SECOND IMPRESSIONS OF AMERICA.
1842.
Second Letter--International Copyright--Third
Letter--The Dinner at Boston--Worcester,
Springfield, and Hartford--Queer
Traveling--Levees at Hartford and New Haven--At
Wallingford--Serenades--Cornelius C.
Felton--Payment of Personal Expenses
declined--At New York--Irving and
Colden--Description of the Ball--Newspaper
Accounts--A Phase of Character--Opinion in
America--International Copyright--American
Authors in regard to it--Outcry against the
Nation's Guest--Declines to be silent on
Copyright--Speech at Dinner--Irving in the
Chair--Chairman's Breakdown--An Incident
afterwards in London--Results of Copyright
Speeches--A Bookseller's Demand for
Help--Suggestion for Copyright Memorial--Henry
Clay's Opinion--Life in New York--Distresses of
Popularity--Intentions for Future--Refusal of
Invitations--Going South and West--As to
Return--Dangers incident to
Steamers--Slavery--Ladies of America--Party
Conflicts--Non-arrival of Cunard
Steamer--Copyright Petition for Congress--No
Hope of the Caledonia--Substitute for
her--Anxiety as to Letters--Of Distinguished
Americans--Hotel Bills--Thoughts of the
Children--Acadia takes Caledonia's
Place--Letter to C. D. from Carlyle--Carlyle on
Copyright--Argument against Stealing--Rob Roy's
Plan worth bettering--C. D. as to Carlyle.
HIS second letter, radiant with the same kindly warmth that gave always
pre-eminent charm to his genius, was dated from the Carlton Hotel, New
York, on the 14th February, but its only allusion of any public interest
was to the beginning of his agitation of the question of international
copyright. He went to America with no express intention of starting
this question in any way, and certainly with no belief that such remark
upon it as a person in his position could alone be expected to make
would be resented strongly by any sections of the American people. But
he was not long left in doubt on this head. He had spoken upon it twice
publicly, "to the great indignation of some of the editors here, who are
attacking me for so doing, right and left." On the other hand, all the
best men had assured him that, if only at once followed up in England,
the blow struck might bring about a change in the law; and, yielding to
the pleasant hope that the best men could be a match for the worst, he
urged me to enlist on his side what force I could, and in particular, as
he had made Scott's claim his war-cry, to bring Lockhart into the field.
I could not do much, but I did what I could.
Three days later he began another letter; and, as this will be entirely
new to the reader, I shall print it as it reached me, with only such
omission of matter concerning myself as I think it my duty, however
reluctantly, to make throughout these extracts. There was nothing in its
personal details, or in those relating to international copyright,
available for his _Notes_; from which they were excluded by the two
rules he observed in that book,--the first to be altogether silent as to
the copyright discussion, and the second to abstain from all mention of
individuals. But there can be no harm here in violating either rule,
for, as Sydney Smith said with his humorous sadness, "We are all dead
now."
"Carlton House, New York: Thursday, February Seventeenth, 1842. . . . As
there is a sailing-packet from here to England to-morrow which is
warranted (by the owners) to be a marvelous fast sailer, and as it
appears most probable that she will reach home (I write the word with a
pang) before the Cunard steamer of next month, I indite this letter. And
lest this letter should reach you before another letter which I
dispatched from here last Monday, let me say in the first place that I
_did_ dispatch a brief epistle to you on that day, together with a
newspaper, and a pamphlet touching the Boz ball; and that I put in the
post-office at Boston another newspaper for you containing an account of
the dinner, which was just about to come off, you remember, when I wrote
to you from that city.
"It was a most superb affair; and the speaking _admirable_. Indeed, the
general talent for public speaking here is one of the most striking of
the things that force themselves upon an Englishman's notice. As every
man looks on to being a member of Congress, every man prepares himself
for it; and the result is quite surprising. You will observe one odd
custom,--the drinking of sentiments. It is quite extinct with us, but
here everybody is expected to be prepared with an epigram as a matter of
course.
