The Letters of Charles Dickens Volume Ii Part 62

[Sidenote: M. de Cerjat.]

GAD'S HILL PLACE, HIGHAM BY ROCHESTER, KENT, _Monday, Jan. 4th, 1869._

MY DEAR CERJAT,

I will answer your question first. Have I done with my farewell readings? Lord bless you, no; and I shall think myself well out of it if I get done by the end of May. I have undertaken one hundred and six, and have as yet only vanquished twenty-eight. To-morrow night I read in London for the first time the "Murder" from "Oliver Twist," which I have re-arranged for the purpose. Next day I start for Dublin and Belfast. I am just back from Scotland for a few Christmas holidays. I go back there next month; and in the meantime and afterwards go everywhere else.

Take my guarantee for it, you may be quite comfortable on the subject of papal aspirations and encroachments. The English people are in unconquerable opposition to that church. They have the animosity in the blood, derived from the history of the past, though perhaps unconsciously. But they do sincerely want to win Ireland over if they can. They know that since the Union she has been hardly used. They know that Scotland has _her_ religion, and a very uncomfortable one. They know that Scotland, though intensely anti-papal, perceives it to be unjust that Ireland has not _her_ religion too, and has very emphatically declared her opinion in the late elections. They know that a richly-endowed church, forced upon a people who don't belong to it, is a grievance with these people. They know that many things, but especially an artfully and schemingly managed inst.i.tution like the Romish Church, thrive upon a grievance, and that Rome has thriven exceedingly upon this, and made the most of it. Lastly, the best among them know that there is a gathering cloud in the West, considerably bigger than a man's hand, under which a powerful Irish-American body, rich and active, is always drawing Ireland in that direction; and that these are not times in which other powers would back our holding Ireland by force, unless we could make our claim good in proving fair and equal government.

Poor Townshend charged me in his will "to publish without alteration his religious opinions, which he sincerely believed would tend to the happiness of mankind." To publish them without alteration is absolutely impossible; for they are distributed in the strangest fragments through the strangest note-books, pocket-books, slips of paper and what not, and produce a most incoherent and tautological result. I infer that he must have held some always-postponed idea of fitting them together. For these reasons I would certainly publish nothing about them, if I had any discretion in the matter. Having none, I suppose a book must be made.

His pictures and rings are gone to the South Kensington Museum, and are now exhibiting there.

Charley Collins is no better and no worse. Katie looks very young and very pretty. Her sister and Miss Hogarth (my joint housekeepers) have been on duty this Christmas, and have had enough to do. My boys are now all dispersed in South America, India, and Australia, except Charley, whom I have taken on at "All the Year Round" Office, and Henry, who is an undergraduate at Trinity Hall, and I hope will make his mark there.

All well.

The Thames Embankment is (faults of ugliness in detail apart) the finest public work yet done. From Westminster Bridge to near Waterloo it is now lighted up at night, and has a fine effect. They have begun to plant it with trees, and the footway (not the road) is already open to the Temple. Besides its beauty, and its usefulness in relieving the crowded streets, it will greatly quicken and deepen what is learnedly called the "scour" of the river. But the Corporation of London and some other nuisances have brought the weirs above Twickenham into a very bare and unsound condition, and they already begin to give and vanish, as the stream runs faster and stronger.

Your undersigned friend has had a few occasional reminders of his "true American catarrh." Although I have exerted my voice very much, it has not yet been once touched. In America I was obliged to patch it up constantly.

I like to read your patriarchal account of yourself among your Swiss vines and fig-trees. You wouldn't recognise Gad's Hill now; I have so changed it, and bought land about it. And yet I often think that if Mary were to marry (which she won't) I should sell it and go genteelly vagabondising over the face of the earth. Then indeed I might see Lausanne again. But I don't seem in the way of it at present, for the older I get, the more I do and the harder I work.

Yours ever affectionately.

[Sidenote: Miss Mary Boyle.]

OFFICE OF "ALL THE YEAR ROUND,"

_Wednesday, Jan. 6th, 1869._

MY DEAR MARY,

I was more affected than you can easily believe, by the sight of your gift lying on my dressing-table on the morning of the new year. To be remembered in a friend's heart when it is sore is a touching thing; and that and the remembrance of the dead quite overpowered me, the one being inseparable from the other.

