The Letters of Charles Dickens Volume Ii Part 26

A little packet will come to you from Hunt and Roskell's, almost at the same time, I think, as this note.

The packet will contain a claret-jug. I hope it is a pretty thing in itself for your table, and I know that you and Mrs. Wills will like it none the worse because it comes from me.

It is not made of a perishable material, and is so far expressive of our friends.h.i.+p. I have had your name and mine set upon it, in token of our many years of mutual reliance and trustfulness. It will never be so full of wine as it is to-day of affectionate regard.

Ever faithfully yours.

[Sidenote: Miss Hogarth.]

CHELTENHAM, _Friday, Jan. 3rd, 1862._

MY DEAREST GEORGY,

Mrs. Macready in voice is very like poor Mrs. Macready dead and gone; not in the least like her otherwise. She is perfectly satisfactory, and exceedingly winning. Quite perfect in her manner with him and in her ease with his children, sensible, gay, pleasant, sweet-tempered; not in the faintest degree stiff or pedantic; accessible instantly. I have very rarely seen a more agreeable woman. The house is (on a smaller scale) any house we have known them in. Furnished with the old furniture, pictures, engravings, mirrors, tables, and chairs. b.u.t.ty is too tall for strength, I am afraid, but handsome, with a face of great power and character, and a very nice girl. Katie you know all about. Macready, decidedly much older and infirm. Very much changed. His old force has gone out of him strangely. I don't think I left off talking a minute from the time of my entering the house to my going to bed last night, and he was as much amused and interested as ever I saw him; still he was, and is, unquestionably aged.

And even now I am obliged to cut this letter short by having to go and look after Headland. It would never do to be away from the rest of them.

I have no idea what we are doing here; no notion whether things are right or wrong; no conception where the room is; no hold of the business at all. For which reason I cannot rest without going and looking after the worthy man.

[Sidenote: Miss Hogarth.]

TORQUAY, _Wednesday, Jan. 8th, 1862._

You know, I think, that I was very averse to going to Plymouth, and would not have gone there again but for poor Arthur. But on the last night I read "Copperfield," and positively enthralled the people. It was a most overpowering effect, and poor Andrew[7] came behind the screen, after the storm, and cried in the best and manliest manner. Also there were two or three lines of his s.h.i.+pmates and other sailors, and they were extraordinarily affected. But its culminating effect was on Macready at Cheltenham. When I got home after "Copperfield," I found him quite unable to speak, and able to do nothing but square his dear old jaw all on one side, and roll his eyes (half closed), like Jackson's picture of him. And when I said something light about it, he returned: "No--er--d.i.c.kens! I swear to Heaven that, as a piece of pa.s.sion and playfulness--er--indescribably mixed up together, it does--er--no, really, d.i.c.kens!--amaze me as profoundly as it moves me. But as a piece of art--and you know--er--that I--no, d.i.c.kens! By ----! have seen the best art in a great time--it is incomprehensible to me. How is it got at--er--how is it done--er--how one man can--well? It lays me on my--er--back, and it is of no use talking about it!" With which he put his hand upon my breast and pulled out his pocket-handkerchief, and I felt as if I were doing somebody to his Werner. Katie, by-the-bye, is a wonderful audience, and has a great fund of wild feeling in her. Johnny not at all unlike Plorn.

I have not yet seen the room here, but imagine it to be very small.

Exeter I know, and that is small also. I am very much used up, on the whole, for I cannot bear this moist warm climate. It would kill me very soon. And I have now got to the point of taking so much out of myself with "Copperfield," that I might as well do Richard Wardour.

You have now, my dearest Georgy, the fullest extent of my tidings. This is a very pretty place--a compound of Hastings, Tunbridge Wells, and little bits of the hills about Naples; but I met four respirators as I came up from the station, and three pale curates without them, who seemed in a bad way.

Frightful intelligence has just been brought in by Boylett, concerning the small size of the room. I have terrified Headland by sending him to look at it, and swearing that if it's too small I will go away to Exeter.

[Sidenote: Miss Hogarth.]

ADELPHI HOTEL, LIVERPOOL, _Tuesday, Jan. 28th, 1862._

The beautiful room was crammed to excess last night, and numbers were turned away. Its beauty and completeness when it is lighted up are most brilliant to behold, and for a reading it is simply perfect. You remember that a Liverpool audience is usually dull, but they put me on my mettle last night, for I never saw such an audience--no, not even in Edinburgh!

