The Letters of Charles Dickens Volume Iii Part 66

[Sidenote: Mr. W. H. Wills.]

49, AVENUE DES CHAMPS ELYSeES, PARIS, _Friday, Oct. 19th, 1855._

MY DEAR WILLS,

After going through unheard-of bedevilments (of which you shall have further particulars as soon as I come right side upwards, which may happen in a day or two), we are at last established here in a series of closets, but a great many of them, with all Paris perpetually pa.s.sing under the windows. Letters may have been wandering after me to that home in the Rue de Balzac, which is to be the subject of more lawsuits between the man who let it to me and the man who wouldn't let me have possession, than any other house that ever was built. But I have had no letters at all, and have been--ha, ha!--a maniac since last Monday.

I will try my hand at that paper for H. W. to-morrow, if I can get a yard of flooring to sit upon; but we have really been in that state of topsy-turvyhood that even that has been an unattainable luxury, and may yet be for eight-and-forty hours or so, for anything I see to the contrary.

Ever faithfully.

[Sidenote: Mr. W. H. Wills.]

49, AVENUE DES CHAMPS ELYSeES, PARIS, _Sunday Night, Oct. 21st, 1855._

MY DEAR WILLS,

Coming here from a walk this afternoon, I found your letter of yesterday awaiting me. I send this reply by my brother Alfred, who is here, and who returns home to-morrow. You should get it at the office early on Tuesday.

I will go to work to-morrow, and will send you, please G.o.d, an article by Tuesday's post, which you will get on Wednesday forenoon. Look carefully to the proof, as I shall not have time to receive it for correction. When you arrange about sending your parcels, will you ascertain, and communicate to me, the prices of telegraph messages? It will save me trouble, having no foreign servant (though French is in that respect a trump), and may be useful on an emergency.

I have two floors here--_entresol_ and first--in a doll's house, but really pretty within, and the view without astounding, as you will say when you come. The house is on the Exposition side, about half a quarter of a mile above Franconi's, of course on the other side of the way, and close to the Jardin d'Hiver. Each room has but one window in it, but we have no fewer than six rooms (besides the back ones) looking on the Champs Elysees, with the wonderful life perpetually flowing up and down.

We have no spare-room, but excellent stowage for the whole family, including a capital dressing-room for me, and a really slap-up kitchen near the stairs. Damage for the whole, seven hundred francs a month.

But, sir--but--when Georgina, the servants, and I were here for the first night (Catherine and the rest being at Boulogne), I heard Georgy restless--turned out--asked: "What's the matter?" "Oh, it's dreadfully dirty. I can't sleep for the smell of my room." Imagine all my stage-managerial energies multiplied at daybreak by a thousand. Imagine the porter, the porter's wife, the porter's wife's sister, a feeble upholsterer of enormous age from round the corner, and all his workmen (four boys), summoned. Imagine the partners in the proprietorship of the apartment, and martial little man with Francois-Prussian beard, also summoned. Imagine your inimitable chief briefly explaining that dirt is not in his way, and that he is driven to madness, and that he devotes himself to no coat and a dirty face, until the apartment is thoroughly purified. Imagine co-proprietors at first astounded, then urging that "it's not the custom," then wavering, then affected, then confiding their utmost private sorrows to the Inimitable, offering new carpets (accepted), embraces (not accepted), and really responding like French bricks. Sallow, unbrushed, unshorn, awful, stalks the Inimitable through the apartment until last night. Then all the improvements were concluded, and I do really believe the place to be now worth eight or nine hundred francs per month. You must picture it as the smallest place you ever saw, but as exquisitely cheerful and vivacious, clean as anything human can be, and with a moving panorama always outside, which is Paris in itself.

You mention a letter from Miss Coutts as to Mrs. Brown's illness, which you say is "enclosed to Mrs. Charles d.i.c.kens."

It is not enclosed, and I am mad to know where she writes from that I may write to her. Pray set this right, for her uneasiness will be greatly intensified if she have no word from me.

I thought we were to give 1,700 for the house at Gad's Hill. Are we bound to 1,800? Considering the improvements to be made, it is a little too much, isn't it? I have a strong impression that at the utmost we were only to divide the difference, and not to pa.s.s 1,750. You will set me right if I am wrong. But I don't think I am.

