The Letters of Charles Dickens. Vol. 2, 1857-1870

Mr. W. H. Wills5, Hyde Park Place, London, W., Sunday, Jan. 23rd, 1870.

My dear Wills,

In the note I had from you about Nancy and Sikes, you seem to refer to some other note you had written me. Therefore I think it well merely to mention that I have received no other note.

I do not wonder at your not being up to the undertaking (even if you had had no cough) under the wearing circumstances. It was a very curious scene. The actors and actresses (most of the latter looking very pretty) mustered in extraordinary force, and were a fine audience. I set myself to carrying out of themselves and their observation, those who were bent on watching how the effects were got; and I believe I succeeded. Coming back to it again, however, I feel it was madness ever to do it so continuously. My ordinary pulse is seventy-two, and it runs up under this effort to one hundred and twelve. Besides which, it takes me ten or twelve minutes to get my wind back at all; I being, in the meantime, like the man who lost the fight – in fact, his express image. Frank Beard was in attendance to make divers experiments to report to Watson; and although, as you know, he stopped it instantly when he found me at Preston, he was very much astonished by the effects of the reading on the reader.

So I hope you may be able to come and hear it before it is silent for ever. It is done again on the evenings of the 1st February, 15th February, and 8th March. I hope, now I have got over the mornings, that I may be able to work on my book. But up to this time the great preparation required in getting the subjects up again, and the twice a week besides, have almost exclusively occupied me.

I have something the matter with my right thumb, and can't (as you see) write plainly. I sent a word to poor Robert Chambers,32 and I send my love to Mrs. Wills.

Ever, my dear Wills, affectionately yours.Mrs. DallasOffice of "All the Year Round,"Wednesday, Jan. 16th, 1870.

My dear Mrs. Dallas,

It is perfectly delightful to me to get your fervent and sympathetic note this morning. A thousand thanks for it. I will take care that two places on the front row, by my daughter, are reserved for your occasion next time. I cannot see you in too good a seat, or too often.

Believe me, ever very faithfully yours.Mr. S. L. FildesOffice of "All the Year Round,"Wednesday, Jan. 16th, 1870.

Dear Sir,

I beg to thank you for the highly meritorious and interesting specimens of your art that you have had the kindness to send me. I return them herewith, after having examined them with the greatest pleasure.

I am naturally curious to see your drawing from "David Copperfield," in order that I may compare it with my own idea. In the meanwhile, I can honestly assure you that I entertain the greatest admiration for your remarkable powers.

Faithfully yours.Mr. Henry Fielding Dickens5, Hyde Park Place, W., Thursday, Feb. 17th, 1870.

My dear Harry,

I am extremely glad to hear that you have made a good start at the Union. Take any amount of pains about it; open your mouth well and roundly, speak to the last person visible, and give yourself time.

Loves from all.

Ever affectionately.Mr. W. C. MacreadyWednesday, March 2nd, 1870.

My dearest Macready,

This is to wish you and yours all happiness and prosperity at the well-remembered anniversary to-morrow. You may be sure that loves and happy returns will not be forgotten at our table.

I have been getting on very well with my book, and we are having immense audiences at St. James's Hall. Mary has been celebrating the first glimpses of spring by having the measles. She got over the disorder very easily, but a weakness remains behind. Katie is blooming. Georgina is in perfect order, and all send you their very best loves. It gave me true pleasure to have your sympathy with me in the second little speech at Birmingham. I was determined that my Radicalism should not be called in question. The electric wires are not very exact in their reporting, but at all events the sense was there. Ryland, as usual, made all sorts of enquiries about you.

With love to dear Mrs. Macready and the noble boy my particular friend, and a hearty embrace to you,

I am ever, my dearest Macready,Your most affectionate.Mr. – Office of "All the Year Round,"Wednesday, March 9th, 1870.

My dear – ,

You make me very uneasy on the subject of your new long story here, by sowing your name broadcast in so many fields at once, and undertaking such an impossible amount of fiction at one time. Just as you are coming on with us, you have another story in progress in "The Gentleman's Magazine," and another announced in "Once a Week." And so far as I know the art we both profess, it cannot be reasonably pursued in this way. I think the short story you are now finishing in these pages obviously marked by traces of great haste and small consideration; and a long story similarly blemished would really do the publication irreparable harm.

These considerations are so much upon my mind that I cannot forbear representing them to you, in the hope that they may induce you to take a little more into account the necessity of care and preparation, and some self-denial in the quantity done. I am quite sure that I write fully as much in your interest as in that of "All the Year Round."

Believe me, always faithfully yours.The same5, Hyde Park Place, W., Friday, March 11th, 1870.

My dear – ,

Of course the engagement between us is to continue, and I am sure you know me too well to suppose that I have ever had a thought to the contrary. Your explanation is (as it naturally would be, being yours) manly and honest, and I am both satisfied and hopeful.

