The Letters of Charles Dickens Volume I Part 15

We really did wonders last night in the way of arrangement. I see the ground-plan of the first three acts distinctly. The dressing and furnis.h.i.+ng and so forth, will be a perfect picture, and I will answer for the men in three weeks' time.

In great haste, my dear Bulwer, Ever faithfully yours.

[Sidenote: Mrs. Cowden Clarke.]

GREAT MALVERN, _29th March, 1851._

MY DEAR MRS. COWDEN CLARKE,

Ah, those were days indeed, when we were so fatigued at dinner that we couldn't speak, and so revived at supper that we couldn't go to bed; when wild in inns the n.o.ble savage ran; and all the world was a stage, gas-lighted in a double sense--by the Young Gas and the old one! When Emmeline Montague (now Compton, and the mother of two children) came to rehea.r.s.e in our new comedy[45] the other night, I nearly fainted. The gush of recollection was so overpowering that I couldn't bear it.

I use the portfolio[46] for managerial papers still. That's something.

But all this does not thank you for your book.[47] I have not got it yet (being here with Mrs. d.i.c.kens, who has been very unwell), but I shall be in town early in the week, and shall bring it down to read quietly on these hills, where the wind blows as freshly as if there were no Popes and no Cardinals whatsoever--nothing the matter anywhere. I thank you a thousand times, beforehand, for the pleasure you are going to give me. I am full of faith. Your sister Emma, she is doing work of some sort on the P.S. side of the boxes, in some dark theatre, _I know_, but where, I wonder? W.[48] has not proposed to her yet, has he? I understood he was going to offer his hand and heart, and lay his leg[49] at her feet.

Ever faithfully yours.

[Sidenote: Mr. Mitton.]

DEVONs.h.i.+RE TERRACE, _19th April, 1851._

MY DEAR MITTON,

I have been in trouble, or I should have written to you sooner. My wife has been, and is, far from well. My poor father's death caused me much distress. I came to London last Monday to preside at a public dinner--played with little Dora, my youngest child, before I went--and was told when I left the chair that she had died in a moment. I am quite happy again, but I have undergone a good deal.

I am not going back to Malvern, but have let this house until September, and taken the "Fort," at Broadstairs.

Faithfully yours.

[Sidenote: Sir Edward Bulwer Lytton.]

DEVONs.h.i.+RE TERRACE, _Monday, 28th April, 1851._

MY DEAR BULWER,

I see you are so anxious, that I shall endeavour to send you this letter by a special messenger. I think I can relieve your mind completely.

The Duke has read the play. He asked for it a week ago, and had it. He has been at Brighton since. He called here before eleven on Sat.u.r.day morning, but I was out on the play business, so I went to him at Devons.h.i.+re House yesterday. He almost knows the play by heart. He is supremely delighted with it, and critically understands it. In proof of the latter part of this sentence I may mention that he had made two or three memoranda of trivial doubtful points, _every one of which had attracted our attention in rehearsal_, as I found when he showed them to me. He thoroughly understands and appreciates the comedy of the Duke--threw himself back in his chair and laughed, as I say of Walpole, "till I thought he'd have choked," about his first d.u.c.h.ess, who was a Percy. He suggested that he shouldn't say: "You know how to speak to the heart of a n.o.ble," because it was not likely that he would call himself a n.o.ble. He thought we might close up the Porter and Softhead a little more (already done) and was so charmed and delighted to recall the comedy that he was more pleased than any boy you ever saw when I repeated two or three of the speeches in my part for him. He is coming to the rehearsal to-day (we rehea.r.s.e now at Devons.h.i.+re House, three days a-week, all day long), and, since he read the play, has conceived a most magnificent and n.o.ble improvement in the Devons.h.i.+re House plan, by which, I daresay, we shall get another thousand or fifteen hundred pounds. There is not a grain of distrust or doubt in him. I am perfectly certain that he would confide to me, and does confide to me, his whole mind on the subject.

More than this, the Duke comes out the best man in the play. I am happy to report to you that Stone does the honourable manly side of that pride inexpressibly better than I should have supposed possible in him.

The scene where he makes that reparation to the slandered woman is _certain_ to be an effect. He is _not_ a jest upon the order of Dukes, but a great tribute to them. I have sat looking at the play (as you may suppose) pretty often, and carefully weighing every syllable of it. I see, in the Duke, the most estimable character in the piece. I am as sure that I represent the audience in this as I am that I hear the words when they are spoken before me. The first time that scene with Hardman was seriously done, it made an effect on the company that quite surprised and delighted me; and whenever and wherever it is done (but most of all at Devons.h.i.+re House) the result will be the same.