"We left Boston on the fifth, and went away with the governor of the
city to stay till Monday at his house at Worcester. He married a sister
of Bancroft's, and another sister of Bancroft's went down with us. The
village of Worcester is one of the prettiest in New England. . . . On
Monday morning at nine o'clock we started again by railroad and went on
to Springfield, where a deputation of two were waiting, and everything
was in readiness that the utmost attention could suggest. Owing to the
mildness of the weather, the Connecticut river was 'open,' videlicet not
frozen, and they had a steamboat ready to carry us on to Hartford; thus
saving a land-journey of only twenty-five miles, but on such roads at
this time of year that it takes nearly twelve hours to accomplish! The
boat was very small, the river full of floating blocks of ice, and the
depth where we went (to avoid the ice and the current) not more than a
few inches. After two hours and a half of this queer traveling, we got
to Hartford. There, there was quite an English inn; except in respect of
the bedrooms, which are always uncomfortable; and the best committee of
management that has yet presented itself. They kept us more quiet, and
were more considerate and thoughtful, even to their own exclusion, than
any I have yet had to deal with. Kate's face being horribly bad, I
determined to give her a rest here; and accordingly wrote to get rid of
my engagement at New Haven, on that plea. We remained in this town until
the eleventh: holding a formal levee every day for two hours, and
receiving on each from two hundred to three hundred people. At five
o'clock on the afternoon of the eleventh, we set off (still by railroad)
for New Haven, which we reached about eight o'clock. The moment we had
had tea, we were forced to open another levee for the students and
professors of the college (the largest in the States), and the
townspeople. I suppose we shook hands, before going to bed, with
considerably more than five hundred people; and I stood, as a matter of
course, the whole time. . . .
"Now, the deputation of two had come on with us from Hartford; and at
New Haven there was another committee; and the immense fatigue and
worry of all this, no words can exaggerate. We had been in the morning
over jails and deaf and dumb asylums; had stopped on the journey at a
place called Wallingford, where a whole town had turned out to see me,
and to gratify whose curiosity the train stopped expressly; had had a
day of great excitement and exertion on the Thursday (this being
Friday); and were inexpressibly worn out. And when at last we got to bed
and were 'going' to fall asleep, the choristers of the college turned
out in a body, under the window, and serenaded us! We had had,
by-the-by, another serenade at Hartford, from a Mr. Adams (a nephew of
John Quincy Adams) and a German friend. _They_ were most beautiful
singers: and when they began, in the dead of the night, in a long,
musical, echoing passage outside our chamber door; singing, in low
voices to guitars, about home and absent friends and other topics that
they knew would interest us; we were more moved than I can tell you. In
the midst of my sentimentality, though, a thought occurred to me which
made me laugh so immoderately that I was obliged to cover my face with
the bedclothes. 'Good Heavens!' I said to Kate, 'what a monstrously
ridiculous and commonplace appearance my boots must have, outside the
door!' I never _was_ so impressed with a sense of the absurdity of
boots, in all my life.
"The New Haven serenade was not so good; though there were a great many
voices, and a 'reg'lar' band. It hadn't the heart of the other. Before
it was six hours old, we were dressing with might and main, and making
ready for our departure; it being a drive of twenty minutes to the
steamboat, and the hour of sailing nine o'clock. After a hasty breakfast
we started off; and after another levee on the deck (actually on the
deck), and 'three times three for Dickens,' moved towards New York.
"I was delighted to find on board a Mr. Felton whom I had known at
Boston. He is the Greek professor at Cambridge, and was going on to the
ball and dinner. Like most men of his class whom I have seen, he is a
most delightful fellow,--unaffected, hearty, genial, jolly; quite an
Englishman of the best sort. We drank all the porter on board, ate all
the cold pork and cheese, and were very merry indeed. I should have told
you, in its proper place, that both at Hartford and New Haven a regular
bank was subscribed, by these committees, for _all_ my expenses. No bill
was to be got at the bar, and everything was paid for. But as I would on
no account suffer this to be done, I stoutly and positively refused to
budge an inch until Mr. Q. should have received the bills from the
landlord's own hands, and paid them to the last farthing. Finding it
impossible to move me, they suffered me, most unwillingly, to carry the
point.