Ever yours.Mr. William Charles Kent5, Hyde Park Place, W., Saturday, March 26th, 1870.

My dear Kent,

I received both copies of The Sun, with the tenderest pleasure and gratification.

Everything that I can let you have in aid of the proposed record33 (which, of course, would be far more agreeable to me if done by you than by any other hand), shall be at your service. Dolby has all the figures relating to America, and you shall have for reference the books from which I read. They are afterwards going into Forster's collection.34

Ever affectionately.Mr. Henry Fielding Dickens5, Hyde Park Place, W., Tuesday, March 29th, 1870.

My dear Harry,

Your next Tuesday's subject is a very good one. I would not lose the point that narrow-minded fanatics, who decry the theatre and defame its artists, are absolutely the advocates of depraved and barbarous amusements. For wherever a good drama and a well-regulated theatre decline, some distorted form of theatrical entertainment will infallibly arise in their place. In one of the last chapters of "Hard Times," Mr. Sleary says something to the effect: "People will be entertained thomehow, thquire. Make the betht of uth, and not the wortht."

Ever affectionately.Mr. Shirley Brooks5, Hyde Park Place, W., Friday, April 1st, 1870.

My dear Shirley Brooks,

I have written to Mr. Low, expressing my regret that I cannot comply with his request, backed as it is by my friend S. B. But I have told him what is perfectly true – that I leave town for the peaceful following of my own pursuits, at the end of next month; that I have excused myself from filling all manner of claims, on the ground that the public engagements I could make for the season were very few and were all made; and that I cannot bear hot rooms when I am at work. I have smoothed this as you would have me smooth it.

With your longing for fresh air I can thoroughly sympathise. May you get it soon, and may you enjoy it, and profit by it half as much as I wish!

Ever faithfully yours.Mr. W. P. Frith, R.A5, Hyde Park Place, W., Saturday, April 16th, 1870.

My dear Frith,

I shall be happy to go on Wednesday evening, if convenient.

You please me with what you say of my new illustrator, of whom I have great hopes.

Faithfully yours ever.Mr. William Charles KentMonday Morning, April 25th, 1870.

My dear Kent,

I received your book35 with the greatest pleasure, and heartily thank you for it. It is a volume of a highly prepossessing appearance, and a most friendly look. I felt as if I should have taken to it at sight; even (a very large even) though I had known nothing of its contents, or of its author!

For the last week I have been most perseveringly and ding-dong-doggedly at work, making headway but slowly. The spring always has a restless influence over me; and I weary, at any season, of this London dining-out beyond expression; and I yearn for the country again. This is my excuse for not having written to you sooner. Besides which, I had a baseless conviction that I should see you at the office last Thursday. Not having done so, I fear you must be worse, or no better? If you can let me have a report of yourself, pray do.

Mrs. Frederick Pollock5, Hyde Park Place, W., Monday, May 2nd, 1870.

My dear Mrs. Pollock,

Pray tell the illustrious Philip van Artevelde, that I will deal with the nefarious case in question if I can. I am a little doubtful of the practicability of doing so, and frisking outside the bounds of the law of libel. I have that high opinion of the law of England generally, which one is likely to derive from the impression that it puts all the honest men under the diabolical hoofs of all the scoundrels. It makes me cautious of doing right; an admirable instance of its wisdom!

I was very sorry to have gone astray from you that Sunday; but as the earlier disciples entertained angels unawares, so the later often miss them haphazard.

Your description of La Font's acting is the complete truth in one short sentence: Nature's triumph over art; reversing the copy-book axiom! But the Lord deliver us from Plessy's mechanical ingenuousness!!

And your petitioner will ever pray.

And ever be,

Faithfully yours.Mrs. E. M. Ward5, Hyde Park Place, W., Wednesday, May 11th, 1870.

My dear Mrs. Ward,

I grieve to say that I am literally laid by the heels, and incapable of dining with you to-morrow. A neuralgic affection of the foot, which usually seizes me about twice a year, and which will yield to nothing but days of fomentation and horizontal rest, set in last night, and has caused me very great pain ever since, and will too clearly be no better until it has had its usual time in which to wear itself out. I send my kindest regard to Ward, and beg to be pitied.

Believe me, faithfully yours always.Mr. William Charles Kent5, Hyde Park Place, W., Tuesday, May 17th, 1870.

My dear Kent,

Many, many thanks! It is only my neuralgic foot. It has given me such a sharp twist this time that I have not been able, in its extreme sensitiveness, to put any covering upon it except scalding fomentations. Having viciously bubbled and blistered it in all directions, I hope it now begins to see the folly of its ways.

Affectionately ever.

P.S. – I hope the Sun shines.

