Of family intelligence I have very little. Charles Collins continuing in a very poor way, and showing no signs of amendment. He and my daughter Katie went to Wiesbaden and thence to Nice, where they are now. I have strong apprehensions that he will never recover, and that she will be left a young widow. All the rest are as they were. Mary neither married nor going to be; Georgina holding them all together and perpetually corresponding with the distant ones; occasional rallyings coming off here, in which another generation begins to peep above the table. I once used to think what a horrible thing it was to be a grandfather. Finding that the calamity falls upon me without my perceiving any other change in myself, I bear it like a man.

Mrs. Watson has bought a house in town, to which she repairs in the season, for the bringing out of her daughter. She is now at Rockingham. Her eldest son is said to be as good an eldest son as ever was, and to make her position there a perfectly independent and happy one. I have not seen him for some years; her I often see; but he ought to be a good fellow, and is very popular in his neighbourhood.

I have altered this place very much since you were here, and have made a pretty (I think an unusually pretty) drawing-room. I wish you would come back and see it. My being on the Dover line, and my being very fond of France, occasion me to cross the Channel perpetually. Whenever I feel that I have worked too much, or am on the eve of overdoing it, and want a change, away I go by the mail-train, and turn up in Paris or anywhere else that suits my humour, next morning. So I come back as fresh as a daisy, and preserve as ruddy a face as though I never leant over a sheet of paper. When I retire from a literary life I think of setting up as a Channel pilot.

Pray give my love to Mrs. Cerjat, and tell her that I should like to go up the Great St. Bernard again, and shall be glad to know if she is open to another ascent. Old days in Switzerland are ever fresh to me, and sometimes I walk with you again, after dark, outside the hotel at Martigny, while Lady Mary Taylour (wasn't it?) sang within very prettily. Lord, how the time goes! How many years ago!

Affectionately yours.

Wednesday, Nov. 16th, 1864.[13]

DEAR MADAM,

I have received your letter with great pleasure, and hope to be (as I have always been at heart) the best of friends with the Jewish people. The error you point out to me had occurred to me, as most errors do to most people, when it was too late to correct it. But it will do no harm. The peculiarities of dress and manner are fused together for the sake of picturesqueness.

Dear Madam, faithfully yours.

[Sidenote: Mr. B. W. Procter.]

GAD'S HILL PLACE, HIGHAM BY ROCHESTER, KENT, Saturday, Dec. 31st, 1864.

MY DEAR PROCTER,

I have reserved my acknowledgment of your delightful note (the youngest note I have had in all this year) until to-day, in order that I might send, most heartily and affectionately, all seasonable good wishes to you and to Mrs. Procter, and to those who are nearest and dearest to you. Take them from an old friend who loves you.

Mamie returns the tender compliments, and Georgina does what the Americans call "endorse them." Mrs. Lirriper is proud to be so remembered, and says over and over again "that it's worth twenty times the trouble she has taken with the narrative, since Barry Cornwall, Esquire, is pleased to like it."

I got rid of a touch of neuralgia in France (as I always do there), but I found no old friends in my voyages of discovery on that side, such as I have left on this.

My dear Procter, ever your affectionate.

FOOTNOTES:

[13] In answer to another letter from the "Jewish lady," in which she gives her reasons for still being dissatisfied with the character of Riah.



1865.

NARRATIVE.

For this spring a furnished house in Somer's Place, Hyde Park, had been taken, which Charles Dickens 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 Dickens contributed three stories, was called "Doctor Marigold's Prescriptions."

Being out of health, and much overworked, Charles Dickens, 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 Dickens when most of the terrified passengers were incapable of thought or action, or of his gentleness and goodness to the dead and dying. The Mr. Dickenson[14] mentioned in the letter to Mrs. Hulkes soon recovered. He always considers that he owes his life to Charles Dickens, 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 Dickens had not much correspondence with Professor Owen, but there was a firm friendship and great mutual admiration between them.

The letter to Mrs. Procter is in answer to one from her, asking Charles Dickens 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 Agassiz 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, Saturday 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 brass 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 Butty. 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-glass) 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-glass 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 God, 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.

My dearest Macready, ever yours most affectionately.

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

GAD'S HILL, Monday, June 12th, 1865.

MY DEAREST MACREADY,

[So far in his own writing.]

Many thanks for your kind words of remembrance.[15] This is not all in my own hand, because I am too much shaken to write many notes. Not by the beating and dragging of the carriage in which I was—it did not go over, but was caught on the turn, among the ruins of the bridge—but by the work afterwards to get out the dying and dead, which was terrible.

[The rest in his own writing.]

Ever your affectionate Friend.

P.S.—My love to Mrs. Macready.

[Sidenote: Mr. Thomas Mitton.]

GAD'S HILL PLACE, HIGHAM BY ROCHESTER, KENT, Tuesday, June 13th, 1865.

MY DEAR MITTON,

I should have written to you yesterday or the day before, if I had been quite up to writing.

I was in the only carriage that did not go over into the stream. It was caught upon the turn by some of the ruin of the bridge, and hung suspended and balanced in an apparently impossible manner. Two ladies were my fellow-passengers, an old one and a young one. This is exactly what passed. You may judge from it the precise length of the suspense: Suddenly we were off the rail, and beating the ground as the car of a half-emptied balloon might. The old lady cried out, "My God!" and the young one screamed. I caught hold of them both (the old lady sat opposite and the young one on my left), and said: "We can't help ourselves, but we can be quiet and composed. Pray don't cry out." The old lady immediately answered: "Thank you. Rely upon me. Upon my soul I will be quiet." We were then all tilted down together in a corner of the carriage, and stopped. I said to them thereupon: "You may be sure nothing worse can happen. Our danger must be over. Will you remain here without stirring, while I get out of the window?" They both answered quite collectedly, "Yes," and I got out without the least notion what had happened. Fortunately I got out with great caution and stood upon the step. Looking down I saw the bridge gone, and nothing below me but the line of rail. Some people in the two other compartments were madly trying to plunge out at window, and had no idea that there was an open swampy field fifteen feet down below them, and nothing else! The two guards (one with his face cut) were running up and down on the down side of the bridge (which was not torn up) quite wildly. I called out to them: "Look at me. Do stop an instant and look at me, and tell me whether you don't know me." One of them answered: "We know you very well, Mr. Dickens." "Then," I said, "my good fellow, for God's sake give me your key, and send one of those labourers here, and I'll empty this carriage." We did it quite safely, by means of a plank or two, and when it was done I saw all the rest of the train, except the two baggage vans, down in the stream. I got into the carriage again for my brandy flask, took off my travelling hat for a basin, climbed down the brickwork, and filled my hat with water.

Suddenly I came upon a staggering man covered with blood (I think he must have been flung clean out of his carriage), with such a frightful cut across the skull that I couldn't bear to look at him. I poured some water over his face and gave him some to drink, then gave him some brandy, and laid him down on the grass, and he said, "I am gone," and died afterwards. Then I stumbled over a lady lying on her back against a little pollard-tree, with the blood streaming over her face (which was lead colour) in a number of distinct little streams from the head. I asked her if she could swallow a little brandy and she just nodded, and I gave her some and left her for somebody else. The next time I passed her she was dead. Then a man, examined at the inquest yesterday (who evidently had not the least remembrance of what really passed), came running up to me and implored me to help him find his wife, who was afterwards found dead. No imagination can conceive the ruin of the carriages, or the extraordinary weights under which the people were lying, or the complications into which they were twisted up among iron and wood, and mud and water.

I don't want to be examined at the inquest, and I don't want to write about it. I could do no good either way, and I could only seem to speak about myself, which, of course, I would rather not do. I am keeping very quiet here. I have a—I don't know what to call it—constitutional (I suppose) presence of mind, and was not in the least fluttered at the time. I instantly remembered that I had the MS. of a number with me, and clambered back into the carriage for it. But in writing these scanty words of recollection I feel the shake and am obliged to stop.

Ever faithfully.

[Sidenote: Mr. Walter Jones.]

GAD'S HILL PLACE, HIGHAM BY ROCHESTER, KENT, Saturday, June 17th, 1865.[16]

SIR,

I beg you to assure the Committee of the Newsvendors' Benevolent and Provident Institution, that I have been deeply affected by their special remembrance of me in my late escape from death or mutilation, and that I thank them with my whole heart.

Faithfully yours and theirs.

[Sidenote: Mrs. Hulkes.]

GAD'S HILL, Sunday, June 18th, 1865.

