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Read Ebook: Canoe and camera: a two hundred mile tour through the Maine forests by Steele Thomas Sedgwick
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Ebook has 104 lines and 6659 words, and 3 pages
Editor: Mamie Dickens Georgina Hogarth
THE LETTERS
Charles Dickens
THE LETTERS
CHARLES DICKENS.
EDITED BY
HIS SISTER-IN-LAW AND HIS ELDEST DAUGHTER
London: CHAPMAN AND HALL, LIMITED, 11, HENRIETTA STREET, COVENT GARDEN. 1882.
CHARLES DICKENS AND EVANS, CRYSTAL PALACE PRESS.
PREFACE
Since our publication of "The Letters of Charles Dickens" we have received the letters addressed to the late Lord Lytton, which we were unable to procure in time for our first two volumes in consequence of his son's absence in India. We thank the Earl of Lytton cordially for his kindness in sending them to us very soon after his return. We also offer our sincere thanks to Sir Austen H. Layard, and to the senders of many other letters, which we now publish for the first time.
With a view to making our selection as complete as possible, we have collected together the letters from Charles Dickens which have already been published in various Biographies, and have chosen and placed in chronological order among our new letters those which we consider to be of the greatest interest.
MAMIE DICKENS. GEORGINA HