The Letters of Charles Dickens Volume Iii Part 21

[Sidenote: Mr. W. C. Macready.]

HoTEL BRISTOL, PARIS, _Thursday Night, Nov. 28th, 1844, Half-past Ten._

MY DEAREST MACREADY,

Since I wrote to you what would be called in law proceedings the exhibit marked A, I have been round to the Hotel Brighton, and personally examined and cross-examined the attendants. It is painfully clear to me that I shall not see you to-night, nor until Tuesday, the 10th of December, when, please G.o.d, I shall re-arrive here, on my way to my Italian bowers. I mean to stay all the Wednesday and all the Thursday in Paris. One night to see you act (my old delight when you little thought of such a being in existence), and one night to read to you and Mrs.

Macready (if that scamp of Lincoln's Inn Fields has not antic.i.p.ated me) my little Christmas book, in which I have endeavoured to plant an indignant right-hander on the eye of certain wicked Cant that makes my blood boil, which I hope will not only cloud that eye with black and blue, but many a gentle one with crystal of the finest sort. G.o.d forgive me, but I think there are good things in the little story!

I took it for granted you were, as your American friends say, "in full blast" here, and meant to have sent a card into your dressing-room, with "Mr. G. S. Hanc.o.c.k Muggridge, United States," upon it. But Paris looks coldly on me without your eye in its head, and not being able to shake your hand I shake my own head dolefully, which is but poor satisfaction.

My love to Mrs. Macready. I will swear to the death that it is truly hers, for her gallantry in your absence if for nothing else, and to you, my dear Macready, I am ever a devoted friend.

[Sidenote: Mrs. Charles d.i.c.kens.]

HoTEL BRISTOL, PARIS, _Thursday Night, Nov. 28th, 1844._

MY DEAREST KATE,

With an intolerable pen and no ink, I am going to write a few lines to you to report progress.

I got to Strasburg on Monday night, intending to go down the Rhine. But the weather being foggy, and the season quite over, they could not insure me getting on for certain beyond Mayence, or our not being detained by unpropitious weather. Therefore I resolved (the malle poste being full) to take the diligence hither next day in the afternoon. I arrived here at half-past five to-night, after fifty hours of it in a French coach. I was so beastly dirty when I got to this house, that I had quite lost all sense of my ident.i.ty, and if anybody had said, "Are you Charles d.i.c.kens?" I should have unblus.h.i.+ngly answered, "No; I never heard of him." A good wash, and a good dress, and a good dinner have revived me, however; and I can report of this house, concerning which the brave was so anxious when we were here before, that it is the best I ever was in. My little apartment, consisting of three rooms and other conveniences, is a perfect curiosity of completeness. You never saw such a charming little baby-house. It is infinitely smaller than those first rooms we had at Meurice's, but for elegance, compactness, comfort, and quietude, exceeds anything I ever met with at an inn.

The moment I arrived here, I enquired, of course, after Macready. They said the English theatre had not begun yet, that they thought he was at Meurice's, where they knew some members of the company to be. I instantly despatched the porter with a note to say that if he were there, I would come round and hug him, as soon as I was clean. They referred the porter to the Hotel Brighton. He came back and told me that the answer there was: "M. Macready's rooms were engaged, but he had not arrived. He was expected to-night!" If we meet to-night, I will add a postscript. Wouldn't it be odd if we met upon the road between this and Boulogne to-morrow?

I mean, as a recompense for my late sufferings, to get a hackney-carriage if I can and post that journey, starting from here at eight to-morrow morning, getting to Boulogne sufficiently early next morning to cross at once, and dining with Forster that same day--to wit, Sat.u.r.day. I have notions of taking you with me on my next journey (if you would like to go), and arranging for Georgy to come to us by steamer--under the protection of the English captain, for instance--to Naples; there I would top and cap all our walks by taking her up to the crater of Vesuvius with me. But this is dependent on her ability to be perfectly happy for a fortnight or so in our stately palace with the children, and such foreign aid as the Simpsons. For I love her too dearly to think of any project which would involve her being uncomfortable for that s.p.a.ce of time.

You can think this over, and talk it over; and I will join you in doing so, please G.o.d, when I return to our Italian bowers, which I shall be heartily glad to do.

They tell us that the landlord of this house, going to London some week or so ago, was detained at Boulogne two days by a high sea, in which the packet could not put out. So I hope there is the greater chance of no such bedevilment happening to me.

Paris is better than ever. Oh dear, how grand it was when I came through it in that caravan to-night! I hope we shall be very hearty here, and able to say with Wally, "Han't it pla.s.sant!"

Love to Charley, Mamey, Katey, Wally, and Chickenstalker. The last-named, I take it for granted, is indeed prodigious.

Best love to Georgy.

Ever, my dearest Kate, Affectionately yours.

P.S.--I have been round to Macready's hotel; it is now past ten, and he has not arrived, nor does it seem at all certain that he seriously intended to arrive to-night. So I shall not see him, I take it for granted, until my return.

