"Copperfield" principally), I have changed from St. James's Hall to the
Hanover Square Room. The latter is quite a wonderful room for sound, and
so easy that the least inflection will tell anywhere in the place
exactly as it leaves your lips; but I miss my dear old shilling
galleries--six or eight hundred strong--with a certain roaring sea of
response in them, that you have stood upon the beach of many and many a
time.
The summer, I hope and trust, will quicken the pace at which you grow
stronger again. I am but in dull spirits myself just now, or I should
remonstrate with you on your slowness.
Having two little boys sent home from school "to see the illuminations"
on the marriage-night, I chartered an enormous van, at a cost of five
pounds, and we started in majesty from the office in London, fourteen
strong. We crossed Waterloo Bridge with the happy design of beginning
the sight at London Bridge, and working our way through the City to
Regent Street. In a by-street in the Borough, over against a dead wall
and under a railway bridge, we were blocked for four hours. We were
obliged to walk home at last, having seen nothing whatever. The wretched
van turned up in the course of the next morning; and the best of it was
that at Rochester here they illuminated the fine old castle, and really
made a very splendid and picturesque thing (so my neighbours tell me).
With love to Mrs. Macready and Katie,
Ever, my dearest Macready, your most affectionate.
[Sidenote: Mr. W. Wilkie Collins.]
GAD'S HILL PLACE, HIGHAM BY ROCHESTER, KENT,
_Wednesday, April 22nd, 1863._
ON THE DEATH OF MR. EGG.
EXTRACT.
Ah, poor Egg! I knew what you would think and feel about it. When we saw
him in Paris on his way out I was struck by his extreme nervousness, and
derived from it an uneasy foreboding of his state. What a large piece of
a good many years he seems to have taken with him! How often have I
thought, since the news of his death came, of his putting his part in
the saucepan (with the cover on) when we rehearsed "The Lighthouse;" of
his falling out of the hammock when we rehearsed "The Frozen Deep;" of
his learning Italian numbers when he ate the garlic in the carriage; of
the thousands (I was going to say) of dark mornings when I apostrophised
him as "Kernel;" of his losing my invaluable knife in that beastly
stage-coach; of his posting up that mysterious book[11] every night! I
hardly know why, but I have always associated that volume most with
Venice. In my memory of the dear gentle little fellow, he will be (as
since those days he always has been) eternally posting up that book at
the large table in the middle of our Venice sitting-room, incidentally
asking the name of an hotel three weeks back! And his pretty house is to
be laid waste and sold. If there be a sale on the spot I shall try to
buy something in loving remembrance of him, good dear little fellow.
Think what a great "Frozen Deep" lay close under those boards we acted
on! My brother Alfred, Luard, Arthur, Albert, Austin, Egg. Even among
the audience, Prince Albert and poor Stone! "I heard the"--I forget what
it was I used to say--"come up from the great deep;" and it rings in my
ears now, like a sort of mad prophecy.
However, this won't do. We must close up the ranks and march on.
[Sidenote: Rev. W. Brookfield.]
GAD'S HILL, _May 17th, 1863._
MY DEAR BROOKFIELD,
It occurs to me that you may perhaps know, or know of, a kind of man
that I want to discover.
One of my boys (the youngest) now is at Wimbledon School. He is a
docile, amiable boy of fair abilities, but sensitive and shy. And he
writes me so very earnestly that he feels the school to be confusingly
large for him, and that he is sure he could do better with some
gentleman who gave his own personal attention to the education of
half-a-dozen or a dozen boys, as to impress me with the belief that I
ought to heed his conviction.
Has any such phenomenon as a good and reliable man in this wise ever
come in your way? Forgive my troubling you, and believe me,
Cordially yours.
[Sidenote: Rev. W. Brookfield.]
GAD'S HILL PLACE, HIGHAM BY ROCHESTER, KENT,
_May 24th, 1863._
MY DEAR BROOKFIELD,
I am most truly obliged to you for your kind and ready help.
When I am in town next week, I will call upon the Bishop of Natal, more
to thank him than with the hope of profiting by that gentleman of whom
he writes, as the limitation to "little boys" seems to stop the way. I
want to find someone with whom this particular boy could remain; if
there were a mutual interest and liking, that would be a great point
gained.
Why did the kings in the fairy tales want children? I suppose in the
weakness of the royal intellect.