I write very hastily, with the piano playing and Alfred looking for this.

Ever, my dear Wills, faithfully.

[Sidenote: Mr. W. H. Wills.]

49, AVENUE DES CHAMPS ELYSeES, _Wednesday, Oct. 24th, 1855._

MY DEAR WILLS,

In the Gad's Hill matter, I too would like to try the effect of "not budging." _So do not go beyond the_ 1,700. Considering what I should have to expend on the one hand, and the low price of stock on the other, I do not feel disposed to go beyond that mark. They won't let a purchaser escape for the sake of the 100, I think. And Austin was strongly of opinion, when I saw him last, that 1,700 was enough.

You cannot think how pleasant it is to me to find myself generally known and liked here. If I go into a shop to buy anything, and give my card, the officiating priest or priestess brightens up, and says: "_Ah! c'est l'ecrivain celebre! Monsieur porte un nom tres-distingue. Mais! je suis honore et interesse de voir Monsieur d.i.c.k-in. Je lis un des livres de monsieur tous les jours_" (in the _Moniteur_). And a man who brought some little vases home last night, said: "_On connait bien en France que Monsieur d.i.c.k-in prend sa position sur la dignite de la litterature. Ah!

c'est grande chose! Et ses caracteres_" (this was to Georgina, while he unpacked) "_sont si spirituellement tournees! Cette Madame Tojare_"

(Todgers), "_ah! qu'elle est drole et precis.e.m.e.nt comme une dame que je connais a Calais._"

You cannot have any doubt about this place, if you will only recollect it is the great main road from the Place de la Concorde to the Barriere de l'etoile.

Ever faithfully.

[Sidenote: Monsieur Regnier.]

_Wednesday, November 21st, 1855._

MY DEAR REGNIER,

In thanking you for the box you kindly sent me the day before yesterday, let me thank you a thousand times for the delight we derived from the representation of your beautiful and admirable piece. I have hardly ever been so affected and interested in any theatre. Its construction is in the highest degree excellent, the interest absorbing, and the whole conducted by a masterly hand to a touching and natural conclusion.

Through the whole story from beginning to end, I recognise the true spirit and feeling of an artist, and I most heartily offer you and your fellow-labourer my felicitations on the success you have achieved. That it will prove a very great and a lasting one, I cannot for a moment doubt.

O my friend! If I could see an English actress with but one hundredth part of the nature and art of Madame Plessy, I should believe our English theatre to be in a fair way towards its regeneration. But I have no hope of ever beholding such a phenomenon. I may as well expect ever to see upon an English stage an accomplished artist, able to write and to embody what he writes, like you.

Faithfully yours ever.

[Sidenote: Madame Viardot.]

49, AVENUE DES CHAMPS ELYSeES, _Monday, Dec. 3rd, 1855._

DEAR MADAME VIARDOT,

Mrs. d.i.c.kens tells me that you have only borrowed the first number of "Little Dorrit," and are going to send it back. Pray do nothing of the sort, and allow me to have the great pleasure of sending you the succeeding numbers as they reach me. I have had such delight in your great genius, and have so high an interest in it and admiration of it, that I am proud of the honour of giving you a moment's intellectual pleasure.

Believe me, very faithfully yours.

[Sidenote: The Hon. Mrs. Watson.]

TAVISTOCK HOUSE, _Sunday, Dec. 23rd, 1855._

MY DEAR MRS. WATSON,

I have a moment in which to redeem my promise, of putting you in possession of my Little Friend No. 2, before the general public. It is, of course, at the disposal of your circle, but until the month is out, is understood to be a prisoner in the castle.

If I had time to write anything, I should still quite vainly try to tell you what interest and happiness I had in once more seeing you among your dear children. Let me congratulate you on your Eton boys. They are so handsome, frank, and genuinely modest, that they charmed me. A kiss to the little fair-haired darling and the rest; the love of my heart to every stone in the old house.

Enormous effect at Sheffield. But really not a better audience perceptively than at Peterboro', for that could hardly be, but they were more enthusiastically demonstrative, and they took the line, "and to Tiny Tim who did NOT die," with a most prodigious shout and roll of thunder.

Ever, my dear Friend, most faithfully yours.

FOOTNOTES:

[21] Captain Cavendish Boyle was governor of the military prison at Weedon.