"About half-past 2 we arrived here. In half an hour more, we reached
this hotel, where a very splendid suite of rooms was prepared for us;
and where everything is very comfortable, and no doubt (as at Boston)
_enormously_ dear. Just as we sat down to dinner, David Colden made his
appearance; and when he had gone, and we were taking our wine,
Washington Irving came in alone, with open arms. And here he stopped,
until ten o'clock at night." (Through Lord Jeffrey, with whom he was
connected by marriage, and Macready, of whom he was the cordial friend,
we already knew Mr. Colden; and his subsequent visits to Europe led to
many years' intimate intercourse, greatly enjoyed by us both.) "Having
got so far, I shall divide my discourse into four points. First, the
ball. Secondly, some slight specimens of a certain phase of character in
the Americans. Thirdly, international copyright. Fourthly, my life here,
and projects to be carried out while I remain.
"Firstly, the ball. It came off last Monday (vide pamphlet.) 'At a
quarter-past 9, exactly' (I quote the printed order of proceeding), we
were waited upon by 'David Colden, Esquire, and General George Morris;'
habited, the former in full ball costume, the latter in the full dress
uniform of Heaven knows what regiment of militia. The general took Kate,
Colden gave his arm to me, and we proceeded downstairs to a carriage at
the door, which took us to the stage-door of the theatre, greatly to the
disappointment of an enormous crowd who were besetting the main door and
making a most tremendous hullaballoo. The scene on our entrance was very
striking. There were three thousand people present in full dress; from
the roof to the floor, the theatre was decorated magnificently; and the
light, glitter, glare, show, noise, and cheering, baffle my descriptive
powers. We were walked in through the centre of the centre dress-box,
the front whereof was taken out for the occasion; so to the back of the
stage, where the mayor and other dignitaries received us; and we were
then paraded all round the enormous ball-room, twice, for the
gratification of the many-headed. That done, we began to dance--Heaven
knows how we did it, for there was no room. And we continued dancing
until, being no longer able even to stand, we slipped away quietly, and
came back to the hotel. All the documents connected with this
extraordinary festival (quite unparalleled here) we have preserved; so
you may suppose that on this head alone we shall have enough to show you
when we come home. The bill of fare for supper is, in its amount and
extent, quite a curiosity.
"Now, the phase of character in the Americans which amuses me most was
put before me in its most amusing shape by the circumstances attending
this affair. I had noticed it before, and have since; but I cannot
better illustrate it than by reference to this theme. Of course I can do
nothing but in some shape or other it gets into the newspapers. All
manner of lies get there, and occasionally a truth so twisted and
distorted that it has as much resemblance to the real fact as Quilp's
leg to Taglioni's. But with this ball to come off, the newspapers were
if possible unusually loquacious; and in their accounts of me, and my
seeings, sayings, and doings on the Saturday night and Sunday before,
they describe my manner, mode of speaking, dressing, and so forth. In
doing this, they report that I am a very charming fellow (of course),
and have a very free and easy way with me; 'which,' say they, 'at first
amused a few fashionables;' but soon pleased them exceedingly. Another
paper, coming after the ball, dwells upon its splendor and brilliancy;
hugs itself and its readers upon all that Dickens saw, and winds up by
gravely expressing its conviction that Dickens was never in such
society in England as he has seen in New York, and that its high and
striking tone cannot fail to make an indelible impression on his mind!
For the same reason I am always represented, whenever I appear in
public, as being 'very pale;' 'apparently thunderstruck;' and utterly
confounded by all I see. . . . You recognize the queer vanity which is at
the root of all this? I have plenty of stories in connection with it to
amuse you with when I return."
"_Twenty-fourth February._
"It is unnecessary to say . . . that this letter _didn't_ come by the
sailing packet, and _will_ come by the Cunard boat. After the ball I was
laid up with a very bad sore throat, which confined me to the house four
whole days; and as I was unable to write, or indeed to do anything but
doze and drink lemonade, I missed the ship. . . . I have still a
horrible cold, and so has Kate, but in other respects we are all right.
I proceed to my third head: the international copyright question.