[Sidenote: Mrs. Charles d.i.c.kens.]

PIAZZA COFFEE HOUSE, COVENT GARDEN, _Monday, Dec. 2nd, 1844._

MY DEAREST KATE,

I received, with great delight, your _excellent_ letter of this morning.

Do not regard this as my answer to it. It is merely to say that I have been at Bradbury and Evans's all day, and have barely time to write more than that I _will_ write to-morrow. I arrived about seven on Sat.u.r.day evening, and rushed into the arms of Mac and Forster. Both of them send their best love to you and Georgy, with a heartiness not to be described.

The little book is now, as far as I am concerned, all ready. One cut of Doyle's and one of Leech's I found so unlike my ideas, that I had them both to breakfast with me this morning, and with that winning manner which you know of, got them with the highest good humour to do both afresh. They are now hard at it. Stanfield's readiness, delight, wonder at my being pleased with what he has done is delicious. Mac's frontispiece is charming. The book is quite splendid; the expenses will be very great, I have no doubt.

Anybody who has heard it has been moved in the most extraordinary manner. Forster read it (for dramatic purposes) to A'Beckett. He cried so much and so painfully, that Forster didn't know whether to go on or stop; and he called next day to say that any expression of his feeling was beyond his power. But that he believed it, and felt it to be--I won't say what.

As the reading comes off to-morrow night, I had better not despatch my letters to you until _Wednesday's_ post. I must close to save this (heartily tired I am, and I dine at Gore House to-day), so with love to Georgy, Mamey, Katey, Charley, Wally, and Chickenstalker, ever, believe me,

Yours, with true affection.

P.S.--If you had seen Macready last night, undisguisedly sobbing and crying on the sofa as I read, you would have felt, as I did, what a thing it is to have power.

FOOTNOTES:

[4] T. P. Cooke, the celebrated actor of "William" in Douglas Jerrold's play of "Black-eyed Susan."

1845.

NARRATIVE.

At the beginning of this year, Charles d.i.c.kens was still living at the Palazzo Peschiere, Genoa, with his family. In February, he went with his wife to Rome for the Carnival, leaving his sister-in-law and children at Genoa; Miss Hogarth joining them later on at Naples. They all returned to Rome for the Holy Week, and then went to Florence, and so back to Genoa. He continued his residence at Genoa until June of this year, when he returned to England by Switzerland and Belgium, the party being met at Brussels by Mr. Forster, Mr. Maclise, and Mr. Douglas Jerrold, and arriving at home at the end of June. The autumn months, until the 1st October, were again spent at Broadstairs. And in this September was the first amateur play at Miss Kelly's theatre in Dean Street, under the management of Charles d.i.c.kens, with Messrs. Jerrold, Mark Lemon, John Leech, Gilbert A'Beckett, Leigh, Frank Stone, Forster, and others as his fellow-actors. The play selected was Ben Jonson's "Every Man in his Humour," in which Charles d.i.c.kens acted Captain Bobadil. The first performance was a private one, merely as an entertainment for the actors and their friends, but its success speedily led to a repet.i.tion of the same performance, and afterwards to many other performances for public and charitable objects. "Every Man in his Humour" was shortly after repeated, at the same little theatre, for a useful charity which needed help; and later in the year Beaumont and Fletcher's play of "The Elder Brother" was given by the same company, at the same place, for the benefit of Miss Kelly. There was a farce played after the comedy on each occasion--not always the same one--in which Charles d.i.c.kens and Mark Lemon were the princ.i.p.al actors.

The letters which we have for this year, refer, with very few exceptions, to these theatricals, and therefore need no explanation.

He was at work at the end of this year on another Christmas book, "The Cricket on the Hearth," and was also much occupied with the project of _The Daily News_ paper, of which he undertook the editors.h.i.+p at its starting, which took place in the beginning of the following year, 1846.

[Sidenote: Miss Hogarth.]

ROME, _Tuesday, February 4th, 1845._

MY DEAREST GEORGY,

This is a very short note, but time is still shorter. Come by the first boat by all means. If there be a good one a day or two before it, come by that. Don't delay on any account. I am very sorry you are not here.

The Carnival is a very remarkable and beautiful sight. I have been regretting the having left you at home all the way here.

Kate says, will you take counsel with Charlotte about colour (I put in my word, as usual, for brightness), and have the darlings' bonnets made at once, by the same artist as before? Kate would have written, but is gone with Black to a day performance at the opera, to see Cerito dance.

At two o'clock each day we sally forth in an open carriage, with a large sack of sugar-plums and at least five hundred little nosegays to pelt people with. I should think we threw away, yesterday, a thousand of the latter. We had the carriage filled with flowers three or four times. I wish you could have seen me catch a swell brigand on the nose with a handful of very large confetti every time we met him. It was the best thing I have ever done. "The Chimes" are nothing to it.

Anxiously expecting you, I am ever,

Dear Georgy, Yours most affectionately.

[Sidenote: Mr. Thomas Mitton.]