The Letters of Charles Dickens Volume Iii Part 25

PARIS, _Sunday, November 22nd, 1846._

YOUNG MAN,

I will not go there if I can help it. I have not the least confidence in the value of your introduction to the Devil. I can't help thinking that it would be of better use "the other way, the other way," but I won't try it there, either, at present, if I can help it. Your G.o.dson says is that your duty? and he begs me to enclose a blush newly blushed for you.

As to writing, I have written to you twenty times and twenty more to that, if you only knew it. I have been writing a little Christmas book, besides, expressly for you. And if you don't like it, I shall go to the font of Marylebone Church as soon as I conveniently can and renounce you: I am not to be trifled with. I write from Paris. I am getting up some French steam.

I intend to proceed upon the longing-for-a-lap-of-blood-at-last principle, and if you _do_ offend me, look to it.

We are all well and happy, and they send loves to you by the bushel. We are in the agonies of house-hunting. The people are frightfully civil, and grotesquely extortionate. One man (with a house to let) told me yesterday that he loved the Duke of Wellington like a brother. The same gentleman wanted to hug me round the neck with one hand, and pick my pocket with the other.

Don't be hard upon the Swiss. They are a thorn in the sides of European despots, and a good wholesome people to live near Jesuit-ridden kings on the brighter side of the mountains. My hat shall ever be ready to be thrown up, and my glove ever ready to be thrown down for Switzerland. If you were the man I took you for, when I took you (as a G.o.dfather) for better and for worse, you would come to Paris and amaze the weak walls of the house I haven't found yet with that steady snore of yours, which I once heard piercing the door of your bedroom in Devonshire Terrace, reverberating along the bell-wire in the hall, so getting outside into the street, playing Eolian harps among the area railings, and going down the New Road like the blast of a trumpet.

I forgive you your reviling of me: there's a shovelful of live coals for your head--does it burn? And am, with true affection--does it burn now?--

Ever yours.

[Sidenote: The Hon. Richard Watson.]

PARIS, 48, RUE DE COURCELLES, ST. HONORe, _Friday, Nov. 27th, 1846._

MY DEAR WATSON,

We were housed only yesterday. I lose no time in despatching this memorandum of our whereabouts, in order that you may not fail to write me a line before you come to Paris on your way towards England, letting me know on what day we are to expect you to dinner.

We arrived here quite happily and well. I don't mean here, but at the Hotel Brighton, in Paris, on Friday evening, between six and seven o'clock. The agonies of house-hunting were frightfully severe. It was one paroxysm for four mortal days. I am proud to express my belief, that we are lodged at last in the most preposterous house in the world. The like of it cannot, and so far as my knowledge goes does not, exist in any other part of the globe. The bedrooms are like opera-boxes. The dining-rooms, staircases, and pa.s.sages, quite inexplicable. The dining-room is a sort of cavern, painted (ceiling and all) to represent a grove, with unaccountable bits of looking-gla.s.s sticking in among the branches of the trees. There is a gleam of reason in the drawing-room.

But it is approached through a series of small chambers, like the joints in a telescope, which are hung with inscrutable drapery. The maddest man in Bedlam, having the materials given him, would be likely to devise such a suite, supposing his case to be hopeless and quite incurable.

Pray tell Mrs. Watson, with my best regards, that the dance of the two sisters in the little Christmas book is being done as an ill.u.s.tration by Maclise; and that Stanfield is doing the battle-ground and the outside of the Nutmeg Grater Inn. Maclise is also drawing some smaller subjects for the little story, and they write me that they hope it will be very pretty, and they think that I shall like it. I shall have been in London before I see you, probably, and I hope the book itself will then be on its road to Lausanne to speak for itself, and to speak a word for me too. I have never left so many friendly and cheerful recollections in any place; and to represent me in my absence, its tone should be very eloquent and affectionate indeed.

Well, if I don't turn up again next summer it shall not be my fault. In the meanwhile, I shall often and often look that way with my mind's eye, and hear the sweet, clear, bell-like voice of ---- with the ear of my imagination. In the event of there being any change--but it is not likely--in the appearance of his cravat behind, where it goes up into his head, I mean, and frets against his wig--I hope some one of my English friends will apprise me of it, for the love of the great Saint Bernard.

I have not seen Lord Normanby yet. I have not seen anything up to this time but houses and lodgings. There seems to be immense excitement here on the subject of ---- however, and a perfectly stupendous sensation getting up. I saw the king the other day coming into Paris. His carriage was surrounded by guards on horseback, and he sat very far back in it, I thought, and drove at a great pace. It was strange to see the prefet of police on horseback some hundreds of yards in advance, looking to the right and left as he rode, like a man who suspected every twig in every tree in the long avenue.

The English relations look anything but promising, though I understand that the Count St. Aulaire is to remain in London, notwithstanding the newspaper alarms to the contrary. If there be anything like the sensation in England about ---- that there is here, there will be a bitter resentment indeed. The democratic society of Paris have announced, this morning, their intention of printing and circulating fifty thousand copies of an appeal in every European language. It is a base business beyond question, and comes at an ill time.

Mrs. d.i.c.kens and her sister desire their best regards to be sent to you and their best loves to Mrs. Watson, in which I join, as nearly as I may. Believe me, with great truth,

Very sincerely yours.

P.S.--Mrs. d.i.c.kens is going to write to Mrs. Watson next week, she says.

[Sidenote: M. Cerjat.]

PARIS, 48, RUE DE COURCELLES, ST. HONORe, _Friday, Nov. 27th, 1846._

MY DEAR CERJAT,

When we turned out of your view on that disconsolate Monday, when you so kindly took horse and rode forth to say good-bye, we went on in a very dull and drowsy manner, I can a.s.sure you. I could have borne a world of punch in the rumble and been none the worse for it. There was an uncommonly cool inn that night, and quite a monstrous establishment at Auxonne the next night, full of flatulent pa.s.sages and banging doors.

The next night we pa.s.sed at Montbard, where there is one of the very best little inns in all France. The next at Sens, and so we got here.

The roads were bad, but not very for French roads. There was no deficiency of horses anywhere; and after Pontarlier the weather was really not too cold for comfort. They weighed our plate at the frontier custom-house, spoon by spoon, and fork by fork, and we lingered about there, in a thick fog and a hard frost, for three long hours and a half, during which the officials committed all manner of absurdities, and got into all sorts of disputes with my brave courier. This was the only misery we encountered--except leaving Lausanne, and that was enough to last us and _did_ last us all the way here. We are living on it now. I felt, myself, much as I should think the murderer felt on that fair morning when, with his gray-haired victim (those unconscious gray hairs, soon to be bedabbled with blood), he went so far towards heaven as the top of that mountain of St. Bernard without one touch of remorse. A weight is on my breast. The only difference between me and the murderer is, that his weight was guilt and mine is regret.

I haven't a word of news to tell you. I shouldn't write at all if I were not the vainest man in the world, impelled by a belief that you will be glad to hear from me, even though you hear no more than that I have nothing to say. "Dombey" is doing wonders. It went up, after the publication of the second number, over the thirty thousand. This is such a very large sale, so early in the story, that I begin to think it will beat all the rest. Keeley and his wife are making great preparations for producing the Christmas story, and I have made them (as an old stage manager) carry out one or two expensive notions of mine about scenery and so forth--in particular a sudden change from the inside of the doctor's house in the midst of the ball to the orchard in the snow--which ought to tell very well. But actors are so bad, in general, and the best are spread over so many theatres, that the "cast" is black despair and moody madness. There is no one to be got for Marion but a certain Miss ----, I am afraid--a pupil of Miss Kelly's, who acted in the private theatricals I got up a year ago. Macready took her afterwards to play Virginia to his Virginius, but she made nothing of it, great as the chance was. I have promised to show her what I mean, as near as I can, and if you will look into the English Opera House on the morning of the 17th, 18th, or 19th of next month, between the hours of eleven and four, you will find me in a very hot and dusty condition, playing all the parts of the piece, to the immense diversion of all the actors, actresses, scene-shifters, carpenters, musicians, chorus people, tailors, dressmakers, scene-painters, and general ragam.u.f.fins of the theatre.

Moore, the poet, is very ill--I fear dying. The last time I saw him was immediately before I left London, and I thought him sadly changed and tamed, but not much more so than such a man might be under the heavy hand of time. I believe he suffered severe grief in the death of a son some time ago. The first man I met in Paris was ----, who took hold of me as I was getting into a coach at the door of the hotel. He hadn't a b.u.t.ton on his shirt (but I don't think he ever has), and you might have sown what boys call "mustard and cress" in the dust on his coat. I have not seen Lord Normanby yet, as we have only just got a house (the queerest house in Europe!) to lay our heads in; but there seems reason to fear that the growing dissensions between England and France, and the irritation of the French king, may lead to the withdrawal of the minister on each side of the Channel.