You may be sure that I shall attach a special interest and value to the beautiful present, and shall wear it as a kind of charm. G.o.d bless you, and may we carry the friendship through many coming years!

My preparations for a certain murder that I had to do last night have rendered me unfit for letter-writing these last few days, or you would have heard from me sooner. The crime being completely off my mind and the blood spilled, I am (like many of my fellow-criminals) in a highly edifying state to-day.

Ever believe me, your affectionate Friend.

[Sidenote: Miss d.i.c.kens.]

TORQUAY, _Wednesday, Jan. 27th, 1869._

MY DEAREST MAMIE,

We have been doing immensely.

This place is most beautiful, though colder now than one would expect.

This hotel, an immense place, built among picturesque broken rocks out in the blue sea, is quite delicious. There are bright green trees in the garden, and new peas a foot high. Our rooms are _en suite_, all commanding the sea, and each with two very large plate-gla.s.s windows.

Everything good and well served.

A _pantomime_ was being done last night, in the place where I am to read to-night. It is something between a theatre, a circus, a riding-school, a Methodist chapel, and a cow-house. I was so disgusted with its acoustic properties on going in to look at it, that the whole unfortunate staff have been all day, and now are, sticking up baize and carpets in it to prevent echoes.

I have rarely seen a more uncomfortable edifice than I thought it last night.

At Clifton, on Monday night, we had a contagion of fainting. And yet the place was not hot. I should think we had from a dozen to twenty ladies borne out, stiff and rigid, at various times. It became quite ridiculous.

[Sidenote: Miss Hogarth.]

BATH, _Friday, Jan. 29th, 1869._

MY DEAREST GEORGY,

You must not trust blank places in my list, because many have been, and will be, gradually filled up. After the Tuesday's reading in London, I have TWO for that same week in the country--Nottingham and Leicester. In the following week I have none; but my arrangements are all at sea as yet, for I must somehow and somewhere do an "Uncommercial" in that week, and I also want to get poor Chauncey's "opinions" to the printer.

This mouldy old roosting-place comes out mouldily as to let of course. I hate the sight of the bygone a.s.sembly-rooms, and the Bath chairs trundling the dowagers about the streets. As to to-morrow morning in the daylight!----

I have no cold to speak of. Dolby sends kindest regard.

[Sidenote: Mrs. Lehmann.]

OFFICE, _Wednesday, Feb. 3rd, 1869._

DEAR MRS. LEHMANN,

Before getting your kind note, I had written to Lehmann, explaining why I cannot allow myself any social pleasure while my farewell task is yet unfinished. The work is so very hard, that every little sc.r.a.p of rest _and silence_ I can pick up is precious. And even those morsels are so flavoured with "All the Year Round," that they are not quite the genuine article.

Joachim[28] came round to see me at the hall last night, and I told him how sorry I was to forego the pleasure of meeting him (he is a n.o.ble fellow!) at your pleasant table.

I am glad you are coming to the "Murder" on the 2nd of March. (The house will be prodigious.) Such little changes as I have made shall be carefully presented to your critical notice, and I hope will be crowned with your approval. But you are always such a fine audience that I have no fear on that head. I saw Chorley yesterday in his own room. A sad and solitary sight. The widowed Drake, with a certain _gin_coherence of manner, presented a blooming countenance and buxom form in the pa.s.sage; so buxom indeed that she was obliged to retire before me like a modest stopper, before I could get into the dining decanter where poor Chorley reposed.

Faithfully yours always.

P.S.--My love to Rudie.

[Sidenote: Miss Hogarth.]

GLASGOW, _Thursday, Feb. 25th, 1869._

I received your letter at Edinburgh this morning. I did not write to you yesterday, as there had been no reading on the previous night.

The foot bears the fatigue wonderfully well, and really occasions me no inconvenience beyond the necessity of wearing the big work of art. Syme saw me again this morning, and utterly scouted the gout notion altogether. I think the Edinburgh audience understood the "Murder"

better last night than any audience that has heard it yet. "Business" is enormous, and Dolby jubilant.