I slept horribly last night, and have been over to Birkenhead for a little change of air to-day. My head is dazed and worn by gas and heat, and I fear that "Copperfield" and "Bob" together to-night won't mend it.

Best love to Mamie and Katie, if still at Gad's. I am going to bring the boys some toffee.

[Sidenote: The Misses Armstrong]

GAD'S HILL PLACE, HIGHAM BY ROCHESTER, KENT, _Monday, Feb. 10th, 1862._

MY DEAR GIRLS,

For if I were to write "young friends," it would look like a schoolmaster; and if I were to write "young ladies," it would look like a schoolmistress; and worse than that, neither form of words would look familiar and natural, or in character with our snowy ride that tooth-chattering morning.

I cannot tell you both how gratified I was by your remembrance, or how often I think of you as I smoke the admirable cigars. But I almost think you must have had some magnetic consciousness across the Atlantic, of my whiffing my love towards you from the garden here.

My daughter says that when you have settled those little public affairs at home, she hopes you will come back to England (possibly in united states) and give a minute or two to this part of Kent. _Her_ words are, "a day or two;" but I remember your Italian flights, and correct the message.

I have only just now finished my country readings, and have had n.o.body to make breakfast for me since the remote ages of Colchester!

Ever faithfully yours.

OUR LETTER.

By M. F. ARMSTRONG.

"From among all my treasures--to each one of which some pleasant history is bound--I choose this letter, written on coa.r.s.e blue paper.

The letter was received in answer to cigars sent from America to Mr.

d.i.c.kens.

The 'little public affairs at home' refers to the war of the Rebellion.

At Colchester, he read 'The Trial' from 'Pickwick,' and selections from 'Nicholas Nickleby.'

The lady, her two sisters, and her brother were Mr. d.i.c.kens's guests at the queer old English inn at Colchester.

Through the softly falling snow we came back together to London, and on the railway platform parted, with a hearty hand-shaking, from the man who will for ever be enshrined in our hearts as the kindest and most generous, not to say most brilliant of hosts."

[Sidenote: M. de Cerjat.]

16, HYDE PARK GATE, SOUTH KENSINGTON GORE, _Sunday, March 16th, 1862._

MY DEAR CERJAT,

My daughter naturally liking to be in town at this time of year, I have changed houses with a friend for three months.

My eldest boy is in business as an Eastern merchant in the City, and will do well if he can find continuous energy; otherwise not. My second boy is with the 42nd Highlanders in India. My third boy, a good steady fellow, is educating expressly for engineers or artillery. My fourth (this sounds like a charade), a born little sailor, is a mids.h.i.+pman in H.M.S. _Orlando_, now at Bermuda, and will make his way anywhere.

Remaining two at school, elder of said remaining two very bright and clever. Georgina and Mary keeping house for me; and Francis Jeffrey (I ought to have counted him as the third boy, so we'll take him in here as number two and a half) in my office at present. Now you have the family bill of fare.

You ask me about Fechter and his Hamlet. It was a performance of extraordinary merit; by far the most coherent, consistent, and intelligible Hamlet I ever saw. Some of the delicacies with which he rendered his conception clear were extremely subtle; and in particular he avoided that brutality towards Ophelia which, with a greater or less amount of coa.r.s.eness, I have seen in all other Hamlets. As a mere _tour de force_, it would have been very remarkable in its disclosure of a perfectly wonderful knowledge of the force of the English language; but its merit was far beyond and above this. Foreign accent, of course, but not at all a disagreeable one. And he was so obviously safe and at ease, that you were never in pain for him as a foreigner. Add to this a perfectly picturesque and romantic "make up," and a remorseless destruction of all conventionalities, and you have the leading virtues of the impersonation. In Oth.e.l.lo he did not succeed. In Iago he is very good. He is an admirable artist, and far beyond anyone on our stage. A real artist and a gentleman.

Last Thursday I began reading again in London--a condensation of "Copperfield," and "Mr. Bob Sawyer's Party," from "Pickwick," to finish merrily. The success of "Copperfield" is astounding. It made an impression that _I_ must not describe. I may only remark that I was half dead when I had done; and that although I had looked forward, all through the summer, when I was carefully getting it up, to its being a London sensation; and that although Macready, hearing it at Cheltenham, told me to be prepared for a great effect, it even went beyond my hopes.

I read again next Thursday, and the rush for places is quite furious.

Tell Townshend this with my love, if you see him before I have time to write to him; and tell him that I thought the people would never let me go away, they became so excited, and showed it so very warmly. I am trying to plan out a new book, but have not got beyond trying.

Yours affectionately.