Have you cut down any more trees, played any more rubbers, propounded any more teasers to the players at the game of Yes and No? How is the old horse? How is the gray mare? How is Crab (to whom my respectful compliments)? Have you tried the punch yet; if yes, did it succeed; if no, why not? Is Mrs. Cerjat as happy and as well as I would have her, and all your house ditto ditto? Does Haldimand play whist with any science yet? Ha, ha, ha! the idea of his saying _I_ hadn't any! And are those damask-cheeked virgins, the Miss ----, still sleeping on dewy rose leaves near the English church?

Remember me to all your house, and most of all to its other head, with all the regard and earnestness that a "numble individual" (as they always call it in the House of Commons) who once travelled with her in a car over a smooth country may charge you with. I have added two lines to the little Christmas book, that I hope both you and she may not dislike.

Haldimand will tell you what they are. Kate and Georgy send their kindest loves, and Kate is "going" to write "next week." Believe me always, my dear Cerjat, full of cordial and hearty recollections of this past summer and autumn, and your part in my part of them,

Very faithfully your Friend.

[Sidenote: Mrs. Charles d.i.c.kens.]

58, LINCOLN'S INN FIELDS, _Sat.u.r.day, Dec. 19th, 1846._

MY DEAREST KATE,

I really am bothered to death by this confounded _dramatization_ of the Christmas book. They were in a state so horrible at Keeley's yesterday (as perhaps Forster told you when he wrote), that I was obliged to engage to read the book to them this morning. It struck me that Mrs.

Leigh Murray, Miss Daly, and Vining seemed to understand it best.

Certainly Miss Daly knew best what she was about yesterday. At eight to-night we have a rehearsal with scenery and band, and everything but dresses. I see no possibility of escaping from it before one or two o'clock in the morning. And I was at the theatre all day yesterday.

Unless I had come to London, I do not think there would have been much hope of the version being more than just tolerated, even that doubtful.

All the actors bad, all the business frightfully behindhand. The very words of the book confused in the copying into the densest and most insufferable nonsense. I must exempt, however, from the general slackness both the Keeleys. I hope they will be very good. I have never seen anything of its kind better than the manner in which they played the little supper scene between Clemency and Britain, yesterday. It was quite perfect, even to me.

The small manager, Forster, Talfourd, Stanny, and Mac dine with me at the Piazza to-day, before the rehearsal. I have already one or two uncommonly good stories of Mac. I reserve them for narration. I have also a dreadful cold, which I would not reserve if I could help it. I can hardly hold up my head, and fight through from hour to hour, but had serious thoughts just now of walking off to bed.

Christmas book published to-day--twenty-three thousand copies already gone!!! Browne's plates for next "Dombey" much better than usual.

I have seen n.o.body yet, of course. But I sent Roche up to your mother this morning, to say I am in town and will come shortly. There is a great thaw here to-day, and it is raining hard. I hope you have the advantage (if it be one, which I am not sure of) of a similar change in Paris. Of course I start again on Thursday. We are expecting (Roche and I) a letter from the malle poste people, to whom we have applied for places. The journey here was long and cold--twenty-four hours from Paris to Boulogne. Pa.s.sage not very bad, and made in two hours.

I find I can't write at all, so I had best leave off. I am looking impatiently for your letter on Monday morning. Give my best love to Georgy, and kisses to all the dear children. And believe me, my love,

Most affectionately.

[Sidenote: Mrs. Charles d.i.c.kens.]

PIAZZA COFFEE-HOUSE, COVENT GARDEN, _Monday, Dec. 21st, 1846._

MY DEAREST KATE,

In a quiet interval of half an hour before going to dine at Macready's, I sit down to write you a few words. But I shall reserve my letter for to-morrow's post, in order that you may hear what _I_ hear of the "going" of the play to-night. Think of my being there on Sat.u.r.day, with a really frightful cold, and working harder than ever I did at the amateur plays, until two in the morning. There was no supper to be got, either here or anywhere else, after coming out; and I was as hungry and thirsty as need be. The scenery and dresses are very good indeed, and they have spent money on it _liberally_. The great change from the ball-room to the snowy night is most effective, and both the departure and the return will tell, I think, strongly on an audience. I have made them very quick and excited in the pa.s.sionate scenes, and so have infused some appearance of life into those parts of the play. But I can't make a Marion, and Miss ---- is awfully bad. She is a mere nothing all through. I put Mr. Leigh Murray into such a state, by making him tear about, that the perspiration ran streaming down his face. They have a great let. I believe every place in the house is taken. Roche is going.

_Tuesday Morning._--The play went, as well as I can make out--I hoped to have had Stanny's report of it, but he is ill--with great effect. There was immense enthusiasm at its close, and great uproar and shouting for me. Forster will go on Wednesday, and write you his account of it. I saw the Keeleys on the stage at eleven o'clock or so, and they were in prodigious spirits and delight.