The Letters of Charles Dickens Volume Iii Part 5

Charles d.i.c.kens was at Broadstairs with his family for the autumn months. During all this year he was busily engaged with the periodical ent.i.tled "Master Humphrey's Clock," in which the story of "The Old Curiosity Shop" subsequently appeared. Nearly all these letters to Mr.

George Cattermole refer to the ill.u.s.trations for this story.

The one dated March 9th alludes to short papers written for "Master Humphrey's Clock" prior to the commencement of "The Old Curiosity Shop."

We have in this year Charles d.i.c.kens's first letter to Mr. Daniel Maclise, this and one other being, unfortunately, the only letters we have been able to obtain addressed to this much-loved friend and most intimate companion.

[Sidenote: Mr. George Cattermole.]

1, DEVONSHIRE TERRACE, _Monday, January 13th, 1840._ MY DEAR CATTERMOLE,

I am going to propound a mightily grave matter to you. My now periodical work appears--or I should rather say the first number does--on Sat.u.r.day, the 28th of March; and as it has to be sent to America and Germany, and must therefore be considerably in advance, it is now in hand; I having in fact begun it on Sat.u.r.day last. Instead of being published in monthly parts at a shilling each only, it will be published in weekly parts at threepence and monthly parts at a shilling; my object being to baffle the imitators and make it as novel as possible. The plan is a new one--I mean the plan of the fiction--and it will comprehend a great variety of tales. The t.i.tle is: "Master Humphrey's Clock."

Now, among other improvements, I have turned my attention to the ill.u.s.trations, meaning to have woodcuts dropped into the text and no separate plates. I want to know whether you would object to make me a little sketch for a woodcut--in indian-ink would be quite sufficient--about the size of the enclosed sc.r.a.p; the subject, an old quaint room with antique Elizabethan furniture, and in the chimney-corner an extraordinary old clock--the clock belonging to Master Humphrey, in fact, and no figures. This I should drop into the text at the head of my opening page.

I want to know besides--as Chapman and Hall are my partners in the matter, there need be no delicacy about my asking or your answering the question--what would be your charge for such a thing, and whether (if the work answers our expectations) you would like to repeat the joke at regular intervals, and, if so, on what terms? I should tell you that I intend to ask Maclise to join me likewise, and that the copying the drawing on wood and the cutting will be done in first-rate style. We are justified by past experience in supposing that the sale would be enormous, and the popularity very great; and when I explain to you the notes I have in my head, I think you will see that it opens a vast number of very good subjects.

I want to talk the matter over with you, and wish you would fix your own time and place--either here or at your house or at the Athenaeum, though this would be the best place, because I have my papers about me.

If you would take a chop with me, for instance, on Tuesday or Wednesday, I could tell you more in two minutes than in twenty letters, albeit I have endeavoured to make this as businesslike and stupid as need be.

Of course all these tremendous arrangements are as yet a profound secret, or there would be fifty Humphreys in the field. So write me a line like a worthy gentleman, and convey my best remembrances to your worthy lady.

Believe me always, my dear Cattermole, Faithfully yours.

[Sidenote: Mr. George Cattermole.]

DEVONSHIRE TERRACE, _Tuesday Afternoon._

MY DEAR CATTERMOLE,

I think the drawing most famous, and so do the publishers, to whom I sent it to-day. If Browne should suggest anything for the future which may enable him to do you justice in copying (on which point he is very anxious), I will communicate it to you. It has occurred to me that perhaps you will like to see his copy on the block before it is cut, and I have therefore told Chapman and Hall to forward it to you.

In future, I will take care that you have the number to choose your subject from. I ought to have done so, perhaps, in this case; but I was very anxious that you should do the room.

Perhaps the shortest plan will be for me to send you, as enclosed, regularly; but if you prefer keeping account with the publishers, they will be happy to enter upon it when, where, and how you please.

Faithfully yours always.

[Sidenote: Mr. George Cattermole.]