MY DEAR MRS. HULKES,

I return the Examiner with many thanks. The account is true, except that I had brandy. By an extraordinary chance I had a bottle and a half with me. I slung the half-bottle round my neck, and carried my hat full of water in my hands. But I can understand the describer (whoever he is) making the mistake in perfect good faith, and supposing that I called for brandy, when I really called to the others who were helping: "I have brandy here." The Mr. Dickenson mentioned had changed places with a Frenchman, who did not like the window down, a few minutes before the accident. The Frenchman was killed, and a labourer and I got Mr. Dickenson out of a most extraordinary heap of dark ruins, in which he was jammed upside down. He was bleeding at the eyes, ears, nose, and mouth; but he didn't seem to know that afterwards, and of course I didn't tell him. In the moment of going over the viaduct the whole of his pockets were shaken empty! He had no watch, no chain, no money, no pocket-book, no handkerchief, when we got him out. He had been choking a quarter of an hour when I heard him groaning. If I had not had the brandy to give him at the moment, I think he would have been done for. As it was, I brought him up to London in the carriage with me, and couldn't make him believe he was hurt. He was the first person whom the brandy saved. As I ran back to the carriage for the whole full bottle, I saw the first two people I had helped lying dead. A bit of shade from the hot sun, into which we got the unhurt ladies, soon had as many dead in it as living.

Faithfully yours always.

[Sidenote: Mr. Arthur Ryland.]

GAD'S HILL PLACE, HIGHAM BY ROCHESTER, KENT, Wednesday, June 21st, 1865.

MY DEAR MR. RYLAND,

I need not assure you that I regard the unanimous desire of the Town Council Committee as a great honour, and that I feel the strongest interest in the occasion, and the strongest wish to associate myself with it.

But, after careful consideration, I most unwillingly come to the conclusion that I must decline. At the time in question I shall, please God, either have just finished, or be just finishing, my present book. Country rest and reflection will then be invaluable to me, before casting about for Christmas. I am a little shaken in my nervous system by the terrible and affecting incidents of the late railway accident, from which I bodily escaped. I am withdrawing myself from engagements of all kinds, in order that I may pursue my story with the comfortable sense of being perfectly free while it is a-doing, and when it is done. The consciousness of having made this engagement would, if I were to make it, render such sense incomplete, and so open the way to others. This is the real state of the case, and the whole reason for my declining.

Faithfully yours always.

[Sidenote: Mrs. Lehmann.]

GAD'S HILL PLACE, HIGHAM BY ROCHESTER, KENT, Tuesday, June 29th, 1865.

DEAR MRS. LEHMANN,

Come (with self and partner) on either of the days you name, and you will be heartily welcomed by the humble youth who now addresses you, and will then cast himself at your feet.

I am quite right again, I thank God, and have even got my voice back; I most unaccountably brought somebody else's out of that terrible scene. The directors have sent me a Resolution of Thanks for assistance to the unhappy passengers.

With kind regards to Lehmann, ever yours.

[Sidenote: Mr. Percy Fitzgerald.]

OFFICE OF "ALL THE YEAR ROUND," Friday, July 7th, 1865.

MY DEAR FITZGERALD,

I shall be delighted to see you at Gad's Hill on Sunday, and I hope you will bring a bag with you and will not think of returning to London at night.

We are a small party just now, for my daughter Mary has been decoyed to Andover for the election week, in the Conservative interest; think of my feelings as a Radical parent! The wrong-headed member and his wife are the friends with whom she hunts, and she helps to receive (and deceive) the voters, which is very awful!

But in the week after next we shall be in great croquet force. I shall hope to persuade you to come back to us then for a few days, and we will try to make you some amends for a dull Sunday. Turn it over in your mind and try to manage it.

Sincerely yours ever.

[Sidenote: Professor Owen, F.R.S.]

GAD'S HILL, Wednesday, July 12th, 1865.

MY DEAR OWEN,

Studying the gorilla last night for the twentieth time, it suddenly came into my head that I had never thanked you for that admirable treatise. This is to bear witness to my blushes and repentance. If you knew how much interest it has awakened in me, and how often it has set me a-thinking, you would consider me a more thankless beast than any gorilla that ever lived. But happily you do not know, and I am not going to tell you.

Believe me, ever faithfully yours.

[Sidenote: The Earl Russell.]

GAD'S HILL PLACE, HIGHAM BY ROCHESTER, KENT, Wednesday, Aug. 16th, 1865.

MY DEAR LORD RUSSELL,

Mr. Dallas, who is a candidate for the Scotch professional chair left vacant by Aytoun's death, has asked me if I would object to introduce to you the first volume of a book he has in the press with my publishers, on "The Gay Science of Art and Criticism." I have replied I would not object, as I have read as many of the sheets as I could get, with extreme pleasure, and as I know you will find it a very winning and brilliant piece of writing. Therefore he will send the proofs of the volume to you as soon as he can get them from the printer (at about the end of this week I take it), and if you read them you will not be hard upon me for bearing the responsibility of his doing so, I feel assured.

I suppose Mr. Dallas to have some impression that his pleasing you with his book might advance his Scottish suit. But all I know is, that he is a gentleman of great attainments and erudition, much distinguished as the writer of the best critical literary pieces in The Times, and thoroughly versed in the subjects which Professor Aytoun represented officially.

I beg to send my regard to Lady Russell and all the house, and am ever, my dear Lord Russell,

Your faithful and obliged.

P.S.—I am happy to report that my sailor-boy's captain, relinquishing his ship on sick leave, departs from the mere form of certificate given to all the rest, and adds that his obedience to orders is remarkable, and that he is a highly intelligent and promising young officer.

[Sidenote: Mr. Marcus Stone.]

HOTEL DU HELDER, PARIS, Wednesday, Sept. 13th, 1865.

MY DEAR MARCUS,

I leave here to-morrow, and propose going to the office by tidal train next Saturday evening. Through the whole of next week, on and off, I shall be at the office; when not there, at Gad's; but much oftener at the office. The sooner I can know about the subjects you take for illustration the better, as I can then fill the list of illustrations to the second volume for the printer, and enable him to make up his last sheet. Necessarily that list is now left blank, as I cannot give him the titles of the subjects, not knowing them myself.

It has been fearfully hot on this side, but is something cooler.

Ever affectionately yours.

P.S.—On glancing over this note, I find it very like the king's love-letter in "Ruy Blas." "Madam, there is a high wind. I have shot six wolves."

I think the frontispiece to the second volume should be the dustyard with the three mounds, and Mr. Boffin digging up the Dutch bottle, and Venus restraining Wegg's ardour to get at him. Or Mr. Boffin might be coming down with the bottle, and Venus might be dragging Wegg out of the way as described.

[Sidenote: Mr. Percy Fitzgerald.]

OFFICE OF "ALL THE YEAR ROUND," Saturday, Sept. 23rd, 1865.

MY DEAR FITZGERALD,

I cannot thank you too much for Sultan. He is a noble fellow, has fallen into the ways of the family with a grace and dignity that denote the gentleman, and came down to the railway a day or two since to welcome me home (it was our first meeting), with a profound absence of interest in my individual opinion of him which captivated me completely. I am going home to-day to take him about the country, and improve his acquaintance. You will find a perfect understanding between us, I hope, when you next come to Gad's Hill. (He has only swallowed Bouncer once, and temporarily.)

Your hint that you were getting on with your story and liked it was more than golden intelligence to me in foreign parts. The intensity of the heat, both in Paris and the provinces, was such that I found nothing else so refreshing in the course of my rambles.

With many more thanks for the dog than my sheet of paper would hold,

Believe me, ever very faithfully yours.

[Sidenote: Mrs. Procter.]

GAD'S HILL PLACE, HIGHAM BY ROCHESTER, KENT, Sept. 26th, 1865.

MY DEAR MRS. PROCTER,

I have written the little introduction, and have sent it to my printer, in order that you may read it without trouble. But if you would like to keep the few pages of MS., of course they are yours.

It is brief, and I have aimed at perfect simplicity, and an avoidance of all that your beloved Adelaide would have wished avoided. Do not expect too much from it. If there should be anything wrong in fact, or anything that you would like changed for any reason, of course you will tell me so, and of course you will not deem it possible that you can trouble me by making any such request most freely.

You will probably receive the proof either on Friday or Saturday. Don't write to me until you have read it. In the meantime I send you back the two books, with the two letters in the bound one.

With love to Procter, Ever your affectionate Friend.

