The Letters of Charles Dickens Volume I Part 22

[65] This Letter was written during the Crimean war.

1856.

[Sidenote: Mr. T. Ross. Mr. J. Kenny.]

TAVISTOCK HOUSE, _Monday, 19th May, 1856._

GENTLEMEN,

I have received a letter signed by you (which I a.s.sume to be written mainly on behalf of what are called Working-Men and their families) inviting me to attend a meeting in our Parish Vestry Hall this evening on the subject of the stoppage of the Sunday bands in the Parks.

I thoroughly agree with you that those bands have afforded an innocent and healthful enjoyment on the Sunday afternoon, to which the people have a right. But I think it essential that the working people should, of themselves and by themselves, a.s.sert that right. They have been informed, on the high authority of their first Minister (lately rather in want of House of Commons votes I am told) that they are almost indifferent to it. The correction of that mistake, if official omniscience can be mistaken, lies with themselves. In case it should be considered by the meeting, which I prefer for this reason not to attend, expedient to unite with other Metropolitan parishes in forming a fund for the payment of such expenses as may be incurred in peaceably and numerously representing to the governing powers that the harmless recreation they have taken away is very much wanted, I beg you to put down my name as a subscriber of ten pounds.

And I am, your faithful Servant.

[Sidenote: Mr. Washington Irving.]

TAVISTOCK HOUSE, _London, July 5th, 1856._

MY DEAR IRVING,

If you knew how often I write to you individually and personally in my books, you would be no more surprised in seeing this note than you were in seeing me do my duty by that flowery julep (in what I dreamily apprehend to have been a former state of existence) at Baltimore.

Will you let me present to you a cousin of mine, Mr. B----, who is a.s.sociated with a merchant's house in New York? Of course he wants to see you, and know you. How can _I_ wonder at that? How can anybody?

I had a long talk with Leslie at the last Academy dinner (having previously been with him in Paris), and he told me that you were flourishing. I suppose you know that he wears a moustache--so do I for the matter of that, and a beard too--and that he looks like a portrait of Don Quixote.

Holland House has four-and-twenty youthful pages in it now--twelve for my lord, and twelve for my lady; and no clergyman coils his leg up under his chair all dinner-time, and begins to uncurve it when the hostess goes. No wheeled chair runs smoothly in with that beaming face in it; and ----'s little cotton pocket-handkerchief helped to make (I believe) this very sheet of paper. A half-sad, half-ludicrous story of Rogers is all I will sully it with. You know, I daresay, that for a year or so before his death he wandered, and lost himself like one of the Children in the Wood, grown up there and grown down again. He had Mrs. Procter and Mrs. Carlyle to breakfast with him one morning--only those two. Both excessively talkative, very quick and clever, and bent on entertaining him. When Mrs. Carlyle had flashed and shone before him for about three-quarters of an hour on one subject, he turned his poor old eyes on Mrs. Procter, and pointing to the brilliant discourser with his poor old finger, said (indignantly), "Who is _she_?" Upon this, Mrs. Procter, cutting in, delivered (it is her own story) a neat oration on the life and writings of Carlyle, and enlightened him in her happiest and airiest manner; all of which he heard, staring in the dreariest silence, and then said (indignantly, as before), "And who are _you_?"

Ever, my dear Irving, Most affectionately and truly yours.

[Sidenote: Mr. Frank Stone, A.R.A]

VILLE DES MOULINEAUX, BOULOGNE, _Wednesday, 9th July, 1856._

MY DEAR STONE,

I have got a capital part for you in the farce,[66] not a difficult one to learn, as you never say anything but "Yes" and "No." You are called in the _dramatis personae_ an able-bodied British seaman, and you are never seen by mortal eye to do anything (except inopportunely producing a mop) but stand about the deck of the boat in everybody's way, with your hair immensely touzled, one brace on, your hands in your pockets, and the bottoms of your trousers tucked up. Yet you are inextricably connected with the plot, and are the man whom everybody is inquiring after. I think it is a very whimsical idea and extremely droll. It made me laugh heartily when I jotted it all down yesterday.

Loves from all my house to all yours.

Ever affectionately.

FOOTNOTE:

[66] The farce alluded to, however, was never written. It had been projected to be played at the Amateur Theatricals at Tavistock House.

1857.

[Sidenote: Sir Edward Bulwer Lytton.]

TAVISTOCK HOUSE, _Wednesday, 28th January, 1857._

MY DEAR BULWER,

I thought Wills had told you as to the Guild (for I begged him to) that he can do absolutely nothing until our charter is seven years old. It is the stringent and express prohibition of the Act of Parliament--for which things you members, thank G.o.d, are responsible and not I. When I observed this clause (which was just as we were going to grant a pension, if we could agree on a good subject), I caused our Counsel's opinion to be taken on it, and there is not a doubt about it. I immediately recommended that there should be no expenses--that the interest on the capital should be all invested as it accrued--that the chambers should be given up and the clerk discharged--and that the Guild should have the use of the "Household Words" office rent free, and the services of Wills on the same terms. All of which was done.

A letter is now copying, to be sent round to all the members, explaining, with the New Year, the whole state of the thing. You will receive this. It appears to me that it looks wholesome enough. But if a strong idiot comes and binds your hands, or mine, or both, for seven years, what is to be done against him?

As to greater matters than this, however--as to all matters on this teeming Earth--it appears to me that the House of Commons and Parliament altogether, is just the dreariest failure and nuisance that has bothered this much-bothered world.

Ever yours.

[Sidenote: Miss Emily Jolly.]

GRAVESEND, KENT, _10th April, 1857._

DEAR MADAM,

As I am away from London for a few days, your letter has been forwarded to me.

I can honestly encourage and a.s.sure you that I believe the depression and want of confidence under which you describe yourself as labouring to have no sufficient foundation.

First as to "Mr. Arle." I have constantly heard it spoken of with great approval, and I think it a book of considerable merit. If I were to tell you that I see no evidence of inexperience in it, that would not be true. I think a little more stir and action to be desired also; but I am surprised by your being despondent about it, for I a.s.sure you that I had supposed it (always remembering that it is your first novel) to have met with a very good reception.

I can bring to my memory--here, with no means of reference at hand--only two papers of yours that have been unsuccessful at "Household Words." I think the first was called "The Brook." It appeared to me to break down upon a confusion that pervaded it, between a Coroner's Inquest and a Trial. I have a general recollection of the mingling of the two, as to facts and forms that should have been kept apart, in some inextricable manner that was beyond my powers of disentanglement. The second was about a wife's writing a Novel and keeping the secret from her husband until it was done. I did not think the incident of sufficient force to justify the length of the narrative. But there is nothing fatal in either of these mischances.

Mr. Wills told me when I spoke to him of the latter paper that you had it in contemplation to offer a longer story to "Household Words." If you should do so, I a.s.sure you I shall be happy to read it myself, and that I shall have a sincere desire to accept it, if possible.

I can give you no better counsel than to look into the life about you, and to strive for what is n.o.blest and true. As to further encouragement, I do not, I can most strongly add, believe that you have any reason to be downhearted.

Very faithfully yours.

[Sidenote: The same.]

TAVISTOCK HOUSE, _Sat.u.r.day Morning, 30th May, 1857._