The Letters of Charles Dickens Volume I Part 25

I am delighted to receive your letter, and to look forward with confidence to having such a successor in August. I can honestly a.s.sure you that I never have been so pleased at heart in all my literary life, as I am in the proud thought of standing side by side with you before this great audience.

In regard of the story,[72] I have perfect faith in such a master-hand as yours; and I know that what such an artist feels to be terrible and original, is unquestionably so. You whet my interest by what you write of it to the utmost extent.

Believe me ever affectionately yours.

[Sidenote: The same.]

3, HANOVER TERRACE, REGENT'S PARK, _Sunday, 28th April, 1861._

MY DEAR BULWER LYTTON,

My story will finish in the first week in August. Yours ought to begin in the last week of July, or the last week but one. Wilkie Collins will be at work to follow you. The publication has made a very great success with "Great Expectations," and could not present a finer time for you.

The question of length may be easily adjusted.

Of the misgiving you entertain I cannot of course judge until you give me leave to rush to the perusal. I swear that I never thought I had half so much self-denial as I have shown in this case! I think I shall come out at Exeter Hall as a choice vessel on the strength of it. In the meanwhile I have quickened the printer and told him to get on fast.

You cannot think how happy you make me by what you write of "Great Expectations." There is nothing like the pride of making such an effect on such a writer as you.

Ever faithfully.

[Sidenote: The same.]

3, HANOVER TERRACE, REGENT'S PARK, _Wednesday, 8th May, 1861._

MY DEAR BULWER LYTTON,

I am anxious to let you know that Mr. Frederic Lehmann, who is coming down to Knebworth to see you (with his sister Mrs. Benzon) is a particular friend of mine, for whom I have a very high and warm regard.

Although he will sufficiently enlist your sympathy on his own behalf, I am sure that you will not be the less interested in him because I am.

Ever faithfully yours.

[Sidenote: The same.]

3, HANOVER TERRACE, _Sunday, 12th May, 1861._

MY DEAR BULWER LYTTON,

I received your revised proofs only yesterday, and I sat down to read them last night. And before I say anything further I may tell you that I COULD NOT lay them aside, but was obliged to go on with them in my bedroom until I got into a very ghostly state indeed. This morning I have taken them again and have gone through them with the utmost attention.

Of the beauty and power of the writing I say not a word, or of its originality and boldness, or of its quite extraordinary constructive skill. I confine myself solely to your misgiving, and to the question whether there is any sufficient foundation for it.

On the last head I say, without the faintest hesitation, most decidedly there is NOT sufficient foundation for it. I do not share it in the least. I believe that the readers who have here given their minds (or perhaps had any to give) to those strange psychological mysteries in ourselves, of which we are all more or less conscious, will accept your wonders as curious weapons in the armoury of fiction, and will submit themselves to the Art with which said weapons are used. Even to that cla.s.s of intelligence the marvellous addresses itself from a very strong position; and that cla.s.s of intelligence is not accustomed to find the marvellous in such very powerful hands as yours. On more imaginative readers the tale will fall (or I am greatly mistaken) like a spell. By readers who combine some imagination, some scepticism, and some knowledge and learning, I hope it will be regarded as full of strange fancy and curious study, startling reflections of their own thoughts and speculations at odd times, and wonder which a master has a right to evoke. In the last point lies, to my thinking, the whole case. If you were the Magician's servant instead of the Magician, these potent spirits would get the better of you; but you _are_ the Magician, and they don't, and you make them serve your purpose.

Occasionally in the dialogue I see an expression here and there which might--always solely with a reference to your misgiving--be better away; and I think that the vision, to use the word for want of a better--in the museum, should be made a little less abstruse. I should not say that, if the sale of the journal was below the sale of _The Times_ newspaper; but as it is probably several thousands higher, I do. I would also suggest that after the t.i.tle we put the two words--A ROMANCE. It is an absurdly easy device for getting over your misgiving with the blockheads, but I think it would be an effective one. I don't, on looking at it, like the t.i.tle. Here are a few that have occurred to me.

"The Steel Casket."

"The Lost Ma.n.u.script."

"Derval Court."

"Perpetual Youth."

"Maggie."

"Dr. Fenwick."

"Life and Death."

The four last I think the best. There is an objection to "Dr. Fenwick"

because there has been "Dr. Antonio," and there is a book of Dumas'

which repeats the objection. I don't think "Fenwick" startling enough.

It appears to me that a more startling t.i.tle would take the (John) Bull by the horns, and would be a serviceable concession to your misgiving, as suggesting a story off the stones of the gas-lighted Brentford Road.

The t.i.tle is the first thing to be settled, and cannot be settled too soon.

For the purposes of the weekly publication the divisions of the story will often have to be greatly changed, though afterwards, in the complete book, you can, of course, divide it into chapters, free from that reference. For example: I would end the first chapter on the third slip at "and through the ghostly streets, under the ghostly moon, went back to my solitary room." The rest of what is now your first chapter might be made Chapter II., and would end the first weekly part.

I think I have become, by dint of necessity and practice, rather cunning in this regard; and perhaps you would not mind my looking closely to such points from week to week. It so happens that if you had written the opening of this story expressly for the occasion its striking incidents could not possibly have followed one another better. One other merely mechanical change I suggest now. I would not have an initial letter for the town, but would state in the beginning that I gave the town a fict.i.tious name. I suppose a blank or a dash rather fends a good many people off--because it always has that effect upon me.

Be sure that I am perfectly frank and open in all I have said in this note, and that I have not a grain of reservation in my mind. I think the story a very fine one, one that no other man could write, and that there is no strength in your misgiving for the two reasons: firstly, that the work is professedly a work of Fancy and Fiction, in which the reader is not required against his will to take everything for Fact; secondly, that it is written by the man who can write it. The Magician's servant does not know what to do with the ghost, and has, consequently, no business with him. The Magician does know what to do with him, and has all the business with him that he can transact.

I am quite at ease on the points that you have expressed yourself as not at ease upon. Quite. I cannot too often say that if they were carried on weak shoulders they would break the bearer down. But in your mastering of them lies the mastery over the reader.

This will reach you at Knebworth, I hope, to-morrow afternoon. Pray give your doubts to the winds of that high spot, and believe that if I had them I would swarm up the flag-staff quite as nimbly as Margrave and nail the Fenwick colours to the top.

Ever affectionately yours.

[Sidenote: The same.]

3, HANOVER TERRACE, REGENT'S PARK, _Monday, Twentieth May, 1861._

MY DEAR BULWER LYTTON,

I did not read from Australia till the end, because I was obliged to be hard at work that day, and thought it best that the MS. should come back to you rather than that I should detain it. Of course, I _can_ read it, whenever it suits you. As to Isabel's dying and Fenwick's growing old, I would say that, beyond question, whatever the meaning of the story tends to, is the proper end.

All the alterations you mention in your last, are excellent.

As to t.i.tle, "Margrave, a Tale of Mystery," would be sufficiently striking. I prefer "Wonder" to "Mystery," because I think it suggests something higher and more apart from ordinary complications of plot, or the like, which "Mystery" might seem to mean. Will you kindly remark that the t.i.tle PRESSES, and that it will be a great relief to have it as soon as possible. The last two months of my story are our best time for announcement and preparation. Of course, it is most desirable that your story should have the full benefit of them.

Ever faithfully.

[Sidenote: Lady Olliffe.]