1, DEVONSHIRE TERRACE, _Monday, March 9th, 1840._ MY DEAR CATTERMOLE,

I have been induced, on looking over the works of the "Clock," to make a slight alteration in their disposal, by virtue of which the story about "John Podgers" will stand over for some little time, and that short tale will occupy its place which you have already by you, and which treats of the a.s.sa.s.sination of a young gentleman under circ.u.mstances of peculiar aggravation. I shall be greatly obliged to you if you will turn your attention to this last morsel as the feature of No. 3, and still more if you can stretch a point with regard to time (which is of the last importance just now), and make a subject out of it, rather than find one in it. I would neither have made this alteration nor have troubled you about it, but for weighty and cogent reasons which I feel very strongly, and into the composition of which caprice or fastidiousness has no part.

I should tell you perhaps, with reference to Chapman and Hall, that they will never trouble you (as they never trouble me) but when there is real and pressing occasion, and that their representations in this respect, unlike those of most men of business, are to be relied upon.

I cannot tell you how admirably I think Master Humphrey's room comes out, or what glowing accounts I hear of the second design you have done.

I had not the faintest antic.i.p.ation of anything so good--taking into account the material and the despatch.

With best regards at home, Believe me, dear Cattermole, Heartily yours.

P.S.--The new (No. 3) tale begins: "I hold a lieutenant's commission in his Majesty's army, and served abroad in the campaigns of 1677 and 1678." It has at present no t.i.tle.

[Sidenote: Mr. S. A. Diezman.]

1, DEVONSHIRE TERRACE, YORK GATE, REGENT'S PARK, LONDON, _10th March, 1840._

MY DEAR SIR,

I will not attempt to tell you how much gratified I have been by the receipt of your first English letter; nor can I describe to you with what delight and gratification I learn that I am held in such high esteem by your great countrymen, whose favourable appreciation is flattering indeed.

To you, who have undertaken the laborious (and often, I fear, very irksome) task of clothing me in the German garb, I owe a long arrear of thanks. I wish you would come to England, and afford me an opportunity of slightly reducing the account.

It is with great regret that I have to inform you, in reply to the request contained in your pleasant communication, that my publishers have already made such arrangements and are in possession of such stipulations relative to the proof-sheets of my new works, that I have no power to send them out of England. If I had, I need not tell you what pleasure it would afford me to promote your views.

I am too sensible of the trouble you must have already had with my writings to impose upon you now a long letter. I will only add, therefore, that I am,

My dear Sir, With great sincerity, Faithfully yours.

[Sidenote: Mr. Daniel Maclise.]

BROADSTAIRS, _June 2nd, 1840._

MY DEAR MACLISE,

My foot is in the house, My bath is on the sea, And, before I take a souse, Here's a single note to thee.

It merely says that the sea is in a state of extraordinary sublimity; that this place is, as the Guide Book most justly observes, "unsurpa.s.sed for the salubrity of the refreshing breezes, which are wafted on the ocean's pinions from far-distant sh.o.r.es." That we are all right after the perils and voyages of yesterday. That the sea is rolling away in front of the window at which I indite this epistle, and that everything is as fresh and glorious as fine weather and a splendid coast can make it. Bear these recommendations in mind, and shunning Talfourdian pledges, come to the bower which is shaded for you in the one-pair front, where no chair or table has four legs of the same length, and where no drawers will open till you have pulled the pegs off, and then they keep open and won't shut again.

COME!

I can no more.

Always faithfully yours.

[Sidenote: Mr. George Cattermole.]

DEVONSHIRE TERRACE, _December 21st._

MY DEAR GEORGE,

Kit, the single gentleman, and Mr. Garland go down to the place where the child is, and arrive there at night. There has been a fall of snow.

Kit, leaving them behind, runs to the old house, and, with a lanthorn in one hand and the bird in its cage in the other, stops for a moment at a little distance with a natural hesitation before he goes up to make his presence known. In a window--supposed to be that of the child's little room--a light is burning, and in that room the child (unknown, of course, to her visitors, who are full of hope) lies dead.