[Sidenote: Mr. Edmund Yates.]

HOTEL DU HELDER, PARIS, Wednesday, Sept. 30th, 1865.

MY DEAR EDMUND,

I leave here to-morrow and purpose being at the office on Saturday night; all next week I shall be there, off and on—"off" meaning Gad's Hill; the office will be my last address. The heat has been excessive on this side of the Channel, and I got a slight sunstroke last Thursday, and was obliged to be doctored and put to bed for a day; but, thank God, I am all right again. The man who sells the tisane on the Boulevards can't keep the flies out of his glasses, and as he wears them on his red velvet bands, the flies work themselves into the ends of the tumblers, trying to get through and tickle the man. If fly life were long enough, I think they would at last. Three paving blouses came to work at the corner of this street last Monday, pulled up a bit of road, sat down to look at it, and fell asleep. On Tuesday one of the blouses spat on his hands and seemed to be going to begin, but didn't. The other two have shown no sign of life whatever. This morning the industrious one ate a loaf. You may rely upon this as the latest news from the French capital.

Faithfully ever.

[Sidenote: Mr. William Charles Kent.]

26, WELLINGTON STREET, Monday, Nov. 6th, 1865.

MY DEAR KENT,

No, I won't write in this book, because I have sent another to the binder's for you.

I have been unwell with a relaxed throat, or I should have written to you sooner to thank you for your dedication, to assure you that it heartily, most heartily, gratifies me, as the sincere tribute of a true and generous heart, and to tell you that I have been charmed with your book itself. I am proud of having given a name to anything so picturesque, so sympathetic and spirited.

I hope and believe the "Doctor" is nothing but a good 'un. He has perfectly astonished Forster, who writes: "Neither good, gooder, nor goodest, but super-excellent; all through there is such a relish of you at your best, as I could not have believed in, after a long story."

I shall be charmed to see you to-night.

Ever affectionately.

[Sidenote: M. de Cerjat.]

GAD'S HILL PLACE, HIGHAM BY ROCHESTER, KENT, November 13th, 1865.

EXTRACT.

MY DEAR CERJAT,

Having achieved my book and my Christmas number, and having shaken myself after two years' work, I send you my annual greeting. How are you? Asthmatic, I know you will reply; but as my poor father (who was asthmatic, too, and the jolliest of men) used philosophically to say, "one must have something wrong, I suppose, and I like to know what it is."

In England we are groaning under the brigandage of the butcher, which is being carried to that height that I think I foresee resistance on the part of the middle-class, and some combination in perspective for abolishing the middleman, whensoever he turns up (which is everywhere) between producer and consumer. The cattle plague is the butcher's stalking-horse, and it is unquestionably worse than it was; but seeing that the great majority of creatures lost or destroyed have been cows, and likewise that the rise in butchers' meat bears no reasonable proportion to the market prices of the beasts, one comes to the conclusion that the public is done. The commission has ended very weakly and ineffectually, as such things in England rather frequently do; and everybody writes to The Times, and nobody does anything else.

If the Americans don't embroil us in a war before long it will not be their fault. What with their swagger and bombast, what with their claims for indemnification, what with Ireland and Fenianism, and what with Canada, I have strong apprehensions. With a settled animosity towards the French usurper, I believe him to have always been sound in his desire to divide the States against themselves, and that we were unsound and wrong in "letting I dare not wait upon I would." The Jamaica insurrection is another hopeful piece of business. That platform-sympathy with the black—or the native, or the devil—afar off, and that platform indifference to our own countrymen at enormous odds in the midst of bloodshed and savagery, makes me stark wild. Only the other day, here was a meeting of jawbones of asses at Manchester, to censure the Jamaica Governor for his manner of putting down the insurrection! So we are badgered about New Zealanders and Hottentots, as if they were identical with men in clean shirts at Camberwell, and were to be bound by pen and ink accordingly. So Exeter Hall holds us in mortal submission to missionaries, who (Livingstone always excepted) are perfect nuisances, and leave every place worse than they found it.

Of all the many evidences that are visible of our being ill-governed, no one is so remarkable to me as our ignorance of what is going on under our Government. What will future generations think of that enormous Indian Mutiny being ripened without suspicion, until whole regiments arose and killed their officers? A week ago, red tape, half-bouncing and half pooh-poohing what it bounced at, would have scouted the idea of a Dublin jail not being able to hold a political prisoner. But for the blacks in Jamaica being over-impatient and before their time, the whites might have been exterminated, without a previous hint or suspicion that there was anything amiss. Laissez aller, and Britons never, never, never!——

Meantime, if your honour were in London, you would see a great embankment rising high and dry out of the Thames on the Middlesex shore, from Westminster Bridge to Blackfriars. A really fine work, and really getting on. Moreover, a great system of drainage. Another really fine work, and likewise really getting on. Lastly, a muddle of railways in all directions possible and impossible, with no general public scheme, no general public supervision, enormous waste of money, no fixable responsibility, no accountability but under Lord Campbell's Act. I think of that accident in which I was preserved. Before the most furious and notable train in the four-and-twenty hours, the head of a gang of workmen takes up the rails. That train changes its time every day as the tide changes, and that head workman is not provided by the railway company with any clock or watch! Lord Shaftesbury wrote to me to ask me what I thought of an obligation on railway companies to put strong walls to all bridges and viaducts. I told him, of course, that the force of such a shock would carry away anything that any company could set up, and I added: "Ask the minister what he thinks about the votes of the railway interest in the House of Commons, and about his being afraid to lay a finger on it with an eye to his majority."

I seem to be grumbling, but I am in the best of humours. All goes well with me and mine, thank God.

Last night my gardener came upon a man in the garden and fired. The man returned the compliment by kicking him in the groin and causing him great pain. I set off, with a great mastiff-bloodhound I have, in pursuit. Couldn't find the evil-doer, but had the greatest difficulty in preventing the dog from tearing two policemen down. They were coming towards us with professional mystery, and he was in the air on his way to the throat of an eminently respectable constable when I caught him.

My daughter Mary and her aunt Georgina send kindest regard and remembrance. Katey and her husband are going to try London this winter, but I rather doubt (for they are both delicate) their being able to weather it out. It has been blowing here tremendously for a fortnight, but to-day is like a spring day, and plenty of roses are growing over the labourers' cottages. The Great Eastern lies at her moorings beyond the window where I write these words; looks very dull and unpromising. A dark column of smoke from Chatham Dockyard, where the iron shipbuilding is in progress, has a greater significance in it, I fancy.

[Sidenote: Miss Dickens.]

GAD'S HILL PLACE, HIGHAM BY ROCHESTER, KENT, Tuesday, Nov. 14th, 1865.

MY DEAREST MAMIE,

As you want to know my views of the Sphinx, here they are. But I have only seen it once; and it is so extraordinarily well done, that it ought to be observed closely several times.

Anyone who attentively notices the flower trick will see that the two little high tables hung with drapery cover each a trap. Each of those tables, during that trick, hides a confederate, who changes the paper cone twice. When the cone has been changed as often as is required, the trap is closed and the table can be moved.

When the curtain is removed for the performance of the Sphinx trick, there is a covered, that is, draped table on the stage, which is never seen before or afterwards. In front of the middle of it, and between it and the audience, stands one of those little draped tables covering a trap; this is a third trap in the centre of the stage. The box for the head is then upon IT, and the conjuror takes it off and shows it. The man whose head is afterwards shown in that box is, I conceive, in the table; that is to say, is lying on his chest in the thickness of the table, in an extremely constrained attitude. To get him into the table, and to enable him to use the trap in the table through which his head comes into the box, the two hands of a confederate are necessary. That confederate comes up a trap, and stands in the space afforded by the interval below the stage and the height of the little draped table! his back is towards the audience. The moment he has assisted the hidden man sufficiently, he closes the trap, and the conjuror then immediately removes the little draped table, and also the drapery of the larger table; when he places the box on the last-named table with the slide on for the head to come into it, he stands with his back to the audience and his face to the box, and masks the box considerably to facilitate the insertion of the head. As soon as he knows the head to be in its place, he undraws the slide. When the verses have been spoken and the trick is done, he loses no time in replacing the slide. The curtain is then immediately dropped, because the man cannot otherwise be got out of the table, and has no doubt had quite enough of it. With kindest regards to all at Penton,

Ever your most affectionate.

FOOTNOTES:

[14] Now Captain E. Newton Dickenson.