"I believe there is no country on the face of the earth where there is
less freedom of opinion on any subject in reference to which there is a
broad difference of opinion, than in this.--There!--I write the words
with reluctance, disappointment, and sorrow; but I believe it from the
bottom of my soul. I spoke, as you know, of international copyright, at
Boston; and I spoke of it again at Hartford. My friends were paralyzed
with wonder at such audacious daring. The notion that I, a man alone by
himself, in America, should venture to suggest to the Americans that
there was one point on which they were neither just to their own
countrymen nor to us, actually struck the boldest dumb! Washington
Irving, Prescott, Hoffman, Bryant, Halleck, Dana, Washington
Allston--every man who writes in this country is devoted to the
question, and not one of them _dares_ to raise his voice and complain of
the atrocious state of the law. It is nothing that of all men living I
am the greatest loser by it. It is nothing that I have a claim to speak
and be heard. The wonder is that a breathing man can be found with
temerity enough to suggest to the Americans the possibility of their
having done wrong. I wish you could have seen the faces that I saw, down
both sides of the table at Hartford, when I began to talk about Scott. I
wish you could have heard how I gave it out. My blood so boiled as I
thought of the monstrous injustice that I felt as if I were twelve feet
high when I thrust it down their throats.
"I had no sooner made that second speech than such an outcry began (for
the purpose of deterring me from doing the like in this city) as an
Englishman can form no notion of. Anonymous letters, verbal dissuasions;
newspaper attacks making Colt (a murderer who is attracting great
attention here) an angel by comparison with me; assertions that I was no
gentleman, but a mere mercenary scoundrel; coupled with the most
monstrous misrepresentations relative to my design and purpose in
visiting the United States; came pouring in upon me every day. The
dinner committee here (composed of the first gentlemen in America,
remember that) were so dismayed, that they besought me not to pursue the
subject, _although they every one agreed with me_. I answered that I
would. That nothing should deter me. . . . That the shame was theirs,
not mine; and that as I would not spare them when I got home, I would
not be silenced here. Accordingly, when the night came, I asserted my
right, with all the means I could command to give it dignity, in face,
manner, or words; and I believe that if you could have seen and heard
me, you would have loved me better for it than ever you did in your
life.
"The _New York Herald_, which you will receive with this, is the
_Satirist_ of America; but having a great circulation (on account of its
commercial intelligence and early news) it can afford to secure the best
reporters. . . . My speech is done, upon the whole, with remarkable
accuracy. There are a great many typographical errors in it; and by the
omission of one or two words, or the substitution of one word for
another, it is often materially weakened. Thus, I did not say that I
'claimed' my right, but that I 'asserted' it; and I did not say that I
had 'some claim,' but that I had 'a most righteous claim,' to speak. But
altogether it is very correct."
* * * * *
Washington Irving was chairman of this dinner, and, having from the
first a dread that he should break down in his speech, the catastrophe
came accordingly. Near him sat the Cambridge professor who had come with
Dickens by boat from New Haven, with whom already a warm friendship had
been formed that lasted for life, and who has pleasantly sketched what
happened. Mr. Felton saw Irving constantly in the interval of
preparation, and could not but despond at his daily iterated foreboding
of _I shall certainly break down_; though besides the real dread there
was a sly humor which heightened its whimsical horror with an
irresistible drollery. But the professor plucked up hope a little when
the night came and he saw that Irving had laid under his plate the
manuscript of his speech. During dinner, nevertheless, his old
foreboding cry was still heard, and "at last the moment arrived; Mr.
Irving rose; and the deafening and long-continued applause by no means
lessened his apprehension. He began in his pleasant voice; got through
two or three sentences pretty easily, but in the next hesitated; and,
after one or two attempts to go on, gave it up, with a graceful allusion
to the tournament and the troop of knights all armed and eager for the
fray; and ended with the toast CHARLES DICKENS, THE GUEST OF THE NATION.
_There!_ said he, as he resumed his seat amid applause as great as had
greeted his rising, _There! I told you I should break down, and I've
done it!_" He was in London a few months later, on his way to Spain; and
I heard Thomas Moore describe[47] at Rogers's table the difficulty there
had been to overcome his reluctance, because of this break-down, to go
to the dinner of the Literary Fund on the occasion of Prince Albert's
presiding. "However," said Moore, "I told him only to attempt a few
words, and I suggested what they should be, and he said he'd never
thought of anything so easy, and he went, and did famously." I knew very
well, as I listened, that this had _not_ been the result; but as the
distinguished American had found himself, on this second occasion, not
among orators as in New York, but among men as unable as himself to
speak in public, and equally able to do better things,[48] he was
doubtless more reconciled to his own failure. I have been led to this
digression by Dickens's silence on his friend's break-down. He had so
great a love for Irving that it was painful to speak of him as at any
disadvantage, and of the New York dinner he wrote only in its connection
with his own copyright speeches.