Concerning "Nickleby," I am so much of your mind (comparing it with
"Copperfield"), that it was a long time before I could take a pleasure
in reading it. But I got better, as I found the audience always taking
to it. I have been trying, alone by myself, the "Oliver Twist" murder,
but have got something so horrible out of it that I am afraid to try it
in public.
Ever faithfully yours.
[Sidenote: M. de Cerjat.]
GAD'S HILL PLACE, HIGHAM BY ROCHESTER, KENT,
_Thursday, May 28th, 1863._
MY DEAR CERJAT,
I don't wonder at your finding it difficult to reconcile your mind to a
French Hamlet; but I assure you that Fechter's is a very remarkable
performance perfectly consistent with itself (whether it be my
particular Hamlet, or your particular Hamlet, or no), a coherent and
intelligent whole, and done by a true artist. I have never seen, I
think, an intelligent and clear view of the whole character so well
sustained throughout; and there is a very captivating air of romance and
picturesqueness added, which is quite new. Rely upon it, the public were
right. The thing could not have been sustained by oddity; it would have
perished upon that, very soon. As to the mere accent, there is far less
drawback in that than you would suppose. For this reason, he obviously
knows English so thoroughly that you feel he is safe. You are never in
pain for him. This sense of ease is gained directly, and then you think
very little more about it.
The Colenso and Jowett matter is a more difficult question, but
here again I don't go with you. The position of the writers of "Essays
and Reviews" is, that certain parts of the Old Testament have done
their intended function in the education of the world _as it was_;
but that mankind, like the individual man, is designed by the Almighty
to have an infancy and a maturity, and that as it advances, the
machinery of its education must advance too. For example: inasmuch as
ever since there was a sun and there was vapour, there _must have_ been
a rainbow under certain conditions, so surely it would be better now to
recognise that indisputable fact. Similarly, Joshua might command the
sun to stand still, under the impression that it moved round the earth;
but he could not possibly have inverted the relations of the earth and
the sun, whatever his impressions were. Again, it is contended that the
science of geology is quite as much a revelation to man, as books of an
immense age and of (at the best) doubtful origin, and that your
consideration of the latter must reasonably be influenced by the former.
As I understand the importance of timely suggestions such as these, it
is, that the Church should not gradually shock and lose the more
thoughtful and logical of human minds; but should be so gently and
considerately yielding as to retain them, and, through them, hundreds
of thousands. This seems to me, as I understand the temper and tendency
of the time, whether for good or evil, to be a very wise and necessary
position. And as I understand the danger, it is not chargeable on those
who take this ground, but on those who in reply call names and argue
nothing. What these bishops and such-like say about revelation, in
assuming it to be finished and done with, I can't in the least understand.
Nothing is discovered without God's intention and assistance, and I
suppose every new knowledge of His works that is conceded to man to be
distinctly a revelation by which men are to guide themselves. Lastly,
in the mere matter of religious doctrine and dogmas, these men
(Protestants--protestors--successors of the men who protested against
human judgment being set aside) talk and write as if they were all
settled by the direct act of Heaven; not as if they had been, as we know
they were, a matter of temporary accommodation and adjustment among
disputing mortals as fallible as you or I.
Coming nearer home, I hope that Georgina is almost quite well. She has
no attack of pain or flurry now, and is in all respects immensely
better. Mary is neither married nor (that I know of) going to be. She
and Katie and a lot of them have been playing croquet outside my window
here for these last four days, to a mad and maddening extent. My
sailor-boy's ship, the _Orlando_, is fortunately in Chatham Dockyard--so
he is pretty constantly at home--while the shipwrights are repairing a
leak in her. I am reading in London every Friday just now. Great crams
and great enthusiasm. Townshend I suppose to have left Lausanne
somewhere about this day. His house in the park is hermetically sealed,
ready for him. The Prince and Princess of Wales go about (wisely) very
much, and have as fair a chance of popularity as ever prince and
princess had. The City ball in their honour is to be a tremendously
gorgeous business, and Mary is highly excited by her father's being
invited, and she with him. Meantime the unworthy parent is devising all
kinds of subterfuges for sending her and getting out of it himself. A
very intelligent German friend of mine, just home from America,
maintains that the conscription will succeed in the North, and that the
war will be indefinitely prolonged. _I_ say "No," and that however mad
and villainous the North is, the war will finish by reason of its not
supplying soldiers. We shall see. The more they brag the more I don't
believe in them.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: Mr. Percy Fitzgerald.]