Mrs. BancroftGad's Hill Place, Higham by Rochester, Kent,Thursday, May 31st, 1870.

My dear Mrs. Bancroft,36

I am most heartily obliged to you for your kind note, which I received here only last night, having come here from town circuitously to get a little change of air on the road. My sense of your interest cannot be better proved than by my trying the remedy you recommend, and that I will do immediately. As I shall be in town on Thursday, my troubling you to order it would be quite unjustifiable. I will use your name in applying for it, and will report the result after a fair trial. Whether this remedy succeeds or fails as to the neuralgia, I shall always consider myself under an obligation to it for having indirectly procured me the great pleasure of receiving a communication from you; for I hope I may lay claim to being one of the most earnest and delighted of your many artistic admirers.

Believe me, faithfully yours.

TWO LAST LETTERS

Mr. William Charles KentGad's Hill Place, Higham by Rochester, Kent. 37

Mr. John M. Makeham

All through this spring in London, Charles Dickens had been ailing in health, and it was remarked by many friends that he had a weary look, and was "aged" and altered. But he was generally in good spirits, and his family had no uneasiness about him, relying upon the country quiet and comparative rest at Gad's Hill to have their usual influence in restoring his health and strength. On the 2nd June he attended a private play at the house of Mr. and Mrs. Freake, where his two daughters were among the actresses. The next day he went back to Gad's Hill. His daughter Kate (whose home was there at all times when she chose, and almost always through the summer months) went down on Sunday, the 5th June, for a day's visit, to see the "great improvement of the conservatory." Her father laughingly assured her she had now seen "the last" improvement at Gad's Hill. At this time he was tolerably well, but she remarked to her sister and aunt how strangely he was tired, and what a curious grey colour he had in his face after a very short walk on that Sunday afternoon. However, he seemed quite himself again in the evening. The next day his daughter Kate went back, accompanied by her sister, who was to pay her a short visit, to London.

Charles Dickens was very hard at work on the sixth number of "Edwin Drood." On the Monday and Tuesday he was well, but he was unequal to much exercise. His last walk was one of his greatest favourites – through Cobham Park and Wood – on the afternoon of Tuesday.

On the morning of Wednesday, the 8th (one of the loveliest days of a lovely summer), he was very well; in excellent spirits about his book, of which he said he must finish his number that day – the next (Thursday) being the day of his weekly visit to "All the Year Round" office. Therefore, he would write all day in the Châlet, and take no walk or drive until the evening. In the middle of the day he came to the house for an hour's rest, and smoked a cigar in the conservatory – out of which new addition to the house he was taking the greatest personal enjoyment – and seemed perfectly well, and exceedingly cheerful and hopeful. When he came again to the house, about an hour before the time fixed for the early dinner, he seemed very tired, silent, and absorbed. But this was so usual with him after a day of engrossing work, that it caused no alarm or surprise to his sister-in-law – the only member of his household who happened to be at home. He wrote some letters – among them, these last letters which we give – in the library of the house, and also arranged many trifling business matters, with a view to his departure for London the next morning. He was to be accompanied, on his return at the end of the week, by Mr. Fildes, to introduce the "new illustrator" to the neighbourhood in which many of the scenes of this last book of Charles Dickens, as of his first, were laid.

It was not until they were seated at the dinner-table that a striking change in the colour and expression of his face startled his sister-in-law, and on her asking him if he was ill, he said, "Yes, very ill; I have been very ill for the last hour." But on her expressing an intention of sending instantly for a doctor, he stopped her, and said: "No, he would go on with dinner, and go afterwards to London." And then he made an effort to struggle against the fit that was fast coming on him, and talked, but incoherently, and soon very indistinctly. It being now evident that he was ill, and very seriously ill, his sister-in-law begged him to come to his own room before she sent off for medical help. "Come and lie down," she entreated. "Yes, on the ground," he said, very distinctly – these were the last words he spoke – and he slid from her arm, and fell upon the floor.

The servants brought a couch into the dining-room, where he was laid. A messenger was despatched for Mr. Steele, the Rochester doctor, and with a telegram to his doctor in London, and to his daughters. This was a few minutes after six o'clock.

His daughters arrived, with Mr. Frank Beard, this same evening. His eldest son the next morning, and his son Henry and his sister Letitia in the evening of the 9th – too late, alas!

All through the night, Charles Dickens never opened his eyes, or showed a sign of consciousness. In the afternoon of the 9th, Dr. Russell Reynolds arrived at Gad's Hill, having been summoned by Mr. Frank Beard to meet himself and Mr. Steele. But he could only confirm their hopeless verdict, and made his opinion known with much kind sympathy, to the family, before returning to London.