* * * * *
"The effect of all this copyright agitation at least has been to awaken
a great sensation on both sides of the subject; the respectable
newspapers and reviews taking up the cudgels as strongly in my favor, as
the others have done against me. Some of the vagabonds take great credit
to themselves (grant us patience!) for having made me popular by
publishing my books in newspapers: as if there were no England, no
Scotland, no Germany, no place but America in the whole world. A
splendid satire upon this kind of trash has just occurred. A man came
here yesterday, and demanded, not besought but demanded, pecuniary
assistance; and fairly bullied Mr. Q. for money. When I came home, I
dictated a letter to this effect,--that such applications reached me in
vast numbers every day; that if I were a man of fortune, I could not
render assistance to all who sought it; and that, depending on my own
exertion for all the help I could give, I regretted to say I could
afford him none. Upon this, my gentleman sits down and writes me that he
is an itinerant bookseller; that he is the first man who sold my books
in New York; that he is distressed in the city where I am reveling in
luxury; that he thinks it rather strange that the man who wrote
_Nickleby_ should be utterly destitute of feeling; and that he would
have me 'take care I don't repent it.' What do you think of _that_?--as
Mac would say. I thought it such a good commentary, that I dispatched
the letter to the editor of the only English newspaper here, and told
him he might print it if he liked.
"I will tell you what _I_ should like, my dear friend, always supposing
that your judgment concurs with mine, and that you would take the
trouble to get such a document. I should like to have a short letter
addressed to me by the principal English authors who signed the
international copyright petition, expressive of their sense that I have
done my duty to the cause. I am sure I deserve it, but I don't wish it
on that ground. It is because its publication in the best journals here
would unquestionably do great good. As the gauntlet is down, let us go
on. Clay has already sent a gentleman to me express from Washington
(where I shall be on the 6th or 7th of next month) to declare his strong
interest in the matter, his cordial approval of the 'manly' course I
have held in reference to it, and his desire to stir in it if possible.
I have lighted up such a blaze that a meeting of the foremost people on
the other side (very respectfully and properly conducted in reference to
me, personally, I am bound to say) was held in this town t'other night.
And it would be a thousand pities if we did not strike as hard as we
can, now that the iron is so hot.
"I have come at last, and it is time I did, to my life here, and
intentions for the future. I can do nothing that I want to do, go
nowhere where I want to go, and see nothing that I want to see. If I
turn into the street, I am followed by a multitude. If I stay at home,
the house becomes, with callers, like a fair. If I visit a public
institution, with only one friend, the directors come down
incontinently, waylay me in the yard, and address me in a long speech. I
go to a party in the evening, and am so inclosed and hemmed about by
people, stand where I will, that I am exhausted for want of air. I dine
out, and have to talk about everything, to everybody. I go to church for
quiet, and there is a violent rush to the neighborhood of the pew I sit
in, and the clergyman preaches _at_ me. I take my seat in a
railroad-car, and the very conductor won't leave me alone. I get out at
a station, and can't drink a glass of water, without having a hundred
people looking down my throat when I open my mouth to swallow. Conceive
what all this is! Then by every post, letters on letters arrive, all
about nothing, and all demanding an immediate answer. This man is
offended because I won't live in his house; and that man is thoroughly
disgusted because I won't go out more than four times in one evening. I
have no rest or peace, and am in a perpetual worry.
"Under these febrile circumstances, which this climate especially
favors, I have come to the resolution that I will not (so far as my will
has anything to do with the matter) accept any more public
entertainments or public recognitions of any kind, during my stay in the
United States; and in pursuance of this determination I have refused
invitations from Philadelphia, Baltimore, Washington, Virginia, Albany,
and Providence. Heaven knows whether this will be effectual, but I shall
soon see, for on Monday morning, the 28th, we leave for Philadelphia.
