurses, and can afford to be ill now and then for the happiness of being
so brought through it. But don't do it again yet awhile for all that.
Legouve (whom you remember in Paris as writing for the Ristori) was
anxious that I should bring you the enclosed. A manly and generous
effort, I think? Regnier desired to be warmly remembered to you. He
looks just as of yore.
Paris generally is about as wicked and extravagant as in the days of the
Regency. Madame Viardot in the "Orphee," most splendid. An opera of
"Faust," a very sad and noble rendering of that sad and noble story.
Stage management remarkable for some admirable, and really poetical,
effects of light. In the more striking situations, Mephistopheles
surrounded by an infernal red atmosphere of his own. Marguerite by a
pale blue mournful light. The two never blending. After Marguerite has
taken the jewels placed in her way in the garden, a weird evening draws
on, and the bloom fades from the flowers, and the leaves of the trees
droop and lose their fresh green, and mournful shadows overhang her
chamber window, which was innocently bright and gay at first. I couldn't
bear it, and gave in completely.
Fechter doing wonders over the way here, with a picturesque French
drama. Miss Kate Terry, in a small part in it, perfectly charming. You
may remember her making a noise, years ago, doing a boy at an inn, in
"The Courier of Lyons"? She has a tender love-scene in this piece, which
is a really beautiful and artistic thing. I saw her do it at about three
in the morning of the day when the theatre opened, surrounded by
shavings and carpenters, and (of course) with that inevitable hammer
going; and I told Fechter: "That is the very best piece of womanly
tenderness I have ever seen on the stage, and you'll find that no
audience can miss it." It is a comfort to add that it was instantly
seized upon, and is much talked of.
Stanfield was very ill for some months, then suddenly picked up, and is
really rosy and jovial again. Going to see him when he was very
despondent, I told him the story of Fechter's piece (then in rehearsal)
with appropriate action; fighting a duel with the washing-stand, defying
the bedstead, and saving the life of the sofa-cushion. This so kindled
his old theatrical ardour, that I think he turned the corner on the
spot.
With love to Mrs. Macready and Katie, and (be still my heart!)
Benvenuta, and the exiled Johnny (not too attentive at school, I hope?),
and the personally-unknown young Parr,
Ever, my dearest Macready, your most affectionate.
[Sidenote: Miss Power.]
OFFICE OF "ALL THE YEAR ROUND,"
_Thursday, Feb. 26th, 1863._
MY DEAR MARGUERITE,
I think I have found a first-rate title for your book, with an early and
a delightful association in most people's minds, and a strong suggestion
of Oriental pictures:
"ARABIAN DAYS AND NIGHTS."
I have sent it to Low's. If they have the wit to see it, do you in your
first chapter touch that string, so as to bring a fanciful explanation
in aid of the title, and sound it afterwards, now and again, when you
come to anything where Haroun al Raschid, and the Grand Vizier, and
Mesrour, the chief of the guard, and any of that wonderful _dramatis
personae_ are vividly brought to mind.
Ever affectionately.
[Sidenote: Mr. Charles Knight.]
OFFICE OF "ALL THE YEAR ROUND,"
_Wednesday, March 4th, 1863._
MY DEAR CHARLES KNIGHT,
At a quarter to seven on Monday, the 16th, a stately form will be
descried breathing birthday cordialities and affectionate amenities, as
it descends the broken and gently dipping ground by which the level
country of the Clifton Road is attained. A practised eye will be able to
discern two humble figures in attendance, which from their flowing
crinolines may, without exposing the prophet to the imputation of
rashness, be predicted to be women. Though certes their importance,
absorbed and as it were swallowed up in the illustrious bearing and
determined purpose of the maturer stranger, will not enthrall the gaze
that wanders over the forest of San Giovanni as the night gathers in.
Ever affectionately,
G. P. R. JAMES.
[Sidenote: Mrs. Dallas.[9]]
EXTRACT.
THE TIME OF THE PRINCESS ALEXANDRA'S ARRIVAL IN LONDON.
It is curious to see London gone mad. Down in the Strand here, the
monomaniacal tricks it is playing are grievous to behold, but along
Fleet Street and Cheapside it gradually becomes frenzied, dressing
itself up in all sorts of odds and ends, and knocking itself about in a
most amazing manner. At London Bridge it raves, principally about the
Kings of Denmark and their portraits. I have been looking among them for
Hamlet's uncle, and have discovered one personage with a high nose, who
I think is the man.
Faithfully yours always.
[Sidenote: Mrs. Lehmann.]
OFFICE OF "ALL THE YEAR ROUND," NO. 26, WELLINGTON STREET,
STRAND, LONDON, W.C.,
_Tuesday, March 10th, 1863._
DEAR MRS. LEHMANN,
Two stalls for to-morrow's reading were sent to you by post before I
heard from you this morning. Two will always come to you while you
remain a Gummidge, and I hope I need not say that if you want more, none
could be better bestowed in my sight.
Pray tell Lehmann, when you next write to him, that I find I owe him a
mint of money for the delightful Swedish sleigh-bells. They are the
wonder, awe, and admiration of the whole country side, and I never go
out without them.
Let us make an exchange of child stories. I heard of a little fellow the
other day whose mamma had been telling him that a French governess was
coming over to him from Paris, and had been expatiating on the blessings
and advantages of having foreign tongues. After leaning his plump little
cheek against the window glass in a dreary little way for some minutes,
he looked round and enquired in a general way, and not as if it had any
special application, whether she didn't think "that the Tower of Babel
was a great mistake altogether?"
Ever faithfully yours.
[Sidenote: Mrs. Major.[10]]
OFFICE OF "ALL THE YEAR ROUND," A WEEKLY JOURNAL, ETC. ETC.,
26, WELLINGTON STREET, STRAND,
_Thursday, March 12th, 1863._
MY DEAR MARY,
I am quite concerned to hear that you and your party (including your
brother Willie) paid for seats at my reading last night. You must
promise me never to do so any more. My old affections and attachments
are not so lightly cherished or so easily forgotten as that I can bear
the thought of you and yours coming to hear me like so many strangers.
It will at all times delight me if you will send a little note to me, or
to Georgina, or to Mary, saying when you feel inclined to come, and how
many stalls you want. You may always be certain, even on the fullest
nights, of room being made for you. And I shall always be interested and
pleased by knowing that you are present.
Mind! You are to be exceedingly penitent for last night's offence, and
to make me a promise that it shall never be repeated. On which condition
accept my noble forgiveness.
With kind regard to Mr. Major, my dear Mary,
Affectionately yours.
[Sidenote: Mr. W. C. Macready.]
GAD'S HILL PLACE, HIGHAM BY ROCHESTER, KENT,
_Thursday, March 31st, 1863._
MY DEAREST MACREADY,