[15] This was a circular note which he sent in answer to innumerable letters of enquiry, after the accident.

[16] This letter was written in reply to the Committee's congratulations upon Mr. Dickens's escape from the accident to the tidal train from Folkestone, at Staplehurst, just previous to this date.



1866.

NARRATIVE.

The furnished house hired by Charles Dickens in the spring of this year was in Southwick Place, Hyde Park.

Having entered into negotiations with the Messrs. Chappell for a series of readings to be given in London, in the English provinces, in Scotland and Ireland, Charles Dickens had no leisure for more than his usual editorial work for "All the Year Round." He contributed four parts to the Christmas number, which was entitled, "Mugby Junction."

For the future all his English readings were given in connection with the Messrs. Chappell, and never in all his career had he more satisfactory or more pleasant business relations than those connected with these gentlemen. Moreover, out of this connection sprang a sincere friendship on both sides.

Mr. Dolby is so constantly mentioned in future letters, that they themselves will tell of the cordial companionship which existed between Charles Dickens and this able and most obliging "manager."

The letter to "Lily" was in answer to a child's letter from Miss Lily Benzon, inviting him to a birthday party.

The play alluded to in the letter to M. Fechter was called "A Long Strike," and was performed at the Lyceum Theatre.

The "Sultan" mentioned in the letter to Mr. Fitzgerald was a noble Irish bloodhound, presented by this gentleman to Charles Dickens. The story of the dog's death is told in a letter to M. de Cerjat, which we give in the following year.

[Sidenote: Miss Mary Boyle.]

OFFICE OF "ALL THE YEAR ROUND," Saturday, Jan. 6th, 1866.

MY DEAR MARY,

Feeling pretty certain that I shall never answer your letter unless I answer it at once (I got it this morning), here goes!

I did not dramatise "The Master of Ravenswood," though I did a good deal towards and about the piece, having an earnest desire to put Scott, for once, upon the stage in his own gallant manner. It is an enormous success, and increases in attraction nightly. I have never seen the people in all parts of the house so leaning forward, in lines sloping towards the stage, earnestly and intently attractive, as while the story gradually unfolds itself. But the astonishing circumstance of all is, that Miss Leclercq (never thought of for Lucy till all other Lucies had failed) is marvellously good, highly pathetic, and almost unrecognisable in person! What note it touches in her, always dumb until now, I do not pretend to say, but there is no one on the stage who could play the contract scene better, or more simply and naturally, and I find it impossible to see it without crying! Almost everyone plays well, the whole is exceedingly picturesque, and there is scarcely a movement throughout, or a look, that is not indicated by Scott. So you get a life romance with beautiful illustrations, and I do not expect ever again to see a book take up its bed and walk in like manner.

I am charmed to learn that you have had a freeze out of my ghost story. It rather did give me a shiver up the back in the writing. "Dr. Marigold" has just now accomplished his two hundred thousand. My only other news about myself is that I am doubtful whether to read or not in London this season. If I decide to do it at all, I shall probably do it on a large scale.

Many happy years to you, my dear Mary. So prays

Your ever affectionate Jo.

[Sidenote: Mr. William Charles Kent.]

GAD'S HILL, Thursday, Jan. 18th, 1866.

MY DEAR KENT,

I cannot tell you how grieved we all are here to know that you are suffering again. Your patient tone, however, and the hopefulness and forbearance of Ferguson's course, gives us some reassurance. Apropos of which latter reference I dined with Ferguson at the Lord Mayor's, last Tuesday, and had a grimly distracted impulse upon me to defy the toast-master and rush into a speech about him and his noble art, when I sat pining under the imbecility of constitutional and corporational idiots. I did seize him for a moment by the hair of his head (in proposing the Lady Mayoress), and derived some faint consolation from the company's response to the reference. O! no man will ever know under what provocation to contradiction and a savage yell of repudiation I suffered at the hands of ——, feebly complacent in the uniform of Madame Tussaud's own military waxers, and almost the worst speaker I ever heard in my life! Mary and Georgina, sitting on either side of me, urged me to "look pleasant." I replied in expressions not to be repeated. Shea (the judge) was just as good and graceful, as he (the member) was bad and gawky.

Bulwer's "Lost Tales of Miletus" is a most noble book! He is an extraordinary fellow, and fills me with admiration and wonder.

It is of no use writing to you about yourself, my dear Kent, because you are likely to be tired of that constant companion, and so I have gone scratching (with an exceedingly bad pen) about and about you. But I come back to you to let you know that the reputation of this house as a convalescent hospital stands (like the house itself) very high, and that testimonials can be produced from credible persons who have recovered health and spirits here swiftly. Try us, only try us, and we are content to stake the reputation of the establishment on the result.

Ever affectionately yours.

[Sidenote: Mr. Percy Fitzgerald.]

GAD'S HILL, Friday, Feb. 2nd, 1866.

MY DEAR FITZGERALD,

I ought to have written to you days and days ago, to thank you for your charming book on Charles Lamb, to tell you with what interest and pleasure I read it as soon as it came here, and to add that I was honestly affected (far more so than your modesty will readily believe) by your intimate knowledge of those touches of mine concerning childhood.

Let me tell you now that I have not in the least cooled, after all, either as to the graceful sympathetic book, or as to the part in it with which I am honoured. It has become a matter of real feeling with me, and I postponed its expression because I couldn't satisfactorily get it out of myself, and at last I came to the conclusion that it must be left in.

My dear Fitzgerald, faithfully yours always.

[Sidenote: Miss Hogarth.]

OFFICE OF "ALL THE YEAR ROUND," Friday, Feb. 9th, 1866.

MY DEAREST GEORGY,

I found your letter here when I came back on Wednesday evening, and was extremely glad to get it.

Frank Beard wrote me word that with such a pulse as I described, an examination of the heart was absolutely necessary, and that I had better make an appointment with him alone for the purpose. This I did. I was not at all disconcerted, for I knew well beforehand that the effect could not possibly be without that one cause at the bottom of it. There seems to be degeneration of some functions of the heart. It does not contract as it should. So I have got a prescription of iron, quinine, and digitalis, to set it a-going, and send the blood more quickly through the system. If it should not seem to succeed on a reasonable trial, I will then propose a consultation with someone else. Of course I am not so foolish as to suppose that all my work can have been achieved without some penalty, and I have noticed for some time a decided change in my buoyancy and hopefulness—in other words, in my usual "tone."

I shall wait to see Beard again on Monday, and shall most probably come down that day. If I should not, I will telegraph after seeing him. Best love to Mamie.

[Sidenote: Mrs. Brookfield.]

OFFICE OF "ALL THE YEAR ROUND," Tuesday, Feb. 20th, 1866.

MY DEAR MRS. BROOKFIELD,

Having gone through your MS. (which I should have done sooner, but that I have not been very well), I write these few following words about it. Firstly, with a limited reference to its unsuitability to these pages. Secondly, with a more enlarged reference to the merits of the story itself.

If you will take any part of it and cut it up (in fancy) into the small portions into which it would have to be divided here for only a month's supply, you will (I think) at once discover the impossibility of publishing it in weekly parts. The scheme of the chapters, the manner of introducing the people, the progress of the interest, the places in which the principal places fall, are all hopelessly against it. It would seem as though the story were never coming, and hardly ever moving. There must be a special design to overcome that specially trying mode of publication, and I cannot better express the difficulty and labour of it than by asking you to turn over any two weekly numbers of "A Tale of Two Cities," or "Great Expectations," or Bulwer's story, or Wilkie Collins's, or Reade's, or "At the Bar," and notice how patiently and expressly the thing has to be planned for presentation in these fragments, and yet for afterwards fusing together as an uninterrupted whole.

Of the story itself I honestly say that I think highly. The style is particularly easy and agreeable, infinitely above ordinary writing, and sometimes reminds me of Mrs. Inchbald at her best. The characters are remarkably well observed, and with a rare mixture of delicacy and truthfulness. I observe this particularly in the brother and sister, and in Mrs. Neville. But it strikes me that you constantly hurry your narrative (and yet without getting on) by telling it, in a sort of impetuous breathless way, in your own person, when the people should tell it and act it for themselves. My notion always is, that when I have made the people to play out the play, it is, as it were, their business to do it, and not mine. Then, unless you really have led up to a great situation like Basil's death, you are bound in art to make more of it. Such a scene should form a chapter of itself. Impressed upon the reader's memory, it would go far to make the fortune of the book. Suppose yourself telling that affecting incident in a letter to a friend. Wouldn't you describe how you went through the life and stir of the streets and roads to the sick-room? Wouldn't you say what kind of room it was, what time of day it was, whether it was sunlight, starlight, or moonlight? Wouldn't you have a strong impression on your mind of how you were received, when you first met the look of the dying man, what strange contrasts were about you and struck you? I don't want you, in a novel, to present yourself to tell such things, but I want the things to be there. You make no more of the situation than the index might, or a descriptive playbill might in giving a summary of the tragedy under representation.

