The Letters of Charles Dickens Volume Ii Part 39

Your ever affectionate Jo.

[Sidenote: Mr. William Charles Kent.]

GAD'S HILL, _Thursday, Jan. 18th, 1866._

MY DEAR KENT,

I cannot tell you how grieved we all are here to know that you are suffering again. Your patient tone, however, and the hopefulness and forbearance of Ferguson's course, gives us some rea.s.surance. Apropos of which latter reference I dined with Ferguson at the Lord Mayor's, last Tuesday, and had a grimly distracted impulse upon me to defy the toast-master and rush into a speech about him and his n.o.ble art, when I sat pining under the imbecility of const.i.tutional and corporational idiots. I did seize him for a moment by the hair of his head (in proposing the Lady Mayoress), and derived some faint consolation from the company's response to the reference. O! no man will ever know under what provocation to contradiction and a savage yell of repudiation I suffered at the hands of ----, feebly complacent in the uniform of Madame Tussaud's own military waxers, and almost the worst speaker I ever heard in my life! Mary and Georgina, sitting on either side of me, urged me to "look pleasant." I replied in expressions not to be repeated. Shea (the judge) was just as good and graceful, as he (the member) was bad and gawky.

Bulwer's "Lost Tales of Miletus" is a most n.o.ble book! He is an extraordinary fellow, and fills me with admiration and wonder.

It is of no use writing to you about yourself, my dear Kent, because you are likely to be tired of that constant companion, and so I have gone scratching (with an exceedingly bad pen) about and about you. But I come back to you to let you know that the reputation of this house as a convalescent hospital stands (like the house itself) very high, and that testimonials can be produced from credible persons who have recovered health and spirits here swiftly. Try us, only try us, and we are content to stake the reputation of the establishment on the result.

Ever affectionately yours.

[Sidenote: Mr. Percy Fitzgerald.]

GAD'S HILL, _Friday, Feb. 2nd, 1866._

MY DEAR FITZGERALD,

I ought to have written to you days and days ago, to thank you for your charming book on Charles Lamb, to tell you with what interest and pleasure I read it as soon as it came here, and to add that I was honestly affected (far more so than your modesty will readily believe) by your intimate knowledge of those touches of mine concerning childhood.

Let me tell you now that I have not in the least cooled, after all, either as to the graceful sympathetic book, or as to the part in it with which I am honoured. It has become a matter of real feeling with me, and I postponed its expression because I couldn't satisfactorily get it out of myself, and at last I came to the conclusion that it must be left in.

My dear Fitzgerald, faithfully yours always.

[Sidenote: Miss Hogarth.]

OFFICE OF "ALL THE YEAR ROUND," _Friday, Feb. 9th, 1866._

MY DEAREST GEORGY,

I found your letter here when I came back on Wednesday evening, and was extremely glad to get it.

Frank Beard wrote me word that with such a pulse as I described, an examination of the heart was absolutely necessary, and that I had better make an appointment with him alone for the purpose. This I did. I was not at all disconcerted, for I knew well beforehand that the effect could not possibly be without that one cause at the bottom of it. There seems to be degeneration of some functions of the heart. It does not contract as it should. So I have got a prescription of iron, quinine, and digitalis, to set it a-going, and send the blood more quickly through the system. If it should not seem to succeed on a reasonable trial, I will then propose a consultation with someone else. Of course I am not so foolish as to suppose that all my work can have been achieved without _some_ penalty, and I have noticed for some time a decided change in my buoyancy and hopefulness--in other words, in my usual "tone."

I shall wait to see Beard again on Monday, and shall most probably come down that day. If I should not, I will telegraph after seeing him. Best love to Mamie.

[Sidenote: Mrs. Brookfield.]

OFFICE OF "ALL THE YEAR ROUND,"

_Tuesday, Feb. 20th, 1866._

MY DEAR MRS. BROOKFIELD,

Having gone through your MS. (which I should have done sooner, but that I have not been very well), I write these few following words about it.

Firstly, with a limited reference to its unsuitability to these pages.

Secondly, with a more enlarged reference to the merits of the story itself.

If you will take any part of it and cut it up (in fancy) into the small portions into which it would have to be divided here for only a month's supply, you will (I think) at once discover the impossibility of publis.h.i.+ng it in weekly parts. The scheme of the chapters, the manner of introducing the people, the progress of the interest, the places in which the princ.i.p.al places fall, are all hopelessly against it. It would seem as though the story were never coming, and hardly ever moving.

There must be a special design to overcome that specially trying mode of publication, and I cannot better express the difficulty and labour of it than by asking you to turn over any two weekly numbers of "A Tale of Two Cities," or "Great Expectations," or Bulwer's story, or Wilkie Collins's, or Reade's, or "At the Bar," and notice how patiently and expressly the thing has to be planned for presentation in these fragments, and yet for afterwards fusing together as an uninterrupted whole.

