improper uses made of confidential letters in the addressing of them to
a public audience that have no business with them, I made not long ago a
great fire in my field at Gad's Hill, and burnt every letter I
possessed. And now I always destroy every letter I receive not on
absolute business, and my mind is so far at ease. Poor dear Felton's
letters went up into the air with the rest, or his highly distinguished
representative should have had them most willingly.
We never fail to drink old P.'s health on his birthday, or to make him
the subject of a thousand loving remembrances. With best love to Mrs.
Macready and Katie,
Ever, my dearest Macready,
Your most affectionate Friend.
[Sidenote: Mr. W. C. Macready.]
16, SOMER'S PLACE, HYDE PARK,
_Saturday Night, April 22nd, 1865._
MY DEAREST MACREADY,
A thousand thanks for your kind letter, most heartily welcome.
My frost-bitten foot, after causing me great inconvenience and much
pain, has begun to conduct itself amiably. I can now again walk my ten
miles in the morning without inconvenience, but am absurdly obliged to
sit shoeless all the evening--a very slight penalty, as I detest going
out to dinner (which killed the original old Parr by-the-bye).
I am working like a dragon at my book, and am a terror to the household,
likewise to all the organs and brass bands in this quarter. Gad's Hill
is being gorgeously painted, and we are here until the 1st of June. I
wish I might hope you would be there any time this summer; I really
_have_ made the place comfortable and pretty by this time.
It is delightful to us to hear such good news of Butty. She made so
deep an impression on Fechter that he always asks me what Ceylon has
done for her, and always beams when I tell him how thoroughly well it
has made her. As to _you_, you are the youngest man (worth mentioning as
a thorough man) that I know. Oh, let me be as young when I am as----did
you think I was going to write "old?" No, sir--withdrawn from the wear
and tear of busy life is my expression.
Poole still holds out at Kentish Town, and says he is dying of solitude.
His memory is astoundingly good. I see him about once in two or three
months, and in the meantime he makes notes of questions to ask me when I
come. Having fallen in arrear of the time, these generally refer to
unknown words he has encountered in the newspapers. His three last (he
always reads them with tremendous difficulty through an enormous
magnifying-glass) were as follows:
1. What's croquet?
2. What's an Albert chain?
3. Let me know the state of mind of the Queen.
When I had delivered a neat exposition on these heads, he turned back to
his memoranda, and came to something that the utmost power of the
enormous magnifying-glass couldn't render legible. After a quarter of an
hour or so, he said: "O yes, I know." And then rose and clasped his
hands above his head, and said: "Thank God, I am not a dram-drinker."
Do think of coming to Gad's in the summer; and do give my love to Mrs.
Macready, and tell her I know she can make you come if she will. Mary
and Georgy send best and dearest loves to her, to you, and to Katie, and
to baby. Johnny we suppose to be climbing the tree of knowledge
elsewhere.
My dearest Macready, ever yours most affectionately.
[Sidenote: Mr. W. C. Macready.]
GAD'S HILL, _Monday, June 12th, 1865._
MY DEAREST MACREADY,
[_So far in his own writing._]
Many thanks for your kind words of remembrance.[15] This is not all in
my own hand, because I am too much shaken to write many notes. Not by
the beating and dragging of the carriage in which I was--it did not go
over, but was caught on the turn, among the ruins of the bridge--but by
the work afterwards to get out the dying and dead, which was terrible.
[_The rest in his own writing_.]
Ever your affectionate Friend.
P.S.--My love to Mrs. Macready.
[Sidenote: Mr. Thomas Mitton.]
GAD'S HILL PLACE, HIGHAM BY ROCHESTER, KENT,
_Tuesday, June 13th, 1865._
MY DEAR MITTON,
I should have written to you yesterday or the day before, if I had been
quite up to writing.
