The Letters of Charles Dickens Volume Iii Part 45

Kate and Georgy unite with me in kindest and heartiest love to dear Mrs.

Macready. We are always with you in spirit, and always talking about you. I am obliged to conclude very hastily, being beset to-day with business engagements. Saw the lecture and was delighted; thought the idea admirable. Again, loves upon loves to dear Mrs. Macready and to Miss Macready also, and Kate and all the house. I saw ---- play (O Heaven!) "Macbeth," the other night, in three hours and fifty minutes, which is quick, I think.

Ever and always affectionately.

[Sidenote: Mr. J. Crofton Croker.]

TAVISTOCK HOUSE, _March 6th, 1852._

MY DEAR SIR,

I have the greatest interest in those gallant men, and should have been delighted to dine in their company. I feel truly obliged to you for your kind remembrance on such an occasion.

But I am engaged to Lord Lansdowne on Wednesday, and can only drink to them in the spirit, which I have often done when they have been farther off.

I hope you will find occasion to put on your c.o.c.ked hat, that they may see how terrific and imposing "a fore-and-after" can be made on sh.o.r.e.

Faithfully yours always.

[Sidenote: The Hon. Mrs. Watson.]

TAVISTOCK HOUSE, _April 6th, 1852._

MY DEAR MRS. WATSON,

My "lost character" was one of those awful doc.u.ments occasionally to be met with, which WILL be everywhere. It glared upon me from every drawer I had, fell out of books, lurked under keys, hid in empty inkstands, got into portfolios, frightened me by inscrutably pa.s.sing into locked despatch-boxes, and was not one character, but a thousand. This was when I didn't want it. I look for it this morning, and it is nowhere!

Probably will never be beheld again.

But it was very unlike this one; and there is no doubt that when these ventures come out good, it is only by lucky chance and coincidence. She never mentioned my love of order before, and it is so remarkable (being almost a _dis_order), that she ought to have fainted with surprise when my handwriting was first revealed to her.

I was very sorry to leave Rockingham the other day, and came away in quite a melancholy state. The Birmingham people were very active; and the Shrewsbury gentry quite transcendent. I hope we shall have a very successful and dazzling trip. It is delightful to me to think of your coming to Birmingham; and, by-the-bye, if you will tell me in the previous week what hotel accommodation you want, Mr. Wills will look to it with the greatest pleasure.

Your bookseller ought to be cas.h.i.+ered. I suppose "he" (as Rogers calls everybody's husband) went out hunting with the idea of diverting his mind from dwelling on its loss. Abortive effort!

Charley brings this with himself.

With kindest regards and remembrances, Ever, dear Mrs. Watson, most faithfully yours.

[Sidenote: Mr. Charles Knight.]

TAVISTOCK HOUSE, _June 29th, 1852._

MY DEAR KNIGHT,

A thousand thanks for the Shadow, which, is charming. May you often go (out of town) and do likewise!

I dined with Charles Kemble, yesterday, to meet Emil Devrient, the German actor. He said (Devrient is my antecedent) that Ophelia _spoke_ the s.n.a.t.c.hes of ballads in their German version of "Hamlet," because they didn't know the airs. Tom Taylor said that you had published the airs in your "Shakespeare." I said that if it were so, I knew you would be happy to place them at the German's service. If you have got them and will send them to me, I will write to Devrient (who knows no English) a French explanation and reminder of the circ.u.mstance, and will tell him that you responded like a man and a--I was going to say publisher, but you are nothing of the sort, except as Tonson. Then indeed you are every inch a pub.!

Ever affectionately.

[Sidenote: The Lord John Russell.]

TAVISTOCK HOUSE, _Wednesday, June 30th, 1852._

MY DEAR LORD,

I am most truly obliged to you for your kind note, and for your so generously thinking of me in the midst of your many occupations. I do a.s.sure you that your ever ready consideration had already attached me to you in the warmest manner, and made me very much your debtor. I thank you unaffectedly and very earnestly, and am proud to be held in your remembrance.

Believe me always, yours faithfully and obliged.

[Sidenote: Anonymous Correspondent.]

TAVISTOCK HOUSE, TAVISTOCK SQUARE, _July 9th, 1852._

SIR,

I have received your letter of yesterday's date, and shall content myself with a brief reply.

There was a long time during which benevolent societies were spending immense sums on missions abroad, when there was no such thing as a ragged school in England, or any kind of a.s.sociated endeavour to penetrate to those horrible domestic depths in which such schools are now to be found, and where they were, to my most certain knowledge, neither placed nor discovered by the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts.

If you think the balance between the home mission and the foreign mission justly held in the present time, I do not. I abstain from drawing the strange comparison that might be drawn between the sums even now expended in endeavours to remove the darkest ignorance and degradation from our very doors, because I have some respect for mistakes that may be founded in a sincere wish to do good. But I present a general suggestion of the still-existing anomaly (in such a paragraph as that which offends you), in the hope of inducing some people to reflect on this matter, and to adjust the balance more correctly. I am decidedly of opinion that the two works, the home and the foreign, are _not_ conducted with an equal hand, and that the home claim is by far the stronger and the more pressing of the two.

Indeed, I have very grave doubts whether a great commercial country, holding communication with all parts of the world, can better Christianise the benighted portions of it than by the bestowal of its wealth and energy on the making of good Christians at home, and on the utter removal of neglected and untaught childhood from its streets, before it wanders elsewhere. For, if it steadily persist in this work, working downward to the lowest, the travellers of all grades whom it sends abroad will be good, exemplary, practical missionaries, instead of undoers of what the best professed missionaries can do.

These are my opinions, founded, I believe, on some knowledge of facts and some observation. If I could be scared out of them, let me add in all good humour, by such easily-impressed words as "antichristian" or "irreligious," I should think that I deserved them in their real signification.

I have referred in vain to page 312 of "Household Words" for the sneer to which you call my attention. Nor have I, I a.s.sure you, the least idea where else it is to be found.

I am, Sir, your faithful Servant.

[Sidenote: Miss Mary Boyle.]

10, CAMDEN CRESCENT, DOVER, _July 22nd, 1852._

MY DEAR MARY,

This is indeed a n.o.ble letter. The description of the family is quite amazing. I _must_ return it myself to say that I HAVE appreciated it.

I am going to do "Used Up" at Manchester on the 2nd of September. O, think of that! With another Mary!!! How can I ever say, "_Dear_ Joe, if you like!" The voice may fully frame the falsehood, but the heart--the heart, Mr. Wurzel--will have no part in it.

My dear Mary, you do scant justice to Dover. It is not quite a place to my taste, being too bandy (I mean musical, no reference to its legs), and infinitely too genteel. But the sea is very fine, and the walks are quite remarkable. There are two ways of going to Folkestone, both lovely and striking in the highest degree; and there are heights, and downs, and country roads, and I don't know what, everywhere.

To let you into a secret, I am not quite sure that I ever did like, or ever shall like, anything quite so well as "Copperfield." But I foresee, I think, some very good things in "Bleak House." I shouldn't wonder if they were the identical things that D'Israeli sees looming in the distance. I behold them in the months ahead and weep.