As a mere piece of mechanical workmanship, I think all your chapters should be shorter; that is to say, that they should be subdivided. Also, when you change from narrative to dialogue, or vice versa, you should make the transition more carefully. Also, taking the pains to sit down and recall the principal landmarks in your story, you should then make them far more elaborate and conspicuous than the rest. Even with these changes I do not believe that the story would attract the attention due to it, if it were published even in such monthly portions as the space of "Fraser" would admit of. Even so brightened, it would not, to the best of my judgment, express itself piecemeal. It seems to me to be so constituted as to require to be read "off the reel." As a book in two volumes I think it would have good claims to success, and good chances of obtaining success. But I suppose the polishing I have hinted at (not a meretricious adornment, but positively necessary to good work and good art) to have been first thoroughly administered.

Now don't hate me if you can help it. I can afford to be hated by some people, but I am not rich enough to put you in possession of that luxury.

Ever faithfully yours.

P.S.—The MS. shall be delivered at your house to-morrow. And your petitioner again prays not to be, etc.

[Sidenote: Miss Hogarth.]

ADELPHI, LIVERPOOL, Friday, April 13th, 1866.

MY DEAREST GEORGY,

The reception at Manchester last night was quite a magnificent sight; the whole of the immense audience standing up and cheering. I thought them a little slow with "Marigold," but believe it was only the attention necessary in so vast a place. They gave a splendid burst at the end. And after "Nickleby" (which went to perfection), they set up such a call, that I was obliged to go in again. The unfortunate gasman, a very steady fellow, got a fall off a ladder and sprained his leg. He was put to bed in a public opposite, and was left there, poor man.

This is the first very fine day we have had. I have taken advantage of it by crossing to Birkenhead and getting some air upon the water. It was fresh and beautiful.

I send my best love to Mamie, and hope she is better. I am, of course, tired (the pull of "Marigold" upon one's energy, in the Free Trade Hall, was great); but I stick to my tonic, and feel, all things considered, in very good tone. The room here (I mean the hall) being my special favourite and extraordinarily easy, is almost a rest!

[Sidenote: Miss Dickens.]

ADELPHI, LIVERPOOL, Saturday, April 14th, 1866.

MY DEAREST MAMIE,

The police reported officially that three thousand people were turned away from the hall last night. I doubt if they were so numerous as that, but they carried in the outer doors and pitched into Dolby with great vigour. I need not add that every corner of the place was crammed. They were a very fine audience, and took enthusiastically every point in "Copperfield" and the "Trial." They made the reading a quarter of an hour longer than usual. One man advertised in the morning paper that he would give thirty shillings (double) for three stalls, but nobody would sell, and he didn't get in.

Except that I cannot sleep, I really think myself in much better training than I had anticipated. A dozen oysters and a little champagne between the parts every night, constitute the best restorative I have ever yet tried. John appears low, but I don't know why. A letter comes for him daily; the hand is female; whether Smudger's, or a nearer one still and a dearer one, I don't know. So it may or may not be the cause of his gloom.

"Miss Emily" of Preston is married to a rich cotton lord, rides in open carriages in gorgeous array, and is altogether splendid. With this effective piece of news I close.

[Sidenote: Miss Hogarth.]

GLASGOW, April 17th, 1866.

We arrived here at ten yesterday evening. I don't think the journey shook me at all. Dolby provided a superb cold collation and "the best of drinks," and we dined in the carriage, and I made him laugh all the way.

The let here is very large. Every precaution taken to prevent my platform from being captured as it was last time; but I don't feel at all sure that it will not be stormed at one of the two readings. Wills is to do the genteel to-night at the stalls, and Dolby is to stem the shilling tide if he can. The poor gasman cannot come on, and we have got a new one here who is to go to Edinburgh with us. Of Edinburgh we know nothing, but as its first night has always been shady, I suppose it will stick to its antecedents.

I like to hear about Harness and his freshness. The let for the next reading at St. James's is "going," they report, "admirably." Lady Russell asked me to dinner to-morrow, and I have written her a note to-day. The rest has certainly done me good. I slept thoroughly well last night, and feel fresh. What to-night's work, and every night's work this week, may do contrariwise, remains to be seen.

I hope Harry's knee may be in the way of mending, from what you relate of it.

[Sidenote: Miss Dickens.]

WATERLOO HOTEL, EDINBURGH, Wednesday, April 18th, 1866.

We had a tremendous house again last night at Glasgow; and turned away great numbers. Not only that, but they were a most brilliant and delicate audience, and took "Marigold" with a fine sense and quickness not to be surpassed. The shillings pitched into Dolby again, and one man writes a sensible letter in one of the papers this morning, showing to my satisfaction (?) that they really had, through the local agent, some cause of complaint. Nevertheless, the shilling tickets are sold for to-morrow, and it seems to be out of the question to take any money at the doors, the call for all parts is so enormous. The thundering of applause last night was quite staggering, and my people checked off my reception by the minute hand of a watch, and stared at one another, thinking I should never begin. I keep quite well, have happily taken to sleeping these last three nights; and feel, all things considered, very little conscious of fatigue. I cannot reconcile my town medicine with the hours and journeys of reading life, and have therefore given it up for the time. But for the moment, I think I am better without it. What we are doing here I have not yet heard. I write at half-past one, and we have been little more than an hour in the house. But I am quite prepared for the inevitable this first Edinburgh night. Endeavours have been made (from Glasgow yesterday) to telegraph the exact facts out of our local agent; but hydraulic pressure wouldn't have squeezed a straight answer out of him. "Friday and Saturday doing very well, Wednesday not so good." This was all electricity could discover.

I am going to write a line this post to Katie, from whom I have a note. I hope Harry's leg will now step out in the manner of the famous cork leg in the song.

[Sidenote: Miss Hogarth.]

EDINBURGH, Thursday, April 19th, 1866.

The house was more than twice better than any first night here previously. They were, as usual here, remarkably intelligent, and the reading went brilliantly. I have not sent up any newspapers, as they are generally so poorly written, that you may know beforehand all the commonplaces that they will write. But The Scotsman has so pretty an article this morning, and (so far as I know) so true a one, that I will try to post it to you, either from here or Glasgow. John and Dolby went over early, and Wills and I follow them at half-past eleven. It is cold and wet here. We have laid half-crown bets with Dolby, that he will be assaulted to-night at Glasgow. He has a surprising knowledge of what the receipts will be always, and wins half-crowns every night. Chang is living in this house. John (not knowing it) was rendered perfectly drivelling last night, by meeting him on the stairs. The Tartar Dwarf is always twining himself upstairs sideways, and drinks a bottle of whisky per day, and is reported to be a surprising little villain.

[Sidenote: Miss Dickens.]

WATERLOO HOTEL, EDINBURGH, Friday, April 20th, 1866.

No row at Glasgow last night. Great placards were posted about the town by the anxious Dolby, announcing that no money would be taken at the doors. This kept the crowd off. Two files of policemen and a double staff everywhere did the rest, and nothing could be better-tempered or more orderly. Tremendous enthusiasm with the "Carol" and "Trial." I was dead beat afterwards, that reading being twenty minutes longer than usual; but plucked up again, had some supper, slept well, and am quite right to-day. It is a bright day, and the express ride over from Glasgow was very pleasant.

Everything is gone here for to-night. But it is difficult to describe what the readings have grown to be. The let at St. James's Hall is not only immense for next Tuesday, but so large for the next reading afterwards, that Chappell writes: "That will be the greatest house of the three." From Manchester this morning they write: "Send us more tickets instantly, for we are sold out and don't know what to do with the people." Last night the whole of my money under the agreement had been taken. I notice that a great bank has broken at Liverpool, which may hurt us there, but when last heard of it was going as before. And the audience, though so enormous, do somehow express a personal affection, which makes them very strange and moving to see.