There I shall only stay three days. Thence we go to Baltimore, and
_there_ I shall only stay three days. Thence to Washington, where we may
stay perhaps ten days; perhaps not so long. Thence to Virginia, where we
may halt for one day; and thence to Charleston, where we may pass a week
perhaps, and where we shall very likely remain until your March letters
reach us, through David Colden. I had a design of going from Charleston
to Columbia in South Carolina, and there engaging a carriage, a
baggage-tender and negro boy to guard the same, and a saddle-horse for
myself,--with which caravan I intended going 'right away,' as they say
here, into the West, through the wilds of Kentucky and Tennessee, across
the Alleghany Mountains, and so on until we should strike the lakes and
could get to Canada. But it has been represented to me that this is a
track only known to traveling merchants; that the roads are bad, the
country a tremendous waste, the inns log houses, and the journey one
that would play the very devil with Kate. I am staggered, but not
deterred. If I find it possible to be done in the time, I mean to do it;
being quite satisfied that without some such dash I can never be a free
agent, or see anything worth the telling.
"We mean to return home in a packet-ship,--not a steamer. Her name is
the George Washington, and she will sail from here, for Liverpool, on
the seventh of June. At that season of the year they are seldom more
than three weeks making the voyage; and I never will trust myself upon
the wide ocean, if it please Heaven, in a steamer again. When I tell you
all that I observed on board that Britannia, I shall astonish you.
Meanwhile, consider two of their dangers. First, that if the funnel were
blown overboard the vessel must instantly be on fire, from stem to
stern; to comprehend which consequence, you have only to understand that
the funnel is more than 40 feet high, and that at night you see the
solid fire two or three feet above its top. Imagine this swept down by a
strong wind, and picture to yourself the amount of flame on deck; and
that a strong wind is likely to sweep it down you soon learn, from the
precautions taken to keep it up in a storm, when it is the first thing
thought of. Secondly, each of these boats consumes between London and
Halifax 700 tons of coals; and it is pretty clear, from this enormous
difference of weight in a ship of only 1200 tons burden in all, that she
must either be too heavy when she comes out of port, or too light when
she goes in. The daily difference in her rolling, as she burns the coals
out, is something absolutely fearful. Add to all this, that by day and
night she is full of fire and people, that she has no boats, and that
the struggling of that enormous machinery in a heavy sea seems as though
it would rend her into fragments--and you may have a pretty con-sid-erable
damned good sort of a feeble notion that it don't fit nohow; and that it
a'n't calculated to make you smart, overmuch; and that you don't feel
'special bright; and by no means first-rate; and not at all tonguey (or
disposed for conversation); and that however rowdy you may be by natur',
it does use you up com-plete, and that's a fact; and makes you quake
considerable, and disposed toe damn the [)e]ngin[)e]!--All of which
phrases, I beg to add, are pure Americanisms of the first water.
"When we reach Baltimore, we are in the regions of slavery. It exists
there, in its least shocking and most mitigated form; but there it is.
They whisper, here (they dare only whisper, you know, and that below
their breaths), that on that place, and all through the South, there is
a dull gloomy cloud on which the very word seems written. I shall be
able to say, one of these days, that I accepted no public mark of
respect in any place where slavery was;--and that's something.
"The ladies of America are decidedly and unquestionably beautiful. Their
complexions are not so good as those of Englishwomen; their beauty does
not last so long; and their figures are very inferior. But they are most
beautiful. I still reserve my opinion of the national character,--just
whispering that I tremble for a radical coming here, unless he is a
radical on principle, by reason and reflection, and from the sense of
right. I fear that if he were anything else, he would return home a
Tory. . . . I say no more on that head for two months from this time,
save that I do fear that the heaviest blow ever dealt at liberty will be
dealt by this country, in the failure of its example to the earth. The
scenes that are passing in Congress now, all tending to the separation
of the States, fill one with such a deep disgust that I dislike the very
name of Washington (meaning the place, not the man), and am repelled by
the mere thought of approaching it."
"_Twenty-seventh February. Sunday._
"There begins to be great consternation here, in reference to the Cunard
packet which (we suppose) left Liverpool on the fourth. She has not yet
arrived. We scarcely know what to do with ourselves in our extreme
anxiety to get letters from home. I have really had serious thoughts of
going back to Boston, alone, to be nearer news. We have determined to
remain here until Tuesday afternoon, if she should not arrive before,
and to send Mr. Q. and the luggage on to Philadelphia to-morrow morning.