GAD'S HILL PLACE, _Saturday Night, July 4th_, 1863.
MY DEAR MR. FITZGERALD,
I have been most heartily gratified by the perusal of your article on my
dogs. It has given me an amount and a kind of pleasure very unusual, and
for which I thank you earnestly. The owner of the renowned dog Caesar
understands me so sympathetically, that I trust with perfect confidence
to his feeling what I really mean in these few words. You interest me
very much by your kind promise, the redemption of which I hereby claim,
to send me your life of Sterne when it comes out. If you should be in
England before this, I should be delighted to see you here on the top of
Falstaff's own Gad's Hill. It is a very pretty country, not thirty
miles from London; and if you could spare a day or two for its fine
walks, I and my two latest dogs, a St. Bernard and a bloodhound, would
be charmed with your company as one of ourselves.
Believe me, very faithfully yours.
_Friday, July 10th, 1863._[12]
DEAR MADAM,
I hope you will excuse this tardy reply to your letter. It is often
impossible for me, by any means, to keep pace with my correspondents. I
must take leave to say, that if there be any general feeling on the part
of the intelligent Jewish people, that I have done them what you
describe as "a great wrong," they are a far less sensible, a far less
just, and a far less good-tempered people than I have always supposed
them to be. Fagin, in "Oliver Twist," is a Jew, because it unfortunately
was true of the time to which that story refers, that that class of
criminal almost invariably was a Jew. But surely no sensible man or
woman of your persuasion can fail to observe--firstly, that all the rest
of the wicked _dramatis personae_ are Christians; and secondly, that he
is called the "Jew," not because of his religion, but because of his
race. If I were to write a story, in which I described a Frenchman or a
Spaniard as "the Roman Catholic," I should do a very indecent and
unjustifiable thing; but I make mention of Fagin as the Jew, because he
is one of the Jewish people, and because it conveys that kind of idea of
him which I should give my readers of a Chinaman, by calling him a
Chinese.
The enclosed is quite a nominal subscription towards the good object in
which you are interested; but I hope it may serve to show you that I
have no feeling towards the Jewish people but a friendly one. I always
speak well of them, whether in public or in private, and bear my
testimony (as I ought to do) to their perfect good faith in such
transactions as I have ever had with them; and in my "Child's History of
England," I have lost no opportunity of setting forth their cruel
persecution in old times.
Dear Madam, faithfully yours.
In reply to this, the Jewish lady thanks him for his kind letter and its
enclosure, still remonstrating and pointing out that though, as he
observes, "all the other criminal characters were Christians, they are,
at least, contrasted with characters of good Christians; this wretched
Fagin stands alone as the Jew."
The reply to _this_ letter afterwards was the character of Riah, in "Our
Mutual Friend," and some favourable sketches of Jewish character in the
lower class, in some articles in "All the Year Round."
[Sidenote: Mr. Ouvry.]
GAD'S HILL PLACE, HIGHAM BY ROCHESTER, KENT,
_Wednesday Night, July 29th, 1863._
MY DEAR OUVRY,
I have had some undefined idea that you were to let me know if you were
coming to the archaeologs at Rochester. (I myself am keeping out of their
way, as having had enough of crowding and speech-making in London.) Will
you tell me where you are, whether you are in this neighbourhood or out
of it, whether you will come here on Saturday and stay till Monday or
till Tuesday morning? If you will come, I _know_ I can give you the
heartiest welcome in Kent, and I _think_ I can give you the best wine in
this part of it. Send me a word in reply. I will fetch you from
anywhere, at any indicated time.
We have very pretty places in the neighbourhood, and are not
uncomfortable people (I believe) to stay with.
Faithfully yours ever.
[Sidenote: Mr. Charles Reade.]
OFFICE OF "ALL THE YEAR ROUND,"
_Wednesday, Sept. 30th, 1863._
MY DEAR READE,
I _must_ write you one line to say how interested I am in your story,
and to congratulate you upon its admirable art and its surprising grace
and vigour.
And to hint my hope, at the same time, that you will be able to find
leisure for a little dash for the Christmas number. It would be a really
great and true pleasure to me if you could.
Faithfully yours always.
[Sidenote: Miss Hogarth.]
GAD'S HILL PLACE, HIGHAM BY ROCHESTER, KENT,
_Wednesday, Oct. 7th, 1863._
MY DEAREST GEORGY,
You will see by to-day's _Times_ that it _was_ an earthquake that shook
me, and that my watch showed exactly the same time as the man's who
writes from Blackheath so near us--twenty minutes past three.
It is a great satisfaction to me to make it out so precisely; I wish you
would enquire whether the servants felt it. I thought it was the voice
of the cook that answered me, but that was nearly half an hour later. I
am strongly inclined to think that there is a peculiar susceptibility in
iron--at all events in our part of the country--to the shock, as though
there were something magnetic in it. For, whereas my long iron bedstead
was so violently shaken, I certainly heard nothing rattle in the room.
I will write about my return as soon as I get on with the still unbegun
"Uncommercial."
Ever affectionately.
[Sidenote: Mr. W. H. Wills.]
GAD'S HILL, _Sunday, Dec. 20th, 1863._
MY DEAR WILLS,
I am clear that you took my cold. Why didn't you do the thing
completely, and take it away from me? for it hangs by me still.
Will you tell Mrs. Linton that in looking over her admirable account
(_most_ admirable) of Mrs. Gordon's book, I have taken out the
references to Lockhart, not because I in the least doubt their justice,
but because I knew him and he liked me; and because one bright day in
Rome, I walked about with him for some hours when he was dying fast, and
all the old faults had faded out of him, and the now ghost of the
handsome man I had first known when Scott's daughter was at the head of
his house, had little more to do with this world than she in her grave,
or Scott in his, or small Hugh Littlejohn in his. Lockhart had been
anxious to see me all the previous day (when I was away on the
Campagna), and as we walked about I knew very well that _he_ knew very
well why. He talked of getting better, but I never saw him again. This
makes me stay Mrs. Linton's hand, gentle as it is.
Mrs. Lirriper is indeed a most brilliant old lady. God bless her.
I am glad to hear of your being "haunted," and hope to increase your
stock of such ghosts pretty liberally.
Ever faithfully.
FOOTNOTES:
[8] Alluding to a translation of a play by M. Maquet, which M. Fechter
was then preparing for his theatre.
[9] Now Mrs. Dallas Glyn.
[10] Formerly Miss Talfourd.
[11] His travelling journal.
[12] Answer to letter from Jewish lady, remonstrating with him on
injustice to the Jews, shown in the character of Fagin, and asking for
subscription for the benefit of the Jewish poor.
1864.
NARRATIVE.
Charles Dickens was, as usual, at Gad's Hill, with a family and friendly
party, at the opening of this year, and had been much shocked and
distressed by the news of the sudden death of Mr. Thackeray, brought to
him by friends arriving from London on the Christmas Eve of 1863, the
day on which the sad event happened. He writes of it, in the first
letter of the year, to Mr. Wilkie Collins, who was passing the winter in
Italy. He tells him, also, of his having got well to work upon a new
serial story, the first number of which ("Our Mutual Friend") was
published on the 1st of May.
The year began very sadly for Charles Dickens. On the 7th of February
(his own birthday) he received the mournful announcement of the death of
his second son, Walter Landor (a lieutenant in the 42nd Royal
Highlanders), who had died quite suddenly at Calcutta, on the last night
of the year of 1863, at the age of twenty-three. His third son, Francis
Jeffrey, had started for India at the end of January.
His annual letter to M. de Cerjat contains an allusion to "another
generation beginning to peep above the table"--the children of his son
Charles, who had been married three years before, to Miss Bessie Evans.
In the middle of February he removed to a house in London (57,
Gloucester Place, Hyde Park), where he made a stay of the usual
duration, up to the middle of June, all the time being hard at work upon
"Our Mutual Friend" and "All the Year Round." Mr. Marcus Stone was the
illustrator of the new monthly work, and we give a specimen of one of
many letters which he wrote to him about his "subjects."
His old friend, Mr. Charles Knight, with whom for many years Charles
Dickens had dined on his birthday, was staying, this spring, in the Isle
of Wight. To him he writes of the death of Walter, and of another sad
death which happened at this time, and which affected him almost as
much. Clara, the last surviving daughter of Mr. and Mrs. White, who had
been happily married to Mr. Gordon, of Cluny, not more than two years,
had just died at Bonchurch. Her father, as will be seen by the touching
allusion to him in this letter, had died a short time after this
daughter's marriage.
A letter to Mr. Edmund Ollier has reference to certain additions which
Charles Dickens wished him to make to an article (by Mr. Ollier) on
Working Men's Clubs, published in "All the Year Round."
We are glad to have one letter to the Lord Chief Baron, Sir Frederick
Pollock, which shows the great friendship and regard Charles Dickens had
for him, and his admiration of his qualities in his judicial capacity.
We give a pleasant letter to Mrs. Storrar, for whom, and for her
husband, Dr. Storrar, Charles Dickens had affectionate regard, because
we are glad to have their names in our book. The letter speaks for
itself and needs no explanation.
The latter part of the year was uneventful. Hard at work, he passed the
summer and autumn at Gad's Hill, taking holidays by receiving visitors
at home (among them, this year, Sir J. Emerson Tennent, his wife and
daughter, who were kindly urgent for his paying them a return visit in
Ireland) and occasional "runs" into France. The last letters we give are
his annual one to M. de Cerjat, and a graceful little New Year's note to
his dear old friend "Barry Cornwall."
The Christmas number was "Mrs. Lirriper's Legacy," the first and last
part written by himself, as in the case of the previous year's "Mrs.
Lirriper."
[Sidenote: Mr. W. Wilkie Collins.]
GAD'S HILL, _Monday, Jan. 24th, 1864._
EXTRACT.
MY DEAR WILKIE,
I am horribly behindhand in answering your welcome letter; but I have
been so busy, and have had the house so full for Christmas and the New
Year, and have had so much to see to in getting Frank out to India,
that I have not been able to settle down to a regular long letter, which
I mean this to be, but which it may not turn out to be, after all.
First, I will answer your enquiries about the Christmas number and the
new book. The Christmas number has been the greatest success of all; has
shot ahead of last year; has sold about two hundred and twenty thousand;
and has made the name of Mrs. Lirriper so swiftly and domestically
famous as never was. I had a very strong belief in her when I wrote
about her, finding that she made a great effect upon me; but she
certainly has gone beyond my hopes. (Probably you know nothing about
her? which is a very unpleasant consideration.) Of the new book, I have
done the two first numbers, and am now beginning the third. It is a
combination of drollery with romance which requires a great deal of
pains and a perfect throwing away of points that might be amplified; but
I hope it is _very good_. I confess, in short, that I think it is.
Strange to say, I felt at first quite dazed in getting back to the large
canvas and the big brushes; and even now, I have a sensation as of
acting at the San Carlo after Tavistock House, which I could hardly have
supposed would have come upon so old a stager.
You will have read about poor Thackeray's death--sudden, and yet not
sudden, for he had long been alarmingly ill. At the solicitation of Mr.
Smith and some of his friends, I have done what I would most gladly have
excused myself from doing, if I felt I could--written a couple of pages
about him in what was his own magazine.
Concerning the Italian experiment, De la Rue is more hopeful than you.
He and his bank are closely leagued with the powers at Turin, and he has
long been devoted to Cavour; but he gave me the strongest assurances
(with illustrations) of the fusion between place and place, and of the
blending of small mutually antagonistic characters into one national
character, progressing cheeringly and certainly. Of course there must be
discouragements and discrepancies in the first struggles of a country
previously so degraded and enslaved, and the time, as yet, has been very
short.
I should like to have a day with you at the Coliseum, and on the Appian
Way, and among the tombs, and with the Orvieto. But Rome and I are wide
asunder, physically as well as morally. I wonder whether the dramatic
stable, where we saw the marionettes, still receives the Roman public?
And Lord! when I think of you in that hotel, how I think of poor dear
Egg in the long front drawing-room, giving on to the piazza, posting up
that wonderful necromantic volume which we never shall see opened!
[Sidenote: Mr. Marcus Stone.]
57, GLOUCESTER PLACE, HYDE PARK,, HYDE PARK,
_Tuesday, Feb. 23rd, 1864._
MY DEAR MARCUS,
I think the design for the cover _excellent_, and do not doubt its
coming out to perfection. The slight alteration I am going to suggest
originates in a business consideration not to be overlooked.