I was in the only carriage that did not go over into the stream. It was
caught upon the turn by some of the ruin of the bridge, and hung
suspended and balanced in an apparently impossible manner. Two ladies
were my fellow-passengers, an old one and a young one. This is exactly
what passed. You may judge from it the precise length of the suspense:
Suddenly we were off the rail, and beating the ground as the car of a
half-emptied balloon might. The old lady cried out, "My God!" and the
young one screamed. I caught hold of them both (the old lady sat
opposite and the young one on my left), and said: "We can't help
ourselves, but we can be quiet and composed. Pray don't cry out." The
old lady immediately answered: "Thank you. Rely upon me. Upon my soul I
will be quiet." We were then all tilted down together in a corner of the
carriage, and stopped. I said to them thereupon: "You may be sure
nothing worse can happen. Our danger _must_ be over. Will you remain
here without stirring, while I get out of the window?" They both
answered quite collectedly, "Yes," and I got out without the least
notion what had happened. Fortunately I got out with great caution and
stood upon the step. Looking down I saw the bridge gone, and nothing
below me but the line of rail. Some people in the two other compartments
were madly trying to plunge out at window, and had no idea that there
was an open swampy field fifteen feet down below them, and nothing else!
The two guards (one with his face cut) were running up and down on the
down side of the bridge (which was not torn up) quite wildly. I called
out to them: "Look at me. Do stop an instant and look at me, and tell me
whether you don't know me." One of them answered: "We know you very
well, Mr. Dickens." "Then," I said, "my good fellow, for God's sake give
me your key, and send one of those labourers here, and I'll empty this
carriage." We did it quite safely, by means of a plank or two, and when
it was done I saw all the rest of the train, except the two baggage
vans, down in the stream. I got into the carriage again for my brandy
flask, took off my travelling hat for a basin, climbed down the
brickwork, and filled my hat with water.
Suddenly I came upon a staggering man covered with blood (I think he
must have been flung clean out of his carriage), with such a frightful
cut across the skull that I couldn't bear to look at him. I poured some
water over his face and gave him some to drink, then gave him some
brandy, and laid him down on the grass, and he said, "I am gone," and
died afterwards. Then I stumbled over a lady lying on her back against a
little pollard-tree, with the blood streaming over her face (which was
lead colour) in a number of distinct little streams from the head. I
asked her if she could swallow a little brandy and she just nodded, and
I gave her some and left her for somebody else. The next time I passed
her she was dead. Then a man, examined at the inquest yesterday (who
evidently had not the least remembrance of what really passed), came
running up to me and implored me to help him find his wife, who was
afterwards found dead. No imagination can conceive the ruin of the
carriages, or the extraordinary weights under which the people were
lying, or the complications into which they were twisted up among iron
and wood, and mud and water.
I don't want to be examined at the inquest, and I don't want to write
about it. I could do no good either way, and I could only seem to speak
about myself, which, of course, I would rather not do. I am keeping very
quiet here. I have a--I don't know what to call it--constitutional (I
suppose) presence of mind, and was not in the least fluttered at the
time. I instantly remembered that I had the MS. of a number with me, and
clambered back into the carriage for it. But in writing these scanty
words of recollection I feel the shake and am obliged to stop.
Ever faithfully.
[Sidenote: Mr. Walter Jones.]
GAD'S HILL PLACE, HIGHAM BY ROCHESTER, KENT,
_Saturday, June 17th, 1865_.[16]
SIR,
I beg you to assure the Committee of the Newsvendors' Benevolent and
Provident Institution, that I have been deeply affected by their special
remembrance of me in my late escape from death or mutilation, and that I
thank them with my whole heart.
Faithfully yours and theirs.
[Sidenote: Mrs. Hulkes.]
GAD'S HILL, _Sunday, June 18th, 1865._
MY DEAR MRS. HULKES,
I return the _Examiner_ with many thanks. The account is true, except
that I _had_ brandy. By an extraordinary chance I had a bottle and a
half with me. I slung the half-bottle round my neck, and carried my hat
full of water in my hands. But I can understand the describer (whoever
he is) making the mistake in perfect good faith, and supposing that I
called for brandy, when I really called to the others who were helping:
"I have brandy here." The Mr. Dickenson mentioned had changed places
with a Frenchman, who did not like the window down, a few minutes before
the accident. The Frenchman was killed, and a labourer and I got Mr.
Dickenson out of a most extraordinary heap of dark ruins, in which he
was jammed upside down. He was bleeding at the eyes, ears, nose, and
mouth; but he didn't seem to know that afterwards, and of course I
didn't tell him. In the moment of going over the viaduct the whole of
his pockets were shaken empty! He had no watch, no chain, no money, no
pocket-book, no handkerchief, when we got him out. He had been choking
a quarter of an hour when I heard him groaning. If I had not had the
brandy to give him at the moment, I think he would have been done for.
