The Letters of Charles Dickens Volume Ii Part 46

Your letter did not reach me until last night, and thus I could not avoid remaining here to-day, to keep an American appointment of unusual importance. You and your mother both know, I think, that I had a great affection for Marguerite, that we had many dear remembrances together, and that her self-reliance and composed perseverance had awakened my highest admiration in later times. No one could have stood by her grave to-day with a better knowledge of all that was great and good in her than I have, or with a more loving remembrance of her through all her phases since she first came to London a pretty timid girl.

I do not trouble your mother by writing to her separately. It is a sad, sad task to write at all. G.o.d help us!

Faithfully yours.

[Sidenote: Mr. Percy Fitzgerald.]

GAD'S HILL, _July 21st, 1867._

MY DEAR FITZGERALD,

I am heartily glad to get your letter, and shall be thoroughly well pleased to study you again in the pages of A. Y. R.

I have settled nothing yet about America, but am going to send Dolby out on the 3rd of next month to survey the land, and come back with a report on some heads whereon I require accurate information. Proposals (both from American and English speculators) of a very tempting nature have been repeatedly made to me; but I cannot endure the thought of binding myself to give so many readings there whether I like it or no; and if I go at all, am bent on going with Dolby single-handed.

I have been doing two things for America; one, the little story to which you refer; the other, four little papers for a child's magazine. I like them both, and think the latter a queer combination of a child's mind with a grown-up joke. I have had them printed to a.s.sure correct printing in the United States. You shall have the proof to read, with the greatest pleasure. On second thoughts, why shouldn't I send you the children's proof by this same post? I will, as I have it here, send it under another cover. When you return it, you shall have the short story.

Believe me, always heartily yours.

[Sidenote: Mr. Percy Fitzgerald.]

EXTRACT.

_July 28th, 1867._

I am glad you like the children, and particularly glad you like the pirate. I remember very well when I had a general idea of occupying that place in history at the same age. But I loved more desperately than Boldheart.

[Sidenote: Miss Hogarth.]

ADELPHI HOTEL, LIVERPOOL, _Friday Night, Aug. 2nd, 1867._

MY DEAREST GEORGY,

I cannot get a boot on--wear a slipper on my left foot, and consequently am here under difficulties. My foot is occasionally painful, but not very. I don't think it worth while consulting anybody about it as yet. I make out so many reasons against supposing it to be gouty, that I really do not think it is.

Dolby begs me to send all manner of apologetic messages for his going to America. He is very cheerful and hopeful, but evidently feels the separation from his wife and child very much. His sister[17] was at Euston Square this morning, looking very well. Sainton too, very light and jovial.

With the view of keeping myself and my foot quiet, I think I will not come to Gad's Hill until Monday. If I don't appear before, send basket to Gravesend to meet me, leaving town by the 12.10 on Monday. This is important, as I couldn't walk a quarter of a mile to-night for five hundred pounds.

Love to all at Gad's.

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

GAD'S HILL, _Monday, Sept. 2nd, 1867._

MY DEAR WILLS,

Like you, I was shocked when this new discovery burst upon me on Friday, though, unlike you, I never could believe in ----, solely (I think) because, often as I have tried him, I never found him standing by my desk when I was writing a letter without trying to read it.

I fear there is no doubt that since ----'s discharge, he (----) has stolen money at the readings. A case of an abstracted s.h.i.+lling seems to have been clearly brought home to him by Chappell's people, and they know very well what _that_ means. I supposed a very clear keeping off from Anne's husband (whom I recommended for employment to Chappell) to have been referable only to ----; but now I see how hopeless and unjust it would be to expect belief from him with two such cases within his knowledge.

But don't let the thing spoil your holiday. If we try to do our duty by people we employ, by exacting their proper service from them on the one hand, and treating them with all possible consistency, gentleness, and consideration on the other, we know that we do right. Their doing wrong cannot change our doing right, and that should be enough for us.

So I have given _my_ feathers a shake, and am all right again. Give _your_ feathers a shake, and take a cheery flutter into the air of Hertfords.h.i.+re.

Great reports from Dolby and also from Fields! But I keep myself quite calm, and hold my decision in abeyance until I shall have book, chapter, and verse before me. Dolby hoped he could leave Uncle Sam on the 11th of this month.

Sydney has pa.s.sed as a lieutenant, and appeared at home yesterday, all of a sudden, with the consequent golden garniture on his sleeve, which I, G.o.d forgive me, stared at without the least idea that it meant promotion.

I am glad you see a certain unlikeness to anything in the American story. Upon myself it has made the strangest impression of reality and originality!! And I feel as if I had read something (by somebody else), which I should never get out of my mind!!! The main idea of the narrator's position towards the other people was the idea that I _had_ for my next novel in A. Y. R. But it is very curious that I did not in the least see how to begin his state of mind until I walked into Hoghton Towers one bright April day with Dolby.

Faithfully ever.

[Sidenote: Mr. F. D. Finlay.]

CONTRADICTING A NEWSPAPER REPORT OF HIS BEING IN A CRITICAL STATE OF HEALTH.

GAD'S HILL PLACE, HIGHAM BY ROCHESTER, KENT, _Tuesday, Sept. 3rd, 1867._

This is to certify that the undersigned victim of a periodical paragraph-disease, which usually breaks out once in every seven years (proceeding to England by the overland route to India and per Cunard line to America, where it strikes the base of the Rocky Mountains, and, rebounding to Europe, perishes on the steppes of Russia), is _not_ in a "critical state of health," and has _not_ consulted "eminent surgeons,"

and never was better in his life, and is _not_ recommended to proceed to the United States for "cessation from literary labour," and has not had so much as a headache for twenty years.

CHARLES d.i.c.kENS.

[Sidenote: M. Charles Fechter.]

"ALL THE YEAR ROUND" OFFICE, _Monday, Sept. 16th, 1867._

MY DEAR FECHTER,

Going over the prompt-book carefully, I see one change in your part to which (on Lytton's behalf) I positively object, as I am quite certain he would not consent to it. It is highly injudicious besides, as striking out the best known line in the play.

Turn to your part in Act III., the speech beginning

Pauline, _by pride Angels have fallen ere thy time_: by pride----

You have made a pa.s.sage farther on stand:

_Then did I seek to rise Out of my mean estate. Thy bright image, etc._

I must stipulate for your restoring it thus:

Then did I seek to rise Out of the prison of my mean estate; And, with such jewels as the exploring mind Brings from the caves of knowledge, buy my ransom From those twin jailers of the daring heart-- Low birth and iron fortune. Thy bright image, etc. etc.