The Letters of Charles Dickens Volume Ii Part 35

1865.

NARRATIVE.

For this spring a furnished house in Somer's Place, Hyde Park, had been taken, which Charles d.i.c.kens occupied, with his sister-in-law and daughter, from the beginning of March until June.

During the year he paid two short visits to France.

He was still at work upon "Our Mutual Friend," two numbers of which had been issued in January and February, when the first volume was published, with dedication to Sir James Emerson Tennent. The remaining numbers were issued between March and November, when the complete work was published in two volumes.

The Christmas number, to which Charles d.i.c.kens contributed three stories, was called "Doctor Marigold's Prescriptions."

Being out of health, and much overworked, Charles d.i.c.kens, at the end of May, took his first short holiday trip into France. And on his way home, and on a day afterwards so fatal to him, the 9th of June, he was in that most terrible railway accident at Staplehurst. Many of our letters for this year have reference to this awful experience--an experience from the effects of which his nerves never wholly recovered. His letters to Mr. Thomas Mitton and to Mrs. Hulkes (an esteemed friend and neighbour) are graphic descriptions of this disaster. But they do NOT tell of the wonderful presence of mind and energy shown by Charles d.i.c.kens when most of the terrified pa.s.sengers were incapable of thought or action, or of his gentleness and goodness to the dead and dying. The Mr. d.i.c.kenson[14]

mentioned in the letter to Mrs. Hulkes soon recovered. He always considers that he owes his life to Charles d.i.c.kens, the latter having discovered and extricated him from beneath a carriage before it was too late.

Our first letter to Mr. Kent is one of congratulation upon his having become the proprietor of _The Sun_ newspaper.

Professor Owen has been so kind as to give us some notes, which we publish for the sake of his great name. Charles d.i.c.kens had not much correspondence with Professor Owen, but there was a firm friends.h.i.+p and great mutual admiration between them.

The letter to Mrs. Procter is in answer to one from her, asking Charles d.i.c.kens to write a memoir of her daughter Adelaide, as a preface to a collected edition of her poems.

[Sidenote: Mr. William Charles Kent.]

GAD'S HILL PLACE, HIGHAM BY ROCHESTER, KENT, _Tuesday, Jan. 17th, 1865._

MY DEAR KENT,

I meant to have written instantly on the appearance of your paper in its beautiful freshness, to congratulate you on its handsome appearance, and to send you my heartiest good wishes for its thriving and prosperous career. Through a mistake of the postman's, that remarkable letter has been tesselated into the Infernal Pavement instead of being delivered in the Strand.

We have been looking and waiting for your being well enough to propose yourself for a mouthful of fresh air. Are you well enough to come on Sunday? We shall be coming down from Charing Cross on Sunday morning, and I shall be going up again at nine on Monday morning.

It amuses me to find that you don't see your way with a certain "Mutual Friend" of ours. I have a horrible suspicion that you may begin to be fearfully knowing at somewhere about No. 12 or 13. But you shan't if I can help it.

Your note delighted me because it dwelt upon the places in the number that _I_ dwell on. Not that that is anything new in your case, but it is always new to me in the pleasure I derive from it, which is truly inexpressible.

Ever cordially yours.

[Sidenote: Mrs. Procter.]

GAD'S HILL PLACE, HIGHAM BY ROCHESTER, KENT, _Wednesday, Feb. 15th, 1865._

MY DEAR MRS. PROCTER,

Of course I will do it, and of course I will do it for the love of you and Procter. You can give me my brief, and we can speak about its details. Once again, of course I will do it, and with all my heart.

I have registered a vow (in which there is not the least merit, for I couldn't help it) that when I am, as I am now, very hard at work upon a book, I never will dine out more than one day in a week. Why didn't you ask me for the Wednesday, before I stood engaged to Lady Molesworth for the Tuesday?

It is so delightful to me to sit by your side anywhere and be brightened up, that I lay a handsome sacrifice upon the altar of "Our Mutual Friend" in writing this note, very much against my will. But for as many years as can be made consistent with my present juvenility, I always have given my work the first place in my life, and what can I do now at 35!--or at least at the two figures, never mind their order.

I send my love to Procter, hoping you may appropriate a little of it by the way.

Affectionately yours.

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

OFFICE OF "ALL THE YEAR ROUND,"

_Wednesday, March 1st, 1865._

MY DEAREST MACREADY,

I have been laid up here with a frost-bitten foot (from hard walking in the snow), or you would have heard from me sooner.

My reply to Professor Aga.s.siz is short, but conclusive. Daily seeing improper uses made of confidential letters in the addressing of them to a public audience that have no business with them, I made not long ago a great fire in my field at Gad's Hill, and burnt every letter I possessed. And now I always destroy every letter I receive not on absolute business, and my mind is so far at ease. Poor dear Felton's letters went up into the air with the rest, or his highly distinguished representative should have had them most willingly.

We never fail to drink old P.'s health on his birthday, or to make him the subject of a thousand loving remembrances. With best love to Mrs.

Macready and Katie,

Ever, my dearest Macready, Your most affectionate Friend.

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

16, SOMER'S PLACE, HYDE PARK, _Sat.u.r.day Night, April 22nd, 1865._

MY DEAREST MACREADY,

A thousand thanks for your kind letter, most heartily welcome.

My frost-bitten foot, after causing me great inconvenience and much pain, has begun to conduct itself amiably. I can now again walk my ten miles in the morning without inconvenience, but am absurdly obliged to sit shoeless all the evening--a very slight penalty, as I detest going out to dinner (which killed the original old Parr by-the-bye).

I am working like a dragon at my book, and am a terror to the household, likewise to all the organs and bra.s.s bands in this quarter. Gad's Hill is being gorgeously painted, and we are here until the 1st of June. I wish I might hope you would be there any time this summer; I really _have_ made the place comfortable and pretty by this time.

It is delightful to us to hear such good news of b.u.t.ty. She made so deep an impression on Fechter that he always asks me what Ceylon has done for her, and always beams when I tell him how thoroughly well it has made her. As to _you_, you are the youngest man (worth mentioning as a thorough man) that I know. Oh, let me be as young when I am as----did you think I was going to write "old?" No, sir--withdrawn from the wear and tear of busy life is my expression.

Poole still holds out at Kentish Town, and says he is dying of solitude.

His memory is astoundingly good. I see him about once in two or three months, and in the meantime he makes notes of questions to ask me when I come. Having fallen in arrear of the time, these generally refer to unknown words he has encountered in the newspapers. His three last (he always reads them with tremendous difficulty through an enormous magnifying-gla.s.s) were as follows:

1. What's croquet?

2. What's an Albert chain?

3. Let me know the state of mind of the Queen.

When I had delivered a neat exposition on these heads, he turned back to his memoranda, and came to something that the utmost power of the enormous magnifying-gla.s.s couldn't render legible. After a quarter of an hour or so, he said: "O yes, I know." And then rose and clasped his hands above his head, and said: "Thank G.o.d, I am not a dram-drinker."

Do think of coming to Gad's in the summer; and do give my love to Mrs.

Macready, and tell her I know she can make you come if she will. Mary and Georgy send best and dearest loves to her, to you, and to Katie, and to baby. Johnny we suppose to be climbing the tree of knowledge elsewhere.