Charles Dickens remained in the same unconscious state until the evening of this day, when, at ten minutes past six, the watchers saw a shudder pass over him, heard him give a deep sigh, saw one tear roll down his cheek, and he was gone from them. And as they saw the dark shadow steal across his calm, beautiful face, not one among them – could they have been given such a power – would have recalled his sweet spirit back to earth.

As his family were aware that Charles Dickens had a wish to be buried near Gad's Hill, arrangements were made for his burial in the pretty churchyard of Shorne, a neighbouring village, of which he was very fond. But this intention was abandoned in consequence of a pressing request from the Dean and Chapter of Rochester Cathedral that his remains might be placed there. A grave was prepared and everything arranged, when it was made known to the family, through Dean Stanley, that there was a general and very earnest desire that Charles Dickens should find his resting-place in Westminster Abbey. To such a fitting tribute to his memory they could make no possible objection, although it was with great regret that they relinquished the idea of laying him in a place so closely identified with his life and his works. His name, notwithstanding, is associated with Rochester, a tablet to his memory having been placed by his executors on the wall of Rochester Cathedral.

With regard to Westminster Abbey, his family only stipulated that the funeral might be made as private as possible, and that the words of his will, "I emphatically direct that I be buried in an inexpensive, unostentatious, and strictly private manner," should be religiously adhered to. And so they were. The solemn service in the vast cathedral being as private as the most thoughtful consideration could make it.

The family of Charles Dickens were deeply grateful to all in authority who so carried out his wishes. And more especially to Dean Stanley and to the (late) Lady Augusta Stanley, for the tender sympathy shown by them to the mourners on this day, and also on Sunday, the 19th, when the Dean preached his beautiful funeral sermon.

As during his life Charles Dickens's fondness for air, light, and gay colours amounted almost to a passion, so when he lay dead in the home he had so dearly loved, these things were not forgotten.

The pretty room opening into the conservatory (from which he had never been removed since his seizure) was kept bright with the most beautiful of all kinds of flowers, and flooded with the summer sun:

"And nothing stirred in the room. The old, old fashion. The fashion that came in with our first garments, and will last unchanged until our race has run its course, and the wide firmament is rolled up like a scroll. The old, old fashion – death!

"Oh, thank God, all who see it, for that older fashion yet, of immortality!"

1

The part played in "The Frozen Deep" by its author, Mr. Wilkie Collins.

2

The Earl of Carlisle was at this time Viceroy of Ireland.

3

Niece to the Rev. W. Harness.

4

The birthplace of Mr. Forster.

5

Mr. Edmund Yates.

6

With whom Mr. and Mrs. Wills were staying at Aberystwith.

7

Lieutenant Andrew Gordon, R.N., son of the Sheriff of Midlothian.

8

Alluding to a translation of a play by M. Maquet, which M. Fechter was then preparing for his theatre.

9

Now Mrs. Dallas Glyn.

10

Formerly Miss Talfourd.

11

His travelling journal.

12

Answer to letter from Jewish lady, remonstrating with him on injustice to the Jews, shown in the character of Fagin, and asking for subscription for the benefit of the Jewish poor.

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.

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.

17

Madame Sainton Dolby.

18

The nearest neighbour at Higham, and intimate friends.

19

Dr. Fordyce Barker.

20

The Agricultural College, Cirencester.

21

"No Thoroughfare."

22

The Mr. H. F. Chorley so often mentioned was the well-known musical critic, and a dear and intimate friend of Charles Dickens and his family. We have no letters to him, Mr. Chorley having destroyed all his correspondence before his death.

23

Mr. Chauncey Hare Townshend. He was one of the dearest friends of Charles Dickens and a very constant correspondent; but no letters addressed to him are in existence.

24

An American family of brothers and a sister who came to London to give a musical entertainment shortly after Charles Dickens's return from his first visit to America. He had a great interest in, and liking for, these young people.

25

Cousin and adopted child of Mr. and Mrs. Austin.

26

A model of a Swiss châlet, and a present from M. Charles Fechter, used by Charles Dickens as a summer writing-room.

27

This letter has been already published by Mr. Forster in his "Life."

28

Herr Joseph Joachim, the renowned violinist.

29

His sister-in-law, Mrs. Augustus Dickens, always a welcome visitor at Gad's Hill.

30

Of the Guild of Literature and Art.

31

The housekeeper at the office.

32

On the death of his second wife.

33

Of the Readings. The intention was carried out. Mr. Kent's book, "Charles Dickens as a Reader," was published in 1872.

34

No doubt Charles Dickens intended to add the Reading Books to the legacy of his MSS. to Mr. Forster. But he did not do so, therefore the "Readings" are not a part of the "Forster Collection" at the South Kensington Museum.

35

A new collective edition of "Kent's Poems," dedicated to his cousin, Colonel Kent, of the 77th Regiment.

36

Miss Marie Wilton.

37

This letter has lately been presented by Mr. Charles Kent to the British Museum.