I have a story to answer you and your aunt with. Before I left Southwick Place for Liverpool, I received a letter from Glasgow, saying, "Your little Emily has been woo'd and married and a'! since you last saw her;" and describing her house within a mile or two of the city, and asking me to stay there. I wrote the usual refusal, and supposed Mrs. —— to be some romantic girl whom I had joked with, perhaps at Allison's or where not. On the first night at Glasgow I received a bouquet from ——, and wore one of the flowers. This morning at the Glasgow station, —— appeared, and proved to be the identical Miss Emily, of whose marriage Dolby had told me on our coming through Preston. She was attired in magnificent raiment, and presented the happy ——.

[Sidenote: Miss Hogarth.]

LIVERPOOL, Thursday, April 26th, 1866.

We noticed between London and Rugby (the first stoppage) something very odd in our carriage yesterday, not so much in its motion as in its sound. We examined it as well as we could out of both windows, but could make nothing of it. On our arrival at Rugby, it was found to be on fire. And as it was in the middle of the train, the train had to be broken to get it off into a siding by itself and get another carriage on. With this slight exception we came down all right.

My voice is much better, I am glad to report, and I mean to try Beard's remedy after dinner to-day. This is all my present news.

[Sidenote: The same.]

DOWN HOTEL, CLIFTON, Friday, May 11th, 1866.

I received your note before I left Birmingham this morning. It has been very heavy work getting up at half-past six each morning after a heavy night, and I am not at all well to-day. We had a tremendous hall at Birmingham last night—two thousand one hundred people. I made a most ridiculous mistake. Had "Nickleby" on my list to finish with, instead of "Trial." Read "Nickleby" with great go, and the people remained. Went back again at ten and explained the accident, and said if they liked, I would give them the "Trial." They did like, and I had another half-hour of it in that enormous place.

This stoppage of Overend and Gurney in the City will play the —— with all public gaieties, and with all the arts.

My cold is no better. John fell off a platform about ten feet high yesterday, and fainted. He looks all the colours of the rainbow to-day, but does not seem much hurt beyond being puffed up one hand, arm, and side.

[Sidenote: Miss Lily Benzon.]

GAD'S HILL PLACE, HIGHAM BY ROCHESTER, KENT, Monday, June 18th, 1866.

MY DEAR LILY,

I am sorry that I cannot come to read to you "The Boots at the Holly Tree Inn," as you ask me to do; but the truth is, that I am tired of reading at this present time, and have come into the country to rest and hear the birds sing. There are a good many birds, I daresay, in Kensington Palace Gardens, and upon my word and honour they are much better worth listening to than I am. So let them sing to you as hard as ever they can, while their sweet voices last (they will be silent when the winter comes); and very likely after you and I have eaten our next Christmas pudding and mince-pies, you and I and Uncle Harry may all meet together at St. James's Hall; Uncle Harry to bring you there, to hear the "Boots;" I to receive you there, and read the "Boots;" and you (I hope) to applaud very much, and tell me that you like the "Boots." So, God bless you and me, and Uncle Harry, and the "Boots," and long life and happiness to us all!

Your affectionate Friend.

P.S.—There's a flourish!

[Sidenote: Mr. B. W. Procter.]

GAD'S HILL PLACE, HIGHAM BY ROCHESTER, KENT, Monday, Aug. 13th, 1866.

MY DEAR PROCTER,

I have read your biography of Charles Lamb with inexpressible pleasure and interest. I do not think it possible to tell a pathetic story with a more unaffected and manly tenderness. And as to the force and vigour of the style, if I did not know you I should have made sure that there was a printer's error in the opening of your introduction, and that the word "seventy" occupied the place of "forty."

Let me, my dear friend, most heartily congratulate you on your achievement. It is not an ordinary triumph to do such justice to the memory of such a man. And I venture to add, that the fresh spirit with which you have done it impresses me as being perfectly wonderful.

Ever affectionately yours.

[Sidenote: Sir James Emerson Tennent.]

GAD'S HILL, Monday, Aug. 20th, 1866.

MY DEAR TENNENT,

I have been very much interested by your extract, and am strongly inclined to believe that the founder of the Refuge for Poor Travellers meant the kind of man to which it refers. Chaucer certainly meant the Pardonere to be a humbug, living on the credulity of the people. After describing the sham reliques he carried, he says:

But with these relikes whawne that he found A poure personne dwelling up on lond Upon a day he gat him more monnie Than that the personne got in monthes time, And thus, with fained flattering and japes He made the personne, and the people, his apes.

And the worthy Watts (founder of the charity) may have had these very lines in his mind when he excluded such a man.

When I last heard from my boy he was coming to you, and was full of delight and dignity. My midshipman has just been appointed to the Bristol, on the West Coast of Africa, and is on his voyage out to join her. I wish it was another ship and another station. She has been unlucky in losing men.

Kindest regard from all my house to yours.

Faithfully yours ever.

[Sidenote: M. Charles Fechter.]

GAD'S HILL, Tuesday, Sept. 4th, 1866.

MY DEAR FECHTER,

This morning I received the play to the end of the telegraph scene, and I have since read it twice.

I clearly see the ground of Mr. Boucicault's two objections; but I do not see their force.

First, as to the writing. If the characters did not speak in a terse and homely way, their idea and language would be inconsistent with their dress and station, and they would lose, as characters, before the audience. The dialogue seems to be exactly what is wanted. Its simplicity (particularly in Mr. Boucicault's part) is often very effective; and throughout there is an honest, straight-to-the-purpose ruggedness in it, like the real life and the real people.

Secondly, as to the absence of the comic element. I really do not see how more of it could be got into the story, and I think Mr. Boucicault underrates the pleasant effect of his own part. The very notion of a sailor, whose life is not among those little courts and streets, and whose business does not lie with the monotonous machinery, but with the four wild winds, is a relief to me in reading the play. I am quite confident of its being an immense relief to the audience when they see the sailor before them, with an entirely different bearing, action, dress, complexion even, from the rest of the men. I would make him the freshest and airiest sailor that ever was seen; and through him I can distinctly see my way out of "the Black Country" into clearer air. (I speak as one of the audience, mind.) I should like something of this contrast to be expressed in the dialogue between the sailor and Jew, in the second scene of the second act. Again, I feel Widdicomb's part (which is charming, and ought to make the whole house cry) most agreeable and welcome, much better than any amount in such a story, of mere comicality.

It is unnecessary to say that the play is done with a master's hand. Its closeness and movement are quite surprising. Its construction is admirable. I have the strongest belief in its making a great success. But I must add this proviso: I never saw a play so dangerously depending in critical places on strict natural propriety in the manner and perfection in the shaping of the small parts. Those small parts cannot take the play up, but they can let it down. I would not leave a hair on the head of one of them to the chance of the first night, but I would see, to the minutest particular, the make-up of every one of them at a night rehearsal.

Of course you are free to show this note to Mr. Boucicault, and I suppose you will do so; let me throw out this suggestion to him and you. Might it not ease the way with the Lord Chamberlain's office, and still more with the audience, when there are Manchester champions in it, if instead of "Manchester" you used a fictitious name? When I did "Hard Times" I called the scene Coketown. Everybody knew what was meant, but every cotton-spinning town said it was the other cotton-spinning town.

I shall be up on Saturday, and will come over about mid-day, unless you name any other time.

Ever heartily.

[Sidenote: Mr. Walter Thornbury]

"ALL THE YEAR ROUND" OFFICE, Saturday, Sept. 15th, 1866.

MY DEAR THORNBURY,

Many thanks for your letter.

In reference to your Shakespeare queries, I am not so much enamoured of the first and third subjects as I am of the Ariosto enquiry, which should be highly interesting. But if you have so got the matter in your mind, as that its execution would be incomplete and unsatisfactory to you unless you write all the three papers, then by all means write the three, and I will most gladly take them. For some years I have had so much pleasure in reading you, that I can honestly warrant myself as what actors call "a good audience."

The idea of old stories retold is decidedly a good one. I greatly like the notion of that series. Of course you know De Quincey's paper on the Ratcliffe Highway murderer? Do you know also the illustration (I have it at Gad's Hill), representing the horrible creature as his dead body lay on a cart, with a piece of wood for a pillow, and a stake lying by, ready to be driven through him?

I don't quite like the title, "The Social History of London." I should better like some title to the effect, "The History of London's Social Changes in so many Years." Such a title would promise more, and better express your intention. What do you think of taking for a first title, "London's Changes"? You could then add the second title, "Being a History," etc.

I don't at all desire to fix a limit to the series of old stories retold. I would state the general intention at the beginning of the first paper, and go on like Banquo's line.

Don't let your London title remind people, by so much as the place of the word "civilisation," of Buckle. It seems a ridiculous caution, but the indolent part of the public (a large part!) on such points tumble into extraordinary mistakes.

Faithfully yours always.

[Sidenote: Mr. Percy Fitzgerald.]

GAD'S HILL, Tuesday, Nov. 6th, 1866.

MY DEAR FITZGERALD,

It is always pleasant to me to hear from you, and I hope you will believe that this is not a mere fashion of speech.

Concerning the green covers, I find the leaves to be budding—on unquestionable newspaper authority; but, upon my soul, I have no other knowledge of their being in embryo! Really, I do not see a chance of my settling myself to such work until after I have accomplished forty-two readings, to which I stand pledged.

I hope to begin this series somewhere about the middle of January, in Dublin. Touching the details of the realisation of this hope, will you tell me in a line as soon as you can—Is the exhibition room a good room for speaking in?

Your mention of the late Sultan touches me nearly. He was the finest dog I ever saw, and between him and me there was a perfect understanding. But, to adopt the popular phrase, it was so very confidential that it "went no further." He would fly at anybody else with the greatest enthusiasm for destruction. I saw him, muzzled, pound into the heart of a regiment of the line; and I have frequently seen him, muzzled, hold a great dog down with his chest and feet. He has broken loose (muzzled) and come home covered with blood, again and again. And yet he never disobeyed me, unless he had first laid hold of a dog.

You heard of his going to execution, evidently supposing the procession to be a party detached in pursuit of something to kill or eat? It was very affecting. And also of his bolting a blue-eyed kitten, and making me acquainted with the circumstance by his agonies of remorse (or indigestion)?

I cannot find out that there is anyone in Rochester (a sleepy old city) who has anything to tell about Garrick, except what is not true. His brother, the wine merchant, would be more in Rochester way, I think. How on earth do you find time to do all these books?

You make my hair stand on end; an agreeable sensation, for I am charmed to find that I have any. Why don't you come yourself and look after Garrick? I should be truly delighted to receive you.

My dear Fitzgerald, always faithfully yours.

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

GAD'S HILL PLACE, HIGHAM BY ROCHESTER, KENT, Friday, Dec. 28th, 1866.

MY DEAREST MACREADY,

I have received your letter with the utmost pleasure and we all send our most affectionate love to you, Mrs. Macready, Katie, Johnny, and the boy of boys. All good Christmas and New Year greetings are to be understood as included.

You will be interested in knowing that, encouraged by the success of summer cricket-matches, I got up a quantity of foot-races and rustic sports in my field here on the 26th last past: as I have never yet had a case of drunkenness, the landlord of The Falstaff had a drinking-booth on the ground. All the prizes I gave were in money, too. We had two thousand people here. Among the crowd were soldiers, navvies, and labourers of all kinds. Not a stake was pulled up, or a rope slackened, or one farthing's-worth of damage done. To every competitor (only) a printed bill of general rules was given, with the concluding words: "Mr. Dickens puts every man upon his honour to assist in preserving order." There was not a dispute all day, and they went away at sunset rending the air with cheers, and leaving every flag on a six hundred yards' course as neat as they found it when the gates were opened at ten in the morning. Surely this is a bright sign in the neighbourhood of such a place as Chatham!

"Mugby Junction" turned, yesterday afternoon, the extraordinary number of two hundred and fifty thousand!

In the middle of next month I begin a new course of forty-two readings. If any of them bring me within reach of Cheltenham, with an hour to spare, I shall come on to you, even for that hour. More of this when I am afield and have my list, which Dolby (for Chappell) is now preparing.

Forster and Mrs. Forster were to have come to us next Monday, to stay until Saturday. I write "were," because I hear that Forster (who had a touch of bronchitis when he wrote to me on Christmas Eve) is in bed. Katie, who has been ill of low nervous fever, was brought here yesterday from London. She bore the journey much better than I expected, and so I hope will soon recover. This is my little stock of news.

I begin to discover in your riper years, that you have been secretly vain of your handwriting all your life. For I swear I see no change in it! What it always was since I first knew it (a year or two!) it is. This I will maintain against all comers.

Ever affectionately, my dearest Macready.



1867.

NARRATIVE.

As the London and provincial readings were to be resumed early in the year and continued until the end of March, Charles Dickens took no house in London this spring. He came to his office quarters at intervals, for the series in town; usually starting off again, on his country tour, the day after a London reading. From some passages in his letters to his daughter and sister-in-law during this country course, it will be seen that (though he made very light of the fact) the great exertion of the readings, combined with incessant railway travelling, was beginning to tell upon his health, and he was frequently "heavily beaten" after reading at his best to an enthusiastic audience in a large hall.

During the short intervals between his journeys, he was as constantly and carefully at work upon the business of "All the Year Round" as if he had no other work on hand. A proof of this is given in a letter dated "5th February." It is written to a young man (the son of a friend), who wrote a long novel when far too juvenile for such a task, and had submitted it to Charles Dickens for his opinion, with a view to publication. In the midst of his own hard and engrossing occupation he read the book, and the letter which he wrote on the subject needs no remark beyond this, that the young writer received the adverse criticism with the best possible sense, and has since, in his literary profession, profited by the advice so kindly given.

At this time the proposals to Charles Dickens for reading in America, which had been perpetually renewed from the time of his first abandoning the idea, became so urgent and so tempting, that he found at last he must, at all events, give the subject his most serious consideration. He took counsel with his two most confidential friends and advisers, Mr. John Forster and Mr. W. H. Wills. They were both, at first, strongly opposed to the undertaking, chiefly on the ground of the trial to his health and strength which it would involve. But they could not deny the counterbalancing advantages. And, after much deliberation, it was resolved that Mr. George Dolby should be sent out by the Messrs. Chappell, to take an impression, on the spot, as to the feeling of the United States about the Readings. His report as to the undoubted enthusiasm and urgency on the other side of the Atlantic it was impossible to resist. Even his friends withdrew their opposition (though still with misgivings as to the effect upon his health, which were but too well founded!), and on the 30th September he telegraphed "Yes" to America.

The "Alfred" alluded to in a letter from Glasgow was Charles Dickens's fourth son, Alfred Tennyson, who had gone to Australia two years previously.

We give, in April, the last letter to one of the friends for whom Charles Dickens had always a most tender love—Mr. Stanfield. He was then in failing health, and in May he died.

Another death which affected him very deeply happened this summer. Miss Marguerite Power died in July. She had long been very ill, but, until it became impossible for her to travel, she was a frequent and beloved guest at Gad's Hill. The Mrs. Henderson to whom he writes was Miss Power's youngest sister.

Before he started for America it was proposed to wish him God-speed by giving him a public dinner at the Freemasons' Hall. The proposal was most warmly and fully responded to. His zealous friend, Mr. Charles Kent, willingly undertook the whole work of arrangement of this banquet. It took place on the 2nd November, and Lord Lytton presided.

On the 8th he left London for Liverpool, accompanied by his daughters, his sister-in-law, his eldest son, Mr. Arthur Chappell, Mr. Charles Collins, Mr. Wilkie Collins, Mr. Kent, and Mr. Wills. The next morning the whole party took a final leave of Charles Dickens on board the Cuba, which sailed that day.

We give a letter which he wrote to Mr. J. L. Toole on the morning of the dinner, thanking him for a parting gift and an earnest letter. That excellent comedian was one of his most appreciative admirers, and, in return, he had for Mr. Toole the greatest admiration and respect.

The Christmas number for this year, "No Thoroughfare," was written by Charles Dickens and Mr. Wilkie Collins. It was dramatised by Mr. Collins chiefly. But, in the midst of all the work of preparation for departure, Charles Dickens gave minute attention to as much of the play as could be completed before he left England. It was produced, after Christmas, at the Adelphi Theatre, where M. Fechter was then acting, under the management of Mr. Benjamin Webster.

[Sidenote: M. de Cerjat.]

GAD'S HILL PLACE, HIGHAM BY ROCHESTER, KENT, New Year's Day, 1867.

MY DEAR CERJAT,

Thoroughly determined to be beforehand with "the middle of next summer," your penitent friend and remorseful correspondent thus addresses you.