God grant she may not have gone down! but every ship that comes in
brings intelligence of a terrible gale (which indeed was felt ashore
here) on the night of the fourteenth; and the sea-captains swear (not
without some prejudice, of course) that no steamer could have lived
through it, supposing her to have been in its full fury. As there is no
steam-packet to go to England, supposing the Caledonia not to arrive, we
are obliged to send our letters by the Garrick ship, which sails early
to-morrow morning. Consequently I must huddle this up, and dispatch it
to the post-office with all speed. I have so much to say that I could
fill quires of paper, which renders this sudden pull-up the more
provoking.
"I have in my portmanteau a petition for an international copyright law,
signed by all the best American writers, with Washington Irving at
their head. They have requested me to hand it to Clay for presentation,
and to back it with any remarks I may think proper to offer. So
'Hoo-roar for the principle, as the money-lender said ven he vouldn't
renoo the bill.'
"God bless you. . . . You know what I would say about home and the
darlings. A hundred times God bless you. . . . Fears are entertained for
Lord Ashburton also. Nothing has been heard of him."
A brief letter, sent me next day by the minister's bag, was in effect a
postscript to the foregoing, and expressed still more strongly the
doubts and apprehensions his voyage out had impressed him with, and
which, though he afterwards saw reason greatly to modify his misgivings,
were not so strange at that time as they appear to us now:
"Carlton House, New York, February twenty-eighth, 1842. . . . The
Caledonia, I grieve and regret to say, has not arrived. If she left
England to her time, she has been four-and-twenty days at sea. There is
no news of her; and on the nights of the fourteenth and eighteenth it
blew a terrible gale, which almost justifies the worst suspicions. For
myself, I have hardly any hope of her; having seen enough, in our
passage out, to convince me that steaming across the ocean in heavy
weather is as yet an experiment of the utmost hazard.
"As it was supposed that there would be no steamer whatever for England
this month (since in ordinary course the Caledonia would have returned
with the mails on the 2d of March), I hastily got the letters ready
yesterday and sent them by the Garrick; which may perhaps be three
weeks out, but is not very likely to be longer. But belonging to the
Cunard company is a boat called the Unicorn, which in the summertime
plies up the St. Lawrence, and brings passengers from Canada to join the
British and North American steamers at Halifax. In the winter she lies
at the last-mentioned place; from which news has come this morning that
they have sent her on to Boston for the mails, and, rather than
interrupt the communication, mean to dispatch her to England in lieu of
the poor Caledonia. This in itself, by the way, is a daring deed; for
she was originally built to run between Liverpool and Glasgow, and is no
more designed for the Atlantic than a Calais packet-boat; though she
once crossed it, in the summer season.
"You may judge, therefore, what the owners think of the probability of
the Caledonia's arrival. How slight an alteration in our plans would
have made us passengers on board of her!
"It would be difficult to tell you, my dear fellow, what an impression
this has made upon our minds, or with what intense anxiety and suspense
we have been waiting for your letters from home. We were to have gone
South to-day, but linger here until to-morrow afternoon (having sent the
secretary and luggage forward) for one more chance of news. Love to dear
Macready, and to dear Mac, and every one we care for. It's useless to
speak of the dear children. It seems now as though we should never hear
of them. . . .
"P.S. Washington Irving is a _great_ fellow. We have laughed most
heartily together. He is just the man he ought to be. So is Doctor
Channing, with whom I have had an interesting correspondence since I
saw him last at Boston. Halleck is a merry little man. Bryant a sad one,
and very reserved. Washington Allston the painter (who wrote _Monaldi_)
is a fine specimen of a glorious old genius. Longfellow, whose volume of
poems I have got for you, is a frank accomplished man as well as a fine
writer, and will be in town 'next fall.' Tell Macready that I suspect
prices here must have rather altered since his time. I paid our
fortnight's bill here, last night. We have dined out every day (except
when I was laid up with a sore throat), and only had in all four bottles
of wine. The bill was 70_l._ English!!!
"You will see, by my other letter, how we have been feted and feasted;
and how there is war to the knife about the international copyright; and
how I _will_ speak about it, and decline to be put down. . . .
"Oh for news from home! I think of your letters so full of heart and
friendship, with perhaps a little scrawl of Charley's or Mamey's, lying
at the bottom of the deep sea; and am as full of sorrow as if they had
once been living creatures.--Well! they _may_ come, yet."
* * * * *
They did reach him, but not by the Caledonia. His fears as to that
vessel were but too well founded. On the very day when she was due in
Boston (the 18th of February) it was learned in London that she had
undergone misadventure; that, her decks having been swept and her rudder
torn away, though happily no lives were lost, she had returned disabled
to Cork; and that the Acadia, having received her passengers and mails,
was to sail with them from Liverpool next day.
Of the main subject of that letter written on the day preceding,--of the
quite unpremeditated impulse, out of which sprang his advocacy of claims
which he felt to be represented in his person,--of the injustice done by
his entertainers to their guest in ascribing such advocacy to
selfishness,--and of the graver wrong done by them to their own highest
interests, nay, even to their commonest and most vulgar interests, in
continuing to reject those claims, I will add nothing now to what all
those years ago I labored very hard to lay before many readers. It will
be enough if I here print, from the authors' letters I sent out to him
by the next following mail, in compliance with his wish, this which
follows from a very dear friend of his and mine. I fortunately had it
transcribed before I posted it to him; Mr. Carlyle having in some haste
written from "Templand, 26 March, 1842," and taken no copy.
"We learn by the newspapers that you everywhere in America stir up the
question of international copyright, and thereby awaken huge dissonance
where all else were triumphant unison for you. I am asked my opinion of
the matter, and requested to write it down in words.
"Several years ago, if memory err not, I was one of many English writers
who, under the auspices of Miss Martineau, did already sign a petition
to congress praying for an international copyright between the two
Nations,--which properly are not two Nations, but one; _indivisible_ by
parliament, congress, or any kind of human law or diplomacy, being
already _united_ by Heaven's Act of Parliament, and the everlasting law
of Nature and Fact. To that opinion I still adhere, and am like to
continue adhering.
"In discussion of the matter before any congress or parliament, manifold
considerations and argumentations will necessarily arise; which to me
are not interesting, nor essential for helping me to a decision. They
respect the time and manner in which the thing should be; not at all
whether the thing should be or not. In an ancient book, reverenced I
should hope on both sides of the Ocean, it was thousands of years ago
written down in the most decisive and explicit manner, 'Thou _shalt not_
steal.' That thou belongest to a different 'Nation,' and canst steal
without being certainly hanged for it, gives thee no permission to
steal! Thou shalt _not_ in anywise steal at all! So it is written down,
for Nations and for Men, in the Law-Book of the Maker of this Universe.
Nay, poor Jeremy Bentham and others step in here, and will demonstrate
that it is actually our true convenience and expediency not to steal;
which I for my share, on the great scale and on the small, and in all
conceivable scales and shapes, do also firmly believe it to be. For
example, if Nations abstained from stealing, what need were there of
fighting,--with its butcherings and burnings, decidedly the most
expensive thing in this world? How much more two Nations, which, as I
said, are but one Nation; knit in a thousand ways by Nature and
Practical Intercourse; indivisible brother elements of the same great
SAXONDOM, to which in all honorable ways be long life!
"When Mr. Robert Roy M'Gregor lived in the district of Menteith on the
Highland border two centuries ago, he for his part found it more
convenient to supply himself with beef by stealing it alive from the
adjacent glens, than by buying it killed in the Stirling butchers'
market. It was Mr. Roy's plan of supplying himself with beef in those
days, this of stealing it. In many a little 'Congress' in the district
of Menteith, there was debating, doubt it not, and much specious
argumentation this way and that, before they could ascertain that,
really and truly, buying was the best way to get your beef; which,
however, in the long run they did with one assent find it indisputably
to be: and accordingly they hold by it to this day."
This brave letter was an important service rendered at a critical time,
and Dickens was very grateful for it. But, as time went on, he had other
and higher causes for gratitude to its writer. Admiration of Carlyle
increased in him with his years; and there was no one whom in later life
he honored so much, or had a more profound regard for.
FOOTNOTES:
[47] On the 22d of May, 1842.
[48] The dinner was on the 10th of May, and early the following morning
I had a letter about it from Mr. Blanchard, containing these words:
"Washington Irving couldn't utter a word for trembling, and Moore was as
little as usual. But, poor Tom Campbell--great Heavens! what a
spectacle! Amid roars of laughter he began a sentence three times about
something that Dugald Stewart or Lord Bacon had said, and never could
get beyond those words. The Prince was capital, though deucedly
frightened. He seems unaffected and amiable, as well as very clever."