Of the story itself I honestly say that I think highly. The style is particularly easy and agreeable, infinitely above ordinary writing, and sometimes reminds me of Mrs. Inchbald at her best. The characters are remarkably well observed, and with a rare mixture of delicacy and truthfulness. I observe this particularly in the brother and sister, and in Mrs. Neville. But it strikes me that you constantly hurry your narrative (and yet without getting on) _by telling it, in a sort of impetuous breathless way, in your own person, when the people should tell it and act it for themselves_. My notion always is, that when I have made the people to play out the play, it is, as it were, their business to do it, and not mine. Then, unless you really have led up to a great situation like Basil's death, you are bound in art to make more of it. Such a scene should form a chapter of itself. Impressed upon the reader's memory, it would go far to make the fortune of the book.

Suppose yourself telling that affecting incident in a letter to a friend. Wouldn't you describe how you went through the life and stir of the streets and roads to the sick-room? Wouldn't you say what kind of room it was, what time of day it was, whether it was sunlight, starlight, or moonlight? Wouldn't you have a strong impression on your mind of how you were received, when you first met the look of the dying man, what strange contrasts were about you and struck you? I don't want you, in a novel, to present _yourself_ to tell such things, but I want the things to be there. You make no more of the situation than the index might, or a descriptive playbill might in giving a summary of the tragedy under representation.

As a mere piece of mechanical workmans.h.i.+p, I think all your chapters should be shorter; that is to say, that they should be subdivided.

Also, when you change from narrative to dialogue, or _vice versa_, you should make the transition more carefully. Also, taking the pains to sit down and recall the princ.i.p.al landmarks in your story, you should then make them far more elaborate and conspicuous than the rest. Even with these changes I do not believe that the story would attract the attention due to it, if it were published even in such monthly portions as the s.p.a.ce of "Fraser" would admit of. Even so brightened, it would not, to the best of my judgment, express itself piecemeal. It seems to me to be so const.i.tuted as to require to be read "off the reel." As a book in two volumes I think it would have good claims to success, and good chances of obtaining success. But I suppose the polis.h.i.+ng I have hinted at (not a meretricious adornment, but positively necessary to good work and good art) to have been first thoroughly administered.

Now don't hate me if you can help it. I can afford to be hated by some people, but I am not rich enough to put you in possession of that luxury.

Ever faithfully yours.

P.S.--The MS. shall be delivered at your house to-morrow. And your pet.i.tioner again prays not to be, etc.

[Sidenote: Miss Hogarth.]

ADELPHI, LIVERPOOL, _Friday, April 13th, 1866._

MY DEAREST GEORGY,

The reception at Manchester last night was quite a magnificent sight; the whole of the immense audience standing up and cheering. I thought them a little slow with "Marigold," but believe it was only the attention necessary in so vast a place. They gave a splendid burst at the end. And after "Nickleby" (which went to perfection), they set up such a call, that I was obliged to go in again. The unfortunate gasman, a very steady fellow, got a fall off a ladder and sprained his leg. He was put to bed in a public opposite, and was left there, poor man.

This is the first very fine day we have had. I have taken advantage of it by crossing to Birkenhead and getting some air upon the water. It was fresh and beautiful.

I send my best love to Mamie, and hope she is better. I am, of course, tired (the pull of "Marigold" upon one's energy, in the Free Trade Hall, was great); but I stick to my tonic, and feel, all things considered, in very good tone. The room here (I mean the hall) being my special favourite and extraordinarily easy, is _almost_ a rest!

[Sidenote: Miss d.i.c.kens.]

ADELPHI, LIVERPOOL, _Sat.u.r.day, April 14th, 1866._

MY DEAREST MAMIE,

The police reported officially that three thousand people were turned away from the hall last night. I doubt if they were so numerous as that, but they carried in the outer doors and pitched into Dolby with great vigour. I need not add that every corner of the place was crammed. They were a very fine audience, and took enthusiastically every point in "Copperfield" and the "Trial." They made the reading a quarter of an hour longer than usual. One man advertised in the morning paper that he would give thirty s.h.i.+llings (double) for three stalls, but n.o.body would sell, and he didn't get in.

Except that I cannot sleep, I really think myself in much better training than I had antic.i.p.ated. A dozen oysters and a little champagne between the parts every night, const.i.tute the best restorative I have ever yet tried. John appears low, but I don't know why. A letter comes for him daily; the hand is female; whether Smudger's, or a nearer one still and a dearer one, I don't know. So it may or may not be the cause of his gloom.

"Miss Emily" of Preston is married to a rich cotton lord, rides in open carriages in gorgeous array, and is altogether splendid. With this effective piece of news I close.

[Sidenote: Miss Hogarth.]