THE LONDON AND SUBURBAN HOMES.
Dickens’s earlier sketches (which bore no signature until August, 1834,
when he adopted the pseudonym of “Boz”) were penned when living with his
father in Bentinck Street. At first they yielded no honorarium; but as
soon as he received a modest fee for them in addition to his salary as a
reporter, he exhibited a sense of independence in resolving to take the
apartments in Buckingham Street, whence he presently removed to more
commodious chambers in Furnival’s Inn, Holborn. He was then twenty-two
years of age, and still on the staff of the _Morning Chronicle_, and
from Christmas, 1834, he rented a “three-pair back” at No. 13,
Furnival’s Inn. One of his earliest (undated) letters bears the address
of Furnival’s Inn, in which he informs his future brother-in-law, Henry
Austin, that he is about to start on a journey, alone and in a gig, to
Essex and Suffolk—evidently on journalistic business for the _Morning
Chronicle_—and expresses a belief that he would be spilt before paying a
turnpike, or run over a child before reaching Chelmsford; his journey
covered the same ground as that performed by Mr. Pickwick in his drive
by coach to Ipswich. Twelve months later he transferred his impedimenta
from No. 13 to more cheerful rooms at No. 15, renting a “three-pair
floor south.” Several of the later “Sketches by Boz” were doubtless
written at No. 13, which stood squeezed into a corner of the square on
the right as entered from Holborn, the young author’s modest quarters
being almost at the top of a steep and dark staircase.
His rooms at No. 15 were a decided improvement on these, and he probably
had them in his mind when referring to Furnival’s Inn in “Martin
Chuzzlewit” and to John Westlock’s apartments there, “two stories up”:
“There are snug chambers in those Inns where the bachelors live, and,
for the dissolute fellows they pretend to be, it is quite surprising how
well they get on.... His rooms were the perfection of neatness and
convenience.... There is little enough to see in Furnival’s Inn. It is a
shady, quiet place, echoing to the footsteps of the stragglers who have
business there, and rather monotonous and gloomy on Sunday evenings.” It
does not require much stretch of imagination to believe that the
description of Traddles’ chambers in Gray’s Inn (_vide_ “David
Copperfield,” chap. lix.) was drawn from these very apartments, or to
realize the probability that the reference to Traddles and his lovely
girl guests is a reminiscence of Dickens’s own.
[Illustration: YORK HOUSE, 15 BUCKINGHAM STREET, STRAND. (_Page
45._)
Charles Dickens lodged in the house overlooking the river about
1834, and Mrs. Crupps let apartments here to David Copperfield. This
house was also occupied by Peter the Great, Henry Fielding, and
William Black.]
This humble abode ever remained in his memory as a hallowed spot,
cherished by the fact that here he received the commission to write
“Pickwick” and penned the opening chapters, by which immortal
achievement he suddenly leaped into fame; but also by another
interesting and very personal recollection, namely, that it was the
scene of his early domestic life. For, be it remembered, the publication
of the first number of “Pickwick” (April, 1836) synchronized with his
marriage, the lady of his choice being Catherine Thomson Hogarth, eldest
daughter of George Hogarth, one of his colleagues on the staff of the
_Morning Chronicle_, the ceremony being performed at the Church of St.
Luke, Chelsea, of which parish the Rev. Charles Kingsley (father of the
author of “Westward Ho!”) then officiated as rector.
The honeymoon over, Dickens and his bride returned to London, and made
their home at No. 15, Furnival’s Inn, where their eldest child, Charles,
was born. Here his favourite sister-in-law, Mary Hogarth, sometimes
stayed with the youthful couple, her amiable and delightful disposition
proving a very joy in the little household; her premature death in 1837,
in Doughty Street, at the age of seventeen, so unnerved her admiring
brother-in-law that the course of “Pickwick” and “Oliver Twist”
(produced almost simultaneously) was temporarily interrupted, and
writing presently to Mrs. Hogarth from his next abode, he said: “I wish
you could know how I weary now for the three rooms in Furnival’s Inn,
and how I miss that pleasant smile and those sweet words which, bestowed
upon our evening’s work, on our merry banterings round the fire, were
more precious to me than the applause of a whole world would be.” Here,
too (as already mentioned), lived John Westlock when visited by Tom
Pinch, and it was the scene, also, of certain incidents in “The Mystery
of Edwin Drood.” Does not Mr. Grewgious (whose chambers were “over the
way” at Staple Inn) tell us that “Furnival’s is fireproof and specially
watched and lighted,” and did he not escort Rosa Bud to her rooms there,
at Wood’s Hotel in the Square, afterwards confiding her to the care of
the “Unlimited head chambermaid”?[26]
It was once an Inn of Chancery attached to Lincoln’s Inn, deriving its
name from Sir William Furnivall, who owned much property hereabouts.
About 1818 it became a series of chambers wholly unconnected with any
Inn of Court, and in that year was entirely rebuilt by Peto. On the
right-hand side of the Square, as immediately entered from Holborn, the
house (No. 15) containing the bright little rooms once tenanted by
Dickens was easily identified in later years by the medallion above the
ground-floor windows which notified the fact; this house and its
neighbour were more ornate than the rest, by reason of the series of
Ionic pilasters between the windows. The whole of Furnival’s Inn was
swept away in 1898, and the site covered by an extension of the premises
of the Prudential Insurance Company; thus, alas! disappears an extremely
interesting Dickens landmark, so intimately associated with the novelist
and his writings.
Dickens must have relinquished his tenancy of the chambers in Furnival’s
Inn before the actual term had expired, the assumption being that he had
taken them on a short lease, as, according to the official record, he
continued to pay rent until February 1839. Two years previously, finding
this accommodation inadequate, and realizing that his literary labours
had already begun to yield a good income, he determined to take a house,
No. 48, Doughty Street, Mecklenburgh Square—a locality not otherwise
unknown to literary fame; for Shirley Brooks (a former editor of
_Punch_) was born in this street, while both Sydney Smith and Edmund
Yates lived there, the latter at No. 43,[27] opposite Tegg, the
publisher of the “Peter Parley” series of juvenile books.
Yates, in his “Recollections and Experiences,” recalls the Doughty
Street of his day (and of Dickens’s) as “a broad, airy, wholesome
street; none of your common thoroughfares, to be rattled through by
vulgar cabs and earth-shaking Pickford vans, but a self-included
property, with a gate at each end, and a lodge with a porter in a
gold-laced hat and the Doughty arms[28] on the buttons of his
mulberry-coloured coat, to prevent anyone, except with a mission to one
of the houses, from intruding on the exclusive territory.” The lodges
and gates have been removed since this was written, and the porter in
official garb disappeared with that exclusiveness and quietude which
doubtless attracted Dickens to the spot more than sixty years ago.
No. 48, Doughty Street (where his daughters Mary and Kate were born) is
situated on the east side of the street, and contains twelve rooms—a
single-fronted, three-storied house, with a railed-in area in front and
a small garden at the rear. A tiny little room on the ground-floor,
facing the garden, is believed to have been the novelist’s study, in
which he wrote the latter portion of “Pickwick,” and practically the
whole of “Oliver Twist” and “Nicholas Nickleby.” The summer months he
customarily spent away from home, taking his work with him, and thus a
few chapters of these books were penned at Broadstairs, at Twickenham
Park, and at Elm Cottage (now called Elm Lodge), Petersham, a pretty
little rural retreat rented by him in the summer of 1839, a locality to
which he then referred as “those remote and distant parts, with the
chain of mountains formed by Richmond Hill presenting an almost
insurmountable barrier between me and the busy world.”
[Illustration: 15 FURNIVAL’S INN, HOLBORN. (_Page 50._)
_From a sketch by the late F. G. Kitton. Reproduced by kind
permission of Messrs. T. C. and E. C. Jack._]
At Elm Cottage he frequently enjoyed the society of his friends—Maclise,
Landseer, Ainsworth, Talfourd, and the rest—many of whom joined in
athletic competitions organized by their energetic host in the extensive
grounds, among other frivolities being a balloon club for children, of
which Forster was elected president on condition that he supplied all
the balloons. Elm Cottage (Lodge) is now a school, screened from the
public road by a high wooden fence and a barrier of elm-trees; it is a
heavy-looking structure, roofed with red tiles, and at the rear is
Sudbrook Lane. The novelist’s first country home, however, was at No. 4,
Ailsa Park Villas, Twickenham, still standing in the Isleworth Road,[29]
near St. Margaret’s railway-station, described in a recent issue of the
_Richmond and Twickenham Times_ as “a building on regular lines, shut in
from the world by a plenitude of trees, silent and quiet, an ideal
cottage for a mind seeking rest and repose;” not a picturesque edifice
by any means, but having a quaint entablature with a circular window in
the centre thereof, the house having since undergone little or no
change, except, perhaps, in the enlargement of the balcony over the main
entrance. There are several references in Dickens’s early letters to
this region of the Thames Valley (to the Star and Garter, at Richmond,
Eel Pie Island, etc.), and much local colouring is employed in certain
of his novels—“Nicholas Nickleby,” “Little Dorrit,” and especially in
“Oliver Twist.”[29] It is interesting to know that the Old Coach and
Horses at Isleworth, where Sikes and Oliver halted during the burglary
expedition to Chertsey, remains almost intact to this day, opposite Syon
Lane, and contiguous to Syon House, the residence of that popular writer
of fiction, Mr. George Manville Fenn.[29]
It was during the Doughty Street days that Dickens, in order to relieve
the mental tension, indulged in many enjoyable jaunts into the country
with Forster, these acting as a stimulant to fresh exertion. He either
rode on horseback or walked to such outlying districts as Hampstead,
Barnet, or Richmond, his favourite haunt in the northern suburb being
Jack Straw’s Castle on the Heath, famous also for its associations with
Thackeray, Du Maurier, and Lord Leighton, and commemorated a generation
before by Washington Irving in his “Tales of a Traveller.” Here the
Dickens traditions are still cherished, a small upper apartment in front
being pointed out as the bedroom which he occasionally occupied. “I
knows a good ’ous there,” he said to Forster when imploring his
companionship on a bout to Hampstead, “where we can have a red-hot chop
for dinner and a glass of wine”; and the notification resulted in many
happy meetings there in the coming years.[30] A writer in the _Daily
Graphic_ (July 18, 1903) avers that Hampstead possesses other Dickensian
associations—that the novelist had lodgings at Wylde’s Farm, and, it is
said, wrote some chapters of “Bleak House” in the picturesque cottage,
which, with the farmhouse and land, it is proposed to acquire for the
use and enjoyment of the public. Wylde’s Farm is situated on the
north-west boundary of Hampstead Heath, close to North End, Hampstead;
it formerly consisted of two farms, one known as Collins’s and the other
as Tooley’s, and it was at Collins’s that John Linnell, the artist,
lived for some years, and there welcomed, as visitors, William Blake,
Mulready, Flaxman, George Morland, and others distinguished in Art and
Literature.
[Illustration: 48 DOUGHTY STREET. (_Page 54._)
The residence of Charles Dickens, 1837-1839. His only London
residence which remains unchanged. Part of “Pickwick,” “Oliver
Twist,” and the greater part of “Nickleby” were written here.]
The associations of the novelist with No. 48, Doughty Street are
perpetuated not only in the name “Dickens House” recently bestowed upon
it, but by the tablet affixed thereon by the London County Council in
December last—truly, a long-delayed tribute, and especially deserving in
this case owing to the fact that it is the only London home of Charles
Dickens which survives intact structurally. It was here that in
September, 1838, Forster lunched with him, and then to sit, read, or
work, “or do something” (as the author expressed it in his note of
invitation), “while I write the _last_ chapter of ‘Oliver,’ which will
be arter a lamb chop.” “How well I remember that evening!” observes his
friend, “and our talk of what should be the fate of Charley Bates, on
behalf of whom (as, indeed, for the Dodger, too) Talfourd[31] had
pleaded as earnestly in mitigation of judgment as ever at the bar for
any client he had most respected.”
Writing to his friend Macready, the actor, in November, 1839, Dickens
said: “You must come and see my new house when we have it to rights.” He
had just completed the last number of “Nicholas Nickleby,” when he
decided to leave Doughty Street for a more commodious residence in a
more exclusive neighbourhood, namely, No. 1, Devonshire Terrace, York
Gate—“a house of great promise (and great premium), undeniable
situation, and excessive splendour,” to quote his own concise
description; it had a large garden, and was shut out from the New Road
(now the Marylebone Road) by a high brick wall facing the York Gate into
Regent’s Park. In “The Uncommercial Traveller,” Dickens refers to
“having taken the lease of a house in a certain distinguished
Metropolitan parish—a house which then appeared to me to be a
frightfully first-class Family Mansion, involving awful
responsibilities.”[32]
[Illustration: JACK STRAW’S CASTLE, HAMPSTEAD, CIRCA 1835. (_Page
56._)
_From a print in the collection of Councillor Newton, Hampstead._]
A contemporary drawing of the house by Daniel Maclise, R.A., represents
it as detached and standing in its own grounds, with a wrought-iron
entrance-gate surmounted by a lamp-bracket; the building consisted of a
basement, two stories, and an attic. There are only three houses in the
Terrace, and immediately beyond is the burial-ground of St. Marylebone
Church.[33] No. 1, Devonshire Terrace is now semi-detached, having a
line of taller residential structures on the southern side, while a
portion of the high brick wall on the Terrace side has been replaced by
an iron railing. The house itself has been structurally changed since
Dickens’s days, and has undergone enlargement, a new story being
inserted between the ground-floor and the upper story, thus considerably
altering its original proportions without actually removing its
principal features. Mr. Hughes, who in 1888 examined the house prior to
these “improvements,” states that it then contained thirteen rooms. “The
polished mahogany doors in the hall, and the chaste Italian marble
mantelpieces in the principal rooms, are said to have been put up by the
novelist. On the ground-floor the smaller room to the eastward of the
house, with windows facing north and looking into the pleasant garden,
where the plane-trees and turf are beautifully green, is pointed out as
having been his study.”[34] Concerning Dickens’s studies, his eldest
daughter tells us that they “were always cheery, pleasant rooms, and
always, like himself, the personification of neatness and tidiness. On
the shelf of his writing-table were many dainty and useful
ornaments—gifts from his friends or members of his family—and always a
vase of bright and fresh flowers.” Referring to the sanctum at
Devonshire Terrace, Miss Dickens observes that it (the first she could
remember) was “a pretty room, with steps leading directly into the
garden from it, and with an extra baize door to keep out all sounds and
noise.” The garden here constituted a great attraction to Dickens, for
it enabled him, with his children and friends, to indulge in such simple
games as battledore and shuttlecock and bowls, which not only delighted
him, but conveniently afforded means of obtaining necessary exercise and
recreation at intervals during his literary labours.
In a stable on the south side of the garden were kept the two ravens
that inspired the conception of Grip in “Barnaby Rudge,” of which famous
bird they were the “great originals.” Longfellow, after visiting the
novelist here in 1841, said in a letter to a friend: “I write this from
Dickens’s study, the focus from which so many luminous things have
radiated. The raven croaks in the garden, and the ceaseless roar of
London fills my ears.” The first raven died in 1841 from the effects (it
was believed) of a meal of white paint; he was quickly succeeded by an
older and a larger raven (“comparatively of weak intellect”), whose
decease in 1845 was similarly premature, probably owing to “the same
illicit taste for putty and paint which had been fatal to his
predecessor.” “Voracity killed him,” said Dickens, “as it did Scott’s;
he died unexpectedly by the kitchen fire. He kept his eye to the last
upon the meat as it roasted, and suddenly turned over on his back with a
sepulchral cry of ‘Cuckoo.’” The novelist occupied No. 1, Devonshire
Terrace (the scene of many of his literary triumphs) for a period of
about twelve years—the happiest period of his life—and there wrote some
of the best of his stories, including “The Old Curiosity Shop,” “Barnaby
Rudge,” “Martin Chuzzlewit,” “Dombey and Son,” and “David Copperfield,”
the latter the most delightful of all his books, and his own favourite.
Here also he composed those ever-popular Yule-tide annuals, “A Christmas
Carol,” “The Cricket on the Hearth,” and “The Haunted Man.”
The friends which the fame of the young author attracted thither
included some of the most distinguished men of the day, such as
Macready, Talfourd, Proctor (“Barry Cornwall”), Clarkson Stanfield,
R.A., Sir David Wilkie, R.A., Sir Edwin Landseer, R.A., Samuel Rogers,
Sydney Smith, and many others of equal note, for which reason, among
others, he always cherished fond recollections of this London home, and
writing to Forster from Genoa in 1844, he could not refrain from
expressing how strangely he felt in the midst of such unfamiliar
environment. “I seem,” he said, “as if I had plucked myself out of my
proper soil when I left Devonshire Terrace, and would take root no more
until I return to it.... Did I tell you how many fountains we have here?
No matter. If they played nectar they wouldn’t please me half so well as
the West Middlesex Waterworks at Devonshire Terrace.” As in the case of
48, Doughty Street, this house bears a commemorative tablet, placed by
the London County Council. It is interesting to add that within a
stone’s-throw stands the old parish church of St. Marylebone, the scene
of the burial of little Paul Dombey and his mother, and of Mr. Dombey’s
second marriage.
At Devonshire Terrace four sons were born to him, viz., Walter Landor,
Francis Jeffrey, Alfred Tennyson, Henry Fielding, and one daughter, Dora
Annie, who survived only a few months.
On particular occasions, owing to a prolonged absence from England, he
let this house firstly to General Sir John Wilson in 1842 (when he first
visited America); secondly, to a widow lady, who agreed to occupy it
during his stay in Italy in 1844; and, thirdly, in 1846, to Sir James
Duke. The widow lady took possession a week or two before he started for
the Continent, thus compelling him to seek temporary quarters elsewhere.
He found the necessary accommodation near at hand, namely, at No. 9,
Osnaburgh Terrace, New Road (now Euston Road), which he rented for the
interval. Here occurred an amusing contretemps. Before entering upon
this brief tenancy, he had invited a number of valued friends to a
farewell dinner prior to his departure for Italy, and suddenly
discovered that, owing to the small dimensions of the rooms, he would be
obliged to abandon or postpone the function, the house having no
convenience “for the production of any other banquet than a cold
collation of plate and linen, the only comforts we have not left behind
us.” Additional help being obtained, however, the dinner went off
satisfactorily.
Dickens and his family left England for Italy in July, 1844, remaining
abroad for a period of twelve months. In November, however, he made a
quick journey to London, in order to test the effect of a reading aloud
of his just completed Christmas book, “The Chimes,” before a few friends
assembled for that purpose at Forster’s residence, Lincoln’s Inn Fields,
which, as readers of “Bleak House” may remember, is introduced into that
story as Mr. Tulkinghorn’s Chambers. The pleasurable interlude over, the
novelist returned to Genoa, there remaining until June, 1845, when,
homesick and eager to renew the “happy old walks and old talks” with his
friends in the “dear old home,” he gladly settled down again in
Devonshire Terrace. But only eleven months elapsed before he departed
for Switzerland, where he rented a little villa called Rosemont at
Lausanne; here he embarked upon a new story, “Dombey and Son,” and wrote
“The Battle of Life.” His stay on the Continent was unexpectedly
curtailed by the illness from scarlet fever of his eldest son Charles,
then at King’s College school in London, whereupon, at the end of
February, 1847, the novelist and his wife hastily made their way to the
bedside of their sick boy, taking up their abode at the Victoria Hotel,
Euston Square,[35] the Devonshire Terrace home being still occupied by
Sir James Duke. The little invalid was under the care of his
grandmother, Mrs. Hogarth, in Albany Street, Regent’s Park, and Dickens
secured temporary quarters near at hand, in Chester Place, where he
remained until June, and where a fifth son was born, christened Sydney
Smith Haldemand.
[Illustration: 1 DEVONSHIRE TERRACE. (_Page 58._)
The residence of Dickens, 1839-1851. Some of his finest books were
written here.]
Writing to Mrs. Hogarth from Chester Place (the number is not recorded),
he said: “This house is very cheerful on the drawing-room floor and
above, looking into the park on one side and Albany Street on the
other.”
Early in 1848 Devonshire Terrace was quitted by Sir James Duke, and
Dickens returned to London from Brighton (where he had been spending two
or three weeks) joyfully to enter into possession once more of his own
home, taking with him for completion an important chapter of “Dombey and
Son.” The lease of this house expired in 1851, the last book written
there being “David Copperfield,” at the publication of which his
reputation attained its highest level. He now realized that, for a
family consisting of six sons and two daughters (of whom the eldest,
Charles Culliford Boz, was but fourteen years of age), this residence
did not offer sufficient accommodation, and therefore he decided with
keen regret not to renew the lease.[36] Indeed, from the beginning of
the year he had been negotiating for a more commodious domicile,
Tavistock House, in Tavistock Square, then, and for some years
previously, the residence of his cherished artist friend, Frank Stone,
A.R.A., father of Mr. Marcus Stone, the Royal Academician. An
opportunity arising for the immediate purchase of the lease of Tavistock
House, Dickens felt convinced it was prudent that he should buy it, for,
as he observed in a letter to Frank Stone, it seemed very unlikely that
he would obtain “the same comforts for the rising generation elsewhere
for the same money,” and gave him carte-blanche to make the necessary
arrangements for acquiring the lease at a price not exceeding £1,500. “I
don’t make any apologies,” he added, “for thrusting this honour upon
you, knowing what a thorough-going old pump you are.” After securing the
property, the summer months were spent by the novelist at Broadstairs,
where a “dim vision” suddenly confronted him in connection with the
impending change of residence. “Supposing,” he wrote considerately to
Stone, “you should find, on looking forward, a probability of your being
houseless at Michaelmas, what do you say to using Devonshire Terrace as
a temporary encampment? It will not be in its usual order, but we would
take care that there should be as much useful furniture of all sorts
there as to render it unnecessary for you to move a stick. If you should
think this a convenience, then I should propose to you to pile your
furniture in the middle of the rooms at Tavistock House, and go out to
Devonshire Terrace two or three weeks _before_ Michaelmas, to enable my
workmen to commence their operations. This might be to our mutual
convenience, and therefore I suggest it. Certainly, the sooner I can
begin on Tavistock House the better, and possibly your going into
Devonshire Terrace might relieve you from a difficulty that would
otherwise be perplexing. I make this suggestion (I need not say to
_you_) solely on the chance of its being useful to both of us. If it
were merely convenient to me, you know I shouldn’t dream of it. Such an
arrangement, while it would cost you nothing, would perhaps enable you
to get your new house into order comfortably, and do exactly the same
thing for me.”[37] The exchange was accordingly made, so enabling
Dickens to effect certain structural improvements in Tavistock House
before returning from Broadstairs to take possession in November. These
alterations and reparations, which were apparently on a somewhat
extensive scale, were carried out under the superintendence of his
brother-in-law, Henry Austin, an architect and sanitary engineer, to
whom Dickens (harassed by delays in the work) wrote despairingly as
follows:
[Illustration: 9 OSNABURGH TERRACE. (_Page 62._)
Occupied by Dickens in the summer of 1844.]
“Broadstairs,
“_Sunday, September 7, 1851_.
“My dear Henry,
“I am in that state of mind which you may (once) have seen described
in the newspapers as ‘bordering on distraction,’ the house given up to
me, the fine weather going on (soon to break, I dare say), the
printing season oozing away, my new book (‘Bleak House’) waiting to be
born, and
“_No Workmen on the Premises_,
along of my not hearing from you!! I have torn all my hair off, and
constantly beat my unoffending family. Wild notions have occurred to
me of sending in my own plumber to do the drains. Then I remember that
you have probably written to propose _your_ man, and restrain my
audacious hand. Then Stone presents himself, with a most
exasperatingly mysterious visage, and says that a rat has appeared in
the kitchen, and it’s his opinion (Stone’s, not the rat’s) that the
drains want ‘compo-ing’; for the use of which explicit language I
could fell him without remorse. In my horrible desire to ‘compo’
everything, the very postman becomes my enemy, because he brings no
letter from you; and, in short, I don’t see what’s to become of me
unless I hear from you to-morrow, which I have not the least
expectation of doing.
“Going over the house again, I have materially altered the plans,
abandoned conservatory and front balcony, decided to make Stone’s
painting-room the drawing-room (it is nearly 6 inches higher than the
room below), to carry the entrance passage right through the house to
a back door leading to the garden, and to reduce the once intended
drawing-room—now schoolroom—to a manageable size, making a door of
communication between the new drawing-room and the study. Curtains and
carpets, on a scale of awful splendour and magnitude, are already in
preparation, and still—still—
“_No Workmen on the Premises._
“To pursue this theme is madness. Where are you? When are you coming
home? Where is _the_ man who is to do the work? Does he know that an
army of artificers must be turned in at once, and the whole thing
finished out of hand?
“O rescue me from my present condition. Come up to the scratch, I
entreat and implore you!
“I send this to Lætitia (Mrs. Austin) to forward,
“Being, as you well know why,
Completely floored by N.W.,[38] I
_Sleep_!
I hope you may be able to read this. My state of mind does not admit
of coherence.
“Ever affectionately,
“Charles Dickens.
“P.S.—_No Workmen_ on the _Premises_!
“Ha! ha! ha! (I am laughing demoniacally.)”[39]
Other letters followed, testifying to the highly nervous condition and
impatience of the writer, who in certain of these characteristic
missives, said:
“I am perpetually wandering (in fancy) up and down the house (Tavistock
House) and tumbling over the workmen; when I feel that they are gone to
dinner, I become low; when I look forward to their total abstinence on
Sundays, I am wretched. The gravy at dinner has a taste of glue in it. I
smell paint in the sea. Phantom lime attends me all the day long. I
dream that I am a carpenter, and can’t partition off the hall. I
frequently dance (with a distinguished company) in the dressing-room,
and fall in the kitchen for want of a pillar.... I dream, also, of the
workmen every night. They make faces at me, and won’t do anything....
Oh! if this were to last long; the distractions of the new book, the
whirling of the story through one’s mind, escorted by workmen, the
imbecility, the wild necessity of beginning to write, the not being able
to do so, the—O! I should go——O!”[40]
The house, after all, was not ready to receive him at the stipulated
time, for it proved to be as difficult to get the workmen off the
premises as to get them on, and at the end of October they were still
busy in their own peculiar manner, the painters mislaying their brushes
every five minutes, and chiefly whistling in the intervals, while the
carpenters “continued to look sideways with one eye down pieces of wood,
as if they were absorbed in the contemplation of the perspective of the
Thames Tunnel, and had entirely relinquished the vanities of this
transitory world.” With white lime in the kitchens, blank paper
constantly spread on drawing-room walls and shred off again, men
clinking at the new stair-rails, Irish labourers howling in the
schoolroom (“but I don’t know why”), the gardener vigorously lopping the
trees, something like pandemonium reigned supreme, and the “Inimitable”
mentally blessed the day when silence and order at length succeeded,
permitting him once more to settle down to his desk, and to concentrate
his thoughts upon the new serial, “Bleak House,” the writing of which
was begun at the end of November, 1851—on a Friday, too, regarded by him
as his lucky day.
Tavistock House,[41] with Russell House and Bedford House adjoining (all
the property of the Duke of Bedford and all demolished), stood at the
northeast corner of the private, secluded Tavistock Square (named after
the Marquis of Tavistock, father of the celebrated William, Lord
Russell), a short distance south of Euston Road, about midway between
Euston Square and the aristocratic Russell Square, and railed off from
Upper Woburn Place.
The exterior of Tavistock House (pulled down in 1901) presented a plain
brick structure of two stories in height above the ground-floor, with
attics in the roof, an open portico or porch being added by a later
tenant; it contained no less than eighteen rooms, including a
drawing-room capable of holding more than three hundred persons. On the
garden side, at the rear, the house had a bowed front somewhat
resembling that at Devonshire Terrace. Hans Christian Andersen, who
visited him here in 1857, has left us a delightful record of his
impressions of the mansion:
“In Tavistock Square stands Tavistock House. This and the strip of
garden in front are shut out from the thoroughfare (Gordon Place, on the
east side) by an iron railing. A large garden, with a grass plot and
high trees, stretches behind the house, and gives it a countrified look
in the midst of this coal and gas-steaming London. In the passage from
street to garden hung pictures and engravings. Here stood a marble bust
of Dickens, so like him, so youthful and handsome; and over a bedroom
door were inserted the bas-reliefs of Night and Day, after
Thorwaldsen.[42] On the first floor was a rich library, with a fireplace
and a writing-table, looking out on the garden.... The kitchen was
underground, and at the top of the house were bedrooms. I had a snug
room looking out on the garden, and over the tree-tops I saw the London
towers and spires appear and disappear as the weather cleared or
thickened.”
Dickens’s eldest daughter, in recalling her father’s study at Tavistock
House, remembered it as being larger and more ornate than his previous
sanctum, and describes it as “a fine large room, opening into the
drawing-room by means of sliding doors. When the rooms were thrown
together,” she adds, “they gave my father a promenade of considerable
length for the constant indoor walking which formed a favourite
recreation for him after a hard day’s writing.” Here were wholly or
partly written some of his best stories—viz., “Bleak House,” “Hard
Times,” “Little Dorrit,” “A Tale of Two Cities,” and “Great
Expectations,” his labours being agreeably diversified by private
theatricals.
With a view to possibilities of this kind, he caused the school-room (on
the ground-floor at the back of the house) to be adapted for such
entertainments by having a stage erected and a platform built outside
the window for scenic purposes. His older children (the last of the
family, Edward Bulwer Lytton, was born in Tavistock House, 1852) had now
attained an age that justified a demand for a special form of home
amusement, and this met with a ready response from an indulgent father,
who, mainly, if not entirely, for their delight, arranged for a series
of juvenile theatricals, which began on the first Twelfth Night there
(the eldest son’s fifteenth birthday) with a performance of Fielding’s
burlesque, “Tom Thumb,” with Mark Lemon and Dickens himself in the cast.
Thackeray, who was present, thoroughly enjoyed the fun, rolling off his
seat in a burst of laughter at the absurdity of the thing. Play-bills
were printed, and every detail carried out in the orthodox style, for
Dickens (who, as “Lessee and Manager,” humorously styled himself “Mr.
Crummies”) entered heart and soul into the business, and as thoroughly
as if his income solely depended on it—this was entirely characteristic
of the man.
For the time being, the house was given up to theatrical preparations;
the schoolroom became a painter’s shop; there was a gasfitters shop all
over the basement; the topmost rooms were devoted to dressmaking, and
the novelist’s dressing-room to tailoring, while he himself at intervals
did his best to write “Little Dorrit” in corners, “like the Sultan’s
groom, who was turned upside-down by the genii.”
The most remarkable performances at “The Smallest Theatre in the World”!
(for so the play-bills described it) were the presentations of “The
Lighthouse” and “The Frozen Deep,” plays specially written by Wilkie
Collins, for which the scenes were painted by Clarkson Stanfield, R.A.,
one of these beautiful works of art (depicting the Eddystone Lighthouse)
realizing a thousand guineas after the novelist’s death! These
theatrical entertainments, continued on Twelfth Nights for many years,
were witnessed and enjoyed by many notabilities of London (Carlyle among
them), and created quite a public sensation.
Dickens’s cherished friend, the late Miss Mary Boyle, had vivid and
pleasing recollections of Tavistock House and the master spirit who
presided over it.
[Illustration: TAVISTOCK HOUSE. (_Page 70._)
The residence of Dickens, 1851-1860.
_From a photograph by Catherine Weed Barnes Ward._]
“The very sound of the name,” she says, “is replete to me with memories
of innumerable evenings passed in the most congenial and delightful
intercourse—dinners where the guests vied with each other in brilliant
conversation, whether intellectual, witty, or sparkling; evenings
devoted to music or theatricals. First and foremost of that magic circle
was the host himself, always ‘one of us,’ who invariably drew out what
was best and most characteristic in others.... I can never forget one
evening, shortly after the arrival at Tavistock House, when we danced in
the New Year. It seemed like a page cut out of the ‘Christmas Carol,’ as
far, at least, as fun and frolic went.”[43]
It was while living at Tavistock House that Dickens devised the series
of imitation book-backs with incongruous titles which were to serve as a
decorative feature in his study, and were afterwards transferred,
together with Clarkson Stanfield’s scenery, to his next home. Here, too,
he gave sittings for his portrait to E. M. Ward, R.A., in 1854, in which
is seen the strongly-contrasting tints of curtains, carpet, and other
accessories, indicating the great writer’s passion for colour. The
background and other details in the portrait by Mr. W. P. Frith, R.A.,
in 1859, were also painted in Dickens’s study at Tavistock House while
he was at work. It has been suggested that the novelist probably found
this residence a little too convenient for friends and other callers,
whose unexpected visits somewhat interrupted him, and that this may have
been a reason for his exodus into the country.
In 1855 the novelist ascertained that a picturesque house at Gad’s Hill,
near Rochester, the possession of which he declared to be a dream of his
childhood, was to be sold, and he at once determined to buy it if
possible. In this he succeeded, but it was not until 1860 that he
finally left his London abode to make his home at his “little Kentish
freehold.” During part of the interval he divided his favours between
Tavistock House and Gad’s Hill Place, usually spending the summer months
at his country retreat, furnished merely as a temporary summer residence
until September, 1860, when he disposed of the remainder of the lease of
the London house to Mr. Davis, a Jewish gentleman. Concerning the
transaction, he wrote (on the 4th of the month) to his henchman, W. H.
Wills: “Tavistock House is cleared to-day, and possession delivered up.
I must say that in all things the purchaser has behaved thoroughly well,
and that I cannot call to mind any occasion when I have had money
dealings with a Christian that have been so satisfactory, considerate,
and trusting.” His occupation of Tavistock House covered a period of
exactly ten years.
[Illustration: 5 HYDE PARK PLACE (NOW 5 MARBLE ARCH). (_Page 77._)
The centre house, without a porch, was the residence of Dickens in
the early part of 1870.]
In 1885 and subsequently Tavistock House was occupied as a Jewish
College, and it is worthy of note that prior to that date it was
tenanted by Gounod, the composer, and by Mrs. Georgina Weldon, the
well-known lady litigant, who in 1880 privately issued an extraordinary
pamphlet entitled “The Ghastly Consequences of Living in Charles
Dickens’s House,” where she dilates upon an attempt made to forcibly
convey her to a lunatic asylum.[44]
Tavistock House, with its neighbours Bedford House and Russell House,
were razed to the ground about four years ago, and the land, to be let
on a building lease, is still a desolate waste.
Although definitely settled at Gad’s Hill, Dickens decided upon taking a
furnished house in town for a few months of the London season for the
sake of his daughters, then young ladies just emerged from their teens,
and the younger of whom was then engaged to be married. Accordingly, in
the spring months of 1861 we find him and his household established at
No. 3, Hanover Terrace, Regent’s Park, a retired spot adjoining the
western side of the Park. In February, 1862, he made an exchange of
houses for three months with his friends Mr. and Mrs. Hogge, they going
to Gad’s Hill, and he and his family to Mr. Hogge’s house at No. 16,
Hyde Park Gate, South Kensington Gore (south side of Kensington High
Street); for, as the novelist explained, his unmarried daughter
naturally liked to be in town at that time of the year. In the middle of
February, 1864, he removed to another London mansion, No. 57, Gloucester
Place, north of Hyde Park, where he stayed until June, busily engaged
during those months with “Our Mutual Friend.” Gloucester Place now forms
part of Gloucester Terrace, near Bayswater Road, and the northern end of
the Serpentine.
For the spring of 1865 a furnished house was taken at No. 16, Somers
Place, north of Hyde Park (between Cambridge Square and Southwick
Crescent), which Dickens, with his sister-in-law and daughter, occupied
from the beginning of March until June, while Gad’s Hill Place was being
“gorgeously painted,” as he informed Macready, with a further intimation
that, owing to great suffering in his foot, he was a terror to the
household, likewise to all the organs and brass bands in this quarter.
In 1866 he rented for the spring a furnished house at No. 6, Southwick
Place, Hyde Park Square (contiguous to his former residence in Somers
Place), and early in January, 1870 (five months before his death), he
took for the season the classic-fronted mansion of his friends Mr. and
Mrs. Milner-Gibson, at No. 5, Hyde Park Place, apropos of which he said
in a letter to his American friend James T. Fields: “We live here
(opposite the Marble Arch) in a charming house until the 1st of June,
and then return to Gad’s.... I have a large room here, with three fine
windows, overlooking the Park, unsurpassable for airiness and
cheerfulness.”
This house was Charles Dickens’s last London residence; he rented it,
Forster tells us, for the period of his London Readings at that time, in
order to avoid the daily railway journey to London from Gad’s Hill,
entertaining an especial dislike to that mode of travelling in the then
serious state of his health.
At Hyde Park Place he wrote a considerable portion of the unfinished
fragment of “The Mystery of Edwin Drood,” and made the acquaintance,
through his friend Sir John Millais, of the illustrator of that story,
Mr. Luke Fildes, now the well-known Royal Academician, who cherishes the
most pleasant recollections of the collaboration.
We learn that in 1867 and 1869 Dickens did not take a house in London,
as was customary in these later years. In May of 1869 he stayed with his
daughter and sister-in-law for two or three weeks at the St. James’s
Hotel (now the Berkeley), at the corner of Berkeley Street, Piccadilly,
having promised to be in London at the time of the arrival of a number
of American friends; in order, too, that he might be near his London
doctor for a while,[45] and be able to avail himself of invitations from
innumerable familiar acquaintances.
In 1867, having a series of Readings in town and country alternately, he
decided to dispense with unnecessary travelling between Gad’s Hill and
London by sleeping in bachelor quarters at the office of his weekly
journal, _All the Year Round_, which succeeded the earlier publication,
_Household Words_, in 1859.
[Illustration: THE OFFICE OF “ALL THE YEAR ROUND,”
26 (FORMERLY 11) WELLINGTON STREET, STRAND. (_Page 78._)
In 1860 Dickens furnished rooms here, which were “Really a success.
As comfortable, cheerful, and private as anything of the kind can
possibly be” (letter to Miss Mamie Dickens).]
The office of _All the Year Round_ was then No. 11, Wellington Street,
North Strand, and still exists as No. 26, Wellington Street, at the
south corner of Tavistock Street, at its junction with Wellington
Street. In 1872 the lessee of the property was unavailingly approached
by emissaries from Chicago with the view of purchasing and transporting
the building to the _World’s Fair_, as a memento of the novelist. For
his own convenience Dickens furnished rooms here,[46] to be used as
bedroom and sitting-room as occasion required, which must have reminded
him of those early days when he lived in similar bachelor apartments at
Furnival’s Inn. Happily for him, his creature comforts were ensured by
an old and tried servant—a paragon—whom Dickens declared to be “the
cleverest man of his kind in the world,” and able to do anything, “from
excellent carpentry to excellent cooking.”
The office of _Household Words_ was situated in Wellington Street,
Strand, nearly opposite the portico of the Lyceum Theatre, a short
distance from the Strand on the right-hand side of the way, and was
rendered somewhat conspicuous by a large bow window. This building stood
on the site of a very old tenement, with which there was bound up a very
weird London legend, setting forth how the room on the first-floor front
was the identical apartment which had served Hogarth as the scene of the
final tableau in “The Harlot’s Progress.” The novelist used to tell his
contributors that he had often, while sitting in his editorial sanctum,
conjured up mental pictures of Kate Hackabout lying dead in her coffin,
wept over by drunken beldames.
On September 17, 1903, the London County Council’s housebreakers took
possession of the old office of _Household Words_ (whence in 1850
Dickens launched the first number of that periodical), and the building
has since been sacrificed in the general scheme for providing a new
thoroughfare from the Strand to Holborn. Dickens used the front-room on
the first floor—that with a large bow window—as his editorial sanctum,
and on busy nights he slept on the premises instead of returning to
Gad’s Hill. Latterly this room was used as an office by the manager of
the Gaiety Theatre. The projection of the new Kingsway and Aldwych has
resulted in the inevitable evanishment of many Dickensian landmarks, for
a glance at the plans of these thoroughfares now in course of
construction shows that they will cover an important section of
“Dickens’s London,” such as Clare Market, the New Inn, Portugal Street,
Drury Lane, Sardinia Street, Kingsgate Street, etc.
* * * * * * * *
A brief mention of certain public and private institutions in London
having more or less informal associations with Dickens will form a
fitting conclusion to the present chapter.
[Illustration: THE OFFICE OF “HOUSEHOLD WORDS,” WELLINGTON STREET,
STRAND. (_Page 80._)
The principal entrance was where the centre window on the ground
floor is shown.
The building is now demolished.]
In 1838 the author of “Pickwick” (then lately completed) was elected a
member of the Athenæum Club, his sponsor being Mr. Serjeant Storks, and
continued his membership of that very exclusive confraternity for the
rest of his life. The late Rev. F. G. Waugh, author of a booklet on the
Athenæum Club, did not think that Dickens considered himself a popular
member, probably because he seldom spoke to anyone unless previously
addressed. When not taking his sandwich standing, his usual seat in the
coffee-room was the table on the east side of the room, just south of
the fireplace. “I believe,” says Mr. Waugh, in a letter to the present
writer, “the last letter he wrote from here was to his son, who did not
receive it till after his father’s death.” The club, which preserves the
novelist’s favourite chair, was the scene, too, of a happy incident—the
reconciliation of Thackeray and Dickens after a period of strained
relationship. This occurred only a few days before the death of the
author of “Vanity Fair,” when the two great writers, meeting by accident
in the lobby of the club, suddenly turned and saw each other, “and the
unrestrained impulse of both was to hold out the hand of forgiveness and
fellowship.”
“... In the hall, that trysting-place,
Two severed friends meet face to face:
’Tis Boz and Makepeace, good and true
(‘Behind the coats,’ hats not a few).
A start, and both uncertain stand;
Then each has clasped the other’s hand!”[47]
The Temple, practically unchanged since Dickens’s day, ever remained a
favourite locality with him. When quite a young man, and popularly known
as “Boz,” he entered his name among the students of the Inn of the
Middle Temple, though he did not eat dinners there until many years
later, and was never called to the Bar. The _Daily News_ offices (the
old building, not the existing ornate structure) in Bouverie Street are
remembered chiefly by the fact that this Liberal newspaper was founded
by Dickens, its first editor, in 1846, and a bust-portrait of him may be
seen in a niche in the façade of the new building. John Forster’s
residence, No. 58, Lincoln’s Inn Fields, is specially memorable on
account of the novelist’s associations therewith. Here he was ever a
welcome guest, and here, in 1844, he read “The Chimes” from the
newly-completed manuscript to an assembled group of friends, the germ of
those public readings to which he subsequently devoted so much time and
energy. The two houses, Nos. 57 and 58, Lincoln’s Inn Fields, were once
the town mansion of the Earl of Lindsey. Dickens made Forster’s
residence the home of Tulkinghorn, the old family lawyer in “Bleak
House,” whose room with the painted ceiling depicting “fore-shortened
allegory” faces the large forecourt, and is now in the occupation of a
solicitor; the painting, however, was obliterated some years ago.