The big dog, on a day last autumn, having seized a little girl (sister to one of the servants) whom he knew, and was bound to respect, was flogged by his master, and then sentenced to be shot at seven next morning. He went out very cheerfully with the half-dozen men told off for the purpose, evidently thinking that they were going to be the death of somebody unknown. But observing in the procession an empty wheelbarrow and a double-barrelled gun, he became meditative, and fixed the bearer of the gun with his eyes. A stone deftly thrown across him by the village blackguard (chief mourner) caused him to look round for an instant, and he then fell dead, shot through the heart. Two posthumous children are at this moment rolling on the lawn; one will evidently inherit his ferocity, and will probably inherit the gun. The pheasant was a little ailing towards Christmas Day, and was found dead under some ivy in his cage, with his head under his wing, on the morning of the twenty-seventh of December, one thousand eight hundred and sixty-six. I, proprietor of the remains of the two deceased, am working hard, getting up "Barbox" and "The Boy at Mugby," with which I begin a new series of readings in London on the fifteenth. Next morning I believe I start into the country. When I read, I don't write. I only edit, and have the proof-sheets sent me for the purpose. Here are your questions answered.

As to the Reform question, it should have been, and could have been, perfectly known to any honest man in England that the more intelligent part of the great masses were deeply dissatisfied with the state of representation, but were in a very moderate and patient condition, awaiting the better intellectual cultivation of numbers of their fellows. The old insolent resource of assailing them and making the most audaciously wicked statements that they are politically indifferent, has borne the inevitable fruit. The perpetual taunt, "Where are they?" has called them out with the answer: "Well then, if you must know, here we are." The intolerable injustice of vituperating the bribed to an assembly of bribers, has goaded their sense of justice beyond endurance. And now, what they would have taken they won't take, and whatever they are steadily bent upon having they will get. Rely upon it, this is the real state of the case. As to your friend "Punch," you will find him begin to turn at the very selfsame instant when the new game shall manifestly become the losing one. You may notice his shoes pinching him a little already.

My dear fellow, I have no more power to stop that mutilation of my books than you have. It is as certain as that every inventor of anything designed for the public good, and offered to the English Government, becomes ipso facto a criminal, to have his heart broken on the circumlocutional wheel. It is as certain as that the whole Crimean story will be retold, whenever this country again goes to war. And to tell the truth, I have such a very small opinion of what the great genteel have done for us, that I am very philosophical indeed concerning what the great vulgar may do, having a decided opinion that they can't do worse.

This is the time of year when the theatres do best, there being still numbers of people who make it a sort of religion to see Christmas pantomimes. Having my annual houseful, I have, as yet, seen nothing. Fechter has neither pantomime nor burlesque, but is doing a new version of the old "Trente Ans de la Vie d'un Joueur." I am afraid he will not find his account in it. On the whole, the theatres, except in the articles of scenery and pictorial effect, are poor enough. But in some of the smaller houses there are actors who, if there were any dramatic head-quarters as a school, might become very good. The most hopeless feature is, that they have the smallest possible idea of an effective and harmonious whole, each "going in" for himself or herself. The music-halls attract an immense public, and don't refine the general taste. But such things as they do are well done of their kind, and always briskly and punctually.

The American yacht race is the last sensation. I hope the general interest felt in it on this side will have a wholesome interest on that. It will be a woeful day when John and Jonathan throw their caps into the ring. The French Emperor is indubitably in a dangerous state. His Parisian popularity wanes, and his army are discontented with him. I hear on high authority that his secret police are always making discoveries that render him desperately uneasy.

You know how we have been swindling in these parts. But perhaps you don't know that Mr. ——, the "eminent" contractor, before he fell into difficulties settled one million of money on his wife. Such a good and devoted husband!

My daughter Katie has been very ill of nervous fever. On the 27th of December she was in a condition to be brought down here (old high road and post-horses), and has been steadily getting better ever since. Her husband is here too, and is on the whole as well as he ever is or ever will be, I fear.

We played forfeit-games here, last night, and then pool. For a billiard-room has been added to the house since you were here. Come and play a match with me.

Always affectionately.

[Sidenote: Miss Hogarth.]

ADELPHI HOTEL, LIVERPOOL, Monday, Jan. 21st, 1867.

MY DEAREST GEORGY,

First I send you my most affectionate wishes for many, many happy returns of your birthday. That done, from my heart of hearts, I go on to my small report of myself.

The readings have produced such an immense effect here that we are coming back for two more in the middle of February. "Marigold" and the "Trial," on Friday night, and the "Carol," on Saturday afternoon, were a perfect furore; and the surprise about "Barbox" has been amusingly great. It is a most extraordinary thing, after the enormous sale of that Christmas number, that the provincial public seems to have combined to believe that it won't make a reading. From Wolverhampton and Leeds we have exactly the same expression of feelings beforehand. Exactly as I made "Copperfield"—always to the poorest houses I had with Headland, and against that luminary's entreaty—so I should have to make this, if I hadn't "Marigold" always in demand.

It being next to impossible for people to come out at night with horses, we have felt the weather in the stalls, and expect to do so through this week. The half-crown and shilling publics have crushed to their places most splendidly. The enthusiasm has been unbounded. On Friday night I quite astonished myself; but I was taken so faint afterwards that they laid me on a sofa at the hall for half an hour. I attribute it to my distressing inability to sleep at night, and to nothing worse.

Scott does very well indeed. As a dresser he is perfect. In a quarter of an hour after I go into the retiring-room, where all my clothes are airing and everything is set out neatly in its own allotted space, I am ready; and he then goes softly out, and sits outside the door. In the morning he is equally punctual, quiet, and quick. He has his needles and thread, buttons, and so forth, always at hand; and in travelling he is very systematic with the luggage. What with Dolby and what with this skilful valet, everything is made as easy to me as it possibly can be, and Dolby would do anything to lighten the work, and does everything.

There is great distress here among the poor (four thousand people relieved last Saturday at one workhouse), and there is great anxiety concerning seven mail-steamers some days overdue. Such a circumstance as this last has never been known. It is supposed that some great revolving storm has whirled them all out of their course. One of these missing ships is an American mail, another an Australian mail.

Same Afternoon.

We have been out for four hours in the bitter east wind, and walking on the sea-shore, where there is a broad strip of great blocks of ice. My hands are so rigid that I write with great difficulty.

We have been constantly talking of the terrible Regent's Park accident. I hope and believe that nearly the worst of it is now known.

[Sidenote: Miss Dickens.]

CHESTER, Tuesday, Jan. 22nd, 1867.

MY DEAREST MAMIE,

We came over here from Liverpool at eleven this forenoon. There was a heavy swell in the Mersey breaking over the boat; the cold was nipping, and all the roads we saw as we came along were wretched. We find a very moderate let here; but I am myself rather surprised to know that a hundred and twenty stalls have made up their minds to the undertaking of getting to the hall. This seems to be a very nice hotel, but it is an extraordinarily cold one. Our reading for to-night is "Marigold" and "Trial." With amazing perversity the local agent said to Dolby: "They hoped that Mr. Dickens might have given them 'The Boy at Mugby.'"

Barton, the gasman who succeeded the man who sprained his leg, sprained his leg yesterday!! And that, not at his work, but in running downstairs at the hotel. However, he has hobbled through it so far, and I hope will hobble on, for he knows his work.

I have seldom seen a place look more hopelessly frozen up than this place does. The hall is like a Methodist chapel in low spirits, and with a cold in its head. A few blue people shiver at the corners of the streets. And this house, which is outside the town, looks like an ornament on an immense twelfth cake baked for 1847.

I am now going to the fire to try to warm myself, but have not the least expectation of succeeding. The sitting-room has two large windows in it, down to the ground and facing due east. The adjoining bedroom (mine) has also two large windows in it, down to the ground and facing due east. The very large doors are opposite the large windows, and I feel as if I were something to eat in a pantry.

[Sidenote: Miss Hogarth.]

HEN AND CHICKENS, BIRMINGHAM, Thursday, Jan. 24th, 1867.

At Chester we read in a snowstorm and a fall of ice. I think it was the worst weather I ever saw. Nevertheless, the people were enthusiastic. At Wolverhampton last night the thaw had thoroughly set in, and it rained heavily. We had not intended to go back there, but have arranged to do so on the day after Ash Wednesday. Last night I was again heavily beaten. We came on here after the reading (it is only a ride of forty minutes), and it was as much as I could do to hold out the journey. But I was not faint, as at Liverpool; I was only exhausted. I am all right this morning; and to-night, as you know, I have a rest. I trust that Charley Collins is better, and that Mamie is strong and well again. Yesterday I had a note from Katie, which seemed hopeful and encouraging.