Everyone is greatly improved. I wrote an earnest note to Forster a few days ago on the subject of his being too loud and violent. He has since subdued himself with the most admirable pains, and improved the part a thousand per cent. All the points are gradually being worked and smoothed out with the utmost neatness all through the play. They are all most heartily anxious and earnest, and, upon the least hitch, will do the same thing twenty times over. The scenery, furniture, etc., are rapidly advancing towards completion, and will be beautiful. The dresses are a perfect blaze of colour, and there is not a pocket-flap or a sc.r.a.p of lace that has not been made according to Egg's drawings to the quarter of an inch. Every wig has been made from an old print or picture. From the Duke's snuff-box to Will's Coffee-house, you will find everything in perfect truth and keeping. I have resolved that whenever we come to a weak place in the acting, it must, somehow or other, be made a strong one. The places that I used to be most afraid of are among the best points now.

Will you come to the dress rehearsal on the Tuesday evening before the Queen's night? There will be no one present but the Duke.

I write in the greatest haste, for the rehearsal time is close at hand, and I have the master carpenter and gasman to see before we begin.

Miss Coutts is one of the most sensible of women, and if I had not seen the Duke yesterday, I would have shown her the play directly. But there can't be any room for anxiety on the head that has troubled you so much.

You may clear it from your mind as completely as Gunpowder Plot.

In great haste, ever cordially.

[Sidenote: The Hon. Miss Eden.[50]]

BROADSTAIRS, _Sunday, 28th September, 1851._

MY DEAR MISS EDEN,

Many thanks for the grapes; which must have come from the identical vine a man ought to sit under. They were a prodigy of excellence.

I have been concerned to hear of your indisposition, but thought the best thing I could do, was to make no formal calls when you were really ill. I have been suffering myself from another kind of malady--a severe, spasmodic, house-buying-and-repairing attack--which has left me extremely weak and all but exhausted. The seat of the disorder has been the pocket.

I had the kindest of notes from the kindest of men this morning, and am going to see him on Wednesday. Of course I mean the Duke of Devons.h.i.+re.

Can I take anything to Chatsworth for you?

Very faithfully yours.

[Sidenote: Mr. Frank Stone.]

EXTRACT FROM LETTER TO MR. STONE.

_8th September, 1851._

You never saw such a sight as the sands between this and Margate presented yesterday. This day fortnight a steamer laden with cattle going from Rotterdam to the London market, was wrecked on the Goodwin--on which occasion, by-the-bye, the coming in at night of our Salvage Luggers laden with dead cattle, which where hoisted up upon the pier where they lay in heaps, was a most picturesque and striking sight.

The sea since Wednesday has been very rough, blowing in straight upon the land. Yesterday, the sh.o.r.e was strewn with hundreds of oxen, sheep, and pigs (and with bushels upon bushels of apples), in every state and stage of decay--burst open, rent asunder, lying with their stiff hoofs in the air, or with their great ribs yawning like the wrecks of s.h.i.+ps--tumbled and beaten out of shape, and yet with a horrible sort of humanity about them. Hovering among these carcases was every kind of water-side plunderer, pulling the horns out, getting the hides off, chopping the hoofs with poleaxes, etc. etc., attended by no end of donkey carts, and spectral horses with scraggy necks, galloping wildly up and down as if there were something maddening in the stench. I never beheld such a demoniacal business!

Very faithfully yours.

[Sidenote: Mr. Henry Austin.]

BROADSTAIRS, _Monday, 8th September, 1851._

MY DEAR HENRY,

Your letter, received this morning, has considerably allayed the anguish of my soul. Our letters crossed, of course, as letters under such circ.u.mstances always do.

I am perpetually wandering (in fancy) up and down the house[51] 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 Sunday, 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 part.i.tion off the hall. I frequently dance (with a distinguished company) in the drawing-room, and fall into the kitchen for want of a pillar.

A great to-do here. A steamer lost on the Goodwins yesterday, and our men bringing in no end of dead cattle and sheep. I stood a supper for them last night, to the unbounded gratification of Broadstairs. They came in from the wreck very wet and tired, and very much disconcerted by the nature of their prize--which, I suppose, after all, will have to be recommitted to the sea, when the hides and tallow are secured. One lean-faced boatman murmured, when they were all ruminative over the bodies as they lay on the pier: "Couldn't sa.s.sages be made on it?" but retired in confusion shortly afterwards, overwhelmed by the execrations of the bystanders.

Ever affectionately.