As it was, I brought him up to London in the carriage with me, and
couldn't make him believe he was hurt. He was the first person whom the
brandy saved. As I ran back to the carriage for the whole full bottle, I
saw the first two people I had helped lying dead. A bit of shade from
the hot sun, into which we got the unhurt ladies, soon had as many dead
in it as living.
Faithfully yours always.
[Sidenote: Mr. Arthur Ryland.]
GAD'S HILL PLACE, HIGHAM BY ROCHESTER, KENT,
_Wednesday, June 21st, 1865._
MY DEAR MR. RYLAND,
I need not assure you that I regard the unanimous desire of the Town
Council Committee as a great honour, and that I feel the strongest
interest in the occasion, and the strongest wish to associate myself
with it.
But, after careful consideration, I most unwillingly come to the
conclusion that I must decline. At the time in question I shall, please
God, either have just finished, or be just finishing, my present book.
Country rest and reflection will then be invaluable to me, before
casting about for Christmas. I am a little shaken in my nervous system
by the terrible and affecting incidents of the late railway accident,
from which I bodily escaped. I am withdrawing myself from engagements of
all kinds, in order that I may pursue my story with the comfortable
sense of being perfectly free while it is a-doing, and when it is done.
The consciousness of having made this engagement would, if I were to
make it, render such sense incomplete, and so open the way to others.
This is the real state of the case, and the whole reason for my
declining.
Faithfully yours always.
[Sidenote: Mrs. Lehmann.]
GAD'S HILL PLACE, HIGHAM BY ROCHESTER, KENT,
_Tuesday, June 29th, 1865._
DEAR MRS. LEHMANN,
Come (with self and partner) on either of the days you name, and you
will be heartily welcomed by the humble youth who now addresses you, and
will then cast himself at your feet.
I am quite right again, I thank God, and have even got my voice back; I
most unaccountably brought somebody else's out of that terrible scene.
The directors have sent me a Resolution of Thanks for assistance to the
unhappy passengers.
With kind regards to Lehmann, ever yours.
[Sidenote: Mr. Percy Fitzgerald.]
OFFICE OF "ALL THE YEAR ROUND,"
_Friday, July 7th, 1865._
MY DEAR FITZGERALD,
I shall be delighted to see you at Gad's Hill on Sunday, and I hope you
will bring a bag with you and will not think of returning to London at
night.
We are a small party just now, for my daughter Mary has been decoyed to
Andover for the election week, in the Conservative interest; think of my
feelings as a Radical parent! The wrong-headed member and his wife are
the friends with whom she hunts, and she helps to receive (and
_de_ceive) the voters, which is very awful!
But in the week after next we shall be in great croquet force. I shall
hope to persuade you to come back to us then for a few days, and we will
try to make you some amends for a dull Sunday. Turn it over in your mind
and try to manage it.
Sincerely yours ever.
[Sidenote: Professor Owen, F.R.S.]
GAD'S HILL, _Wednesday, July 12th, 1865._
MY DEAR OWEN,
Studying the gorilla last night for the twentieth time, it suddenly came
into my head that I had never thanked you for that admirable treatise.
This is to bear witness to my blushes and repentance. If you knew how
much interest it has awakened in me, and how often it has set me
a-thinking, you would consider me a more thankless beast than any
gorilla that ever lived. But happily you do _not_ know, and I am not
going to tell you.
Believe me, ever faithfully yours.
[Sidenote: The Earl Russell.]
GAD'S HILL PLACE, HIGHAM BY ROCHESTER, KENT,
_Wednesday, Aug. 16th, 1865._
MY DEAR LORD RUSSELL,
Mr. Dallas, who is a candidate for the Scotch professional chair left
vacant by Aytoun's death, has asked me if I would object to introduce to
you the first volume of a book he has in the press with my publishers,
on "The Gay Science of Art and Criticism." I have replied I would _not_
object, as I have read as many of the sheets as I could get, with
extreme pleasure, and as I know you will find it a very winning and
brilliant piece of writing. Therefore he will send the proofs of the
volume to you as soon as he can get them from the printer (at about the
end of this week I take it), and if you read them you will not be hard
upon me for bearing the responsibility of his doing so, I feel assured.
I suppose Mr. Dallas to have some impression that his pleasing you with
his book might advance his Scottish suit. But all I know is, that he is
a gentleman of great attainments and erudition, much distinguished as
the writer of the best critical literary pieces in _The Times_, and
thoroughly versed in the subjects which Professor Aytoun represented
officially.
I beg to send my regard to Lady Russell and all the house, and am ever,
my dear Lord Russell,
Your faithful and obliged.
P.S.--I am happy to report that my sailor-boy's captain, relinquishing
his ship on sick leave, departs from the mere form of certificate given
to all the rest, and adds that his obedience to orders is remarkable,
and that he is a highly intelligent and promising young officer.
[Sidenote: Mr. Marcus Stone.]
HOTEL DU HELDER, PARIS, _Wednesday, Sept. 13th, 1865._
MY DEAR MARCUS,
I leave here to-morrow, and propose going to the office by tidal train
_next Saturday evening_. Through the whole of next week, on and off, I
shall be at the office; when not there, at Gad's; but much oftener at
the office. The sooner I can know about the subjects you take for
illustration the better, as I can then fill the list of illustrations to
the second volume for the printer, and enable him to make up his last
sheet. Necessarily that list is now left blank, as I cannot give him the
titles of the subjects, not knowing them myself.
It has been fearfully hot on this side, but is something cooler.
Ever affectionately yours.
P.S.--On glancing over this note, I find it very like the king's
love-letter in "Ruy Blas." "Madam, there is a high wind. I have shot six
wolves."
I think the frontispiece to the second volume should be the dustyard
with the three mounds, and Mr. Boffin digging up the Dutch bottle, and
Venus restraining Wegg's ardour to get at him. Or Mr. Boffin might be
coming down with the bottle, and Venus might be dragging Wegg out of the
way as described.
[Sidenote: Mr. Percy Fitzgerald.]
OFFICE OF "ALL THE YEAR ROUND,"
_Saturday, Sept. 23rd, 1865._
MY DEAR FITZGERALD,
I cannot thank you too much for Sultan. He is a noble fellow, has fallen
into the ways of the family with a grace and dignity that denote the
gentleman, and came down to the railway a day or two since to welcome me
home (it was our first meeting), with a profound absence of interest in
my individual opinion of him which captivated me completely. I am going
home to-day to take him about the country, and improve his acquaintance.
You will find a perfect understanding between us, I hope, when you next
come to Gad's Hill. (He has only swallowed Bouncer once, and
temporarily.)
Your hint that you were getting on with your story and liked it was more
than golden intelligence to me in foreign parts. The intensity of the
heat, both in Paris and the provinces, was such that I found nothing
else so refreshing in the course of my rambles.
With many more thanks for the dog than my sheet of paper would hold,
Believe me, ever very faithfully yours.
[Sidenote: Mrs. Procter.]
GAD'S HILL PLACE, HIGHAM BY ROCHESTER, KENT,
_Sept. 26th, 1865._
MY DEAR MRS. PROCTER,
I have written the little introduction, and have sent it to my printer,
in order that you may read it without trouble. But if you would like to
keep the few pages of MS., of course they are yours.
It is brief, and I have aimed at perfect simplicity, and an avoidance of
all that your beloved Adelaide would have wished avoided. Do not expect
too much from it. If there should be anything wrong in fact, or anything
that you would like changed for any reason, _of course you will tell me
so_, and of course you will not deem it possible that you can trouble me
by making any such request most freely.
You will probably receive the proof either on Friday or Saturday. Don't
write to me until you have read it. In the meantime I send you back the
two books, with the two letters in the bound one.
With love to Procter,
Ever your affectionate Friend.
[Sidenote: Mr. Edmund Yates.]
HOTEL DU HELDER, PARIS, _Wednesday, Sept. 30th, 1865._
MY DEAR EDMUND,
I leave here to-morrow and purpose being at the office on Saturday
night; all next week I shall be there, off and on--"off" meaning Gad's
Hill; the office will be my last address. The heat has been excessive on
this side of the Channel, and I got a slight sunstroke last Thursday,
and was obliged to be doctored and put to bed for a day; but, thank God,
I am all right again. The man who sells the _tisane_ on the Boulevards
can't keep the flies out of his glasses, and as he wears them on his red
velvet bands, the flies work themselves into the ends of the tumblers,
trying to get through and tickle the man. If fly life were long enough,
I think they would at last. Three paving blouses came to work at the
corner of this street last Monday, pulled up a bit of road, sat down to
look at it, and fell asleep. On Tuesday one of the blouses spat on his
hands and seemed to be going to begin, but didn't. The other two have
shown no sign of life whatever. This morning the industrious one ate a
loaf. You may rely upon this as the latest news from the French capital.
Faithfully ever.
[Sidenote: Mr. William Charles Kent.]
26, WELLINGTON STREET, _Monday, Nov. 6th, 1865._
MY DEAR KENT,
_No_, I _won't_ write in this book, because I have sent another to the
binder's for you.
I have been unwell with a relaxed throat, or I should have written to
you sooner to thank you for your dedication, to assure you that it
heartily, most heartily, gratifies me, as the sincere tribute of a true
and generous heart, and to tell you that I have been charmed with your
book itself. I am proud of having given a name to anything so
picturesque, so sympathetic and spirited.
I hope and believe the "Doctor" is nothing but a good 'un. He has
perfectly astonished Forster, who writes: "Neither good, gooder, nor
goodest, but super-excellent; all through there is such a relish of you
at your best, as I could not have believed in, after a long story."
I shall be charmed to see you to-night.
Ever affectionately.
[Sidenote: M. de Cerjat.]
GAD'S HILL PLACE, HIGHAM BY ROCHESTER, KENT,
_November 13th, 1865._
EXTRACT.
MY DEAR CERJAT,
Having achieved my book and my Christmas number, and having shaken
myself after two years' work, I send you my annual greeting. How are
you? Asthmatic, I know you will reply; but as my poor father (who was
asthmatic, too, and the jolliest of men) used philosophically to say,
"one must have something wrong, I suppose, and I like to know what it
is."
In England we are groaning under the brigandage of the butcher, which is
being carried to that height that I think I foresee resistance on the
part of the middle-class, and some combination in perspective for
abolishing the middleman, whensoever he turns up (which is everywhere)
between producer and consumer. The cattle plague is the butcher's
stalking-horse, and it is unquestionably worse than it was; but seeing
that the great majority of creatures lost or destroyed have been cows,
and likewise that the rise in butchers' meat bears no reasonable
proportion to the market prices of the beasts, one comes to the
conclusion that the public is done. The commission has ended very weakly
and ineffectually, as such things in England rather frequently do; and
everybody writes to _The Times_, and nobody does anything else.
If the Americans don't embroil us in a war before long it will not be
their fault. What with their swagger and bombast, what with their claims
for indemnification, what with Ireland and Fenianism, and what with
Canada, I have strong apprehensions. With a settled animosity towards
the French usurper, I believe him to have always been sound in his
desire to divide the States against themselves, and that we were
unsound and wrong in "letting I dare not wait upon I would." The Jamaica
insurrection is another hopeful piece of business. That
platform-sympathy with the black--or the native, or the devil--afar off,
and that platform indifference to our own countrymen at enormous odds in
the midst of bloodshed and savagery, makes me stark wild. Only the other
day, here was a meeting of jawbones of asses at Manchester, to censure
the Jamaica Governor for his manner of putting down the insurrection! So
we are badgered about New Zealanders and Hottentots, as if they were
identical with men in clean shirts at Camberwell, and were to be bound
by pen and ink accordingly. So Exeter Hall holds us in mortal submission
to missionaries, who (Livingstone always excepted) are perfect
nuisances, and leave every place worse than they found it.
Of all the many evidences that are visible of our being ill-governed, no
one is so remarkable to me as our ignorance of what is going on under
our Government. What will future generations think of that enormous
Indian Mutiny being ripened without suspicion, until whole regiments
arose and killed their officers? A week ago, red tape, half-bouncing and
half pooh-poohing what it bounced at, would have scouted the idea of a
Dublin jail not being able to hold a political prisoner. But for the
blacks in Jamaica being over-impatient and before their time, the whites
might have been exterminated, without a previous hint or suspicion that
there was anything amiss. _Laissez aller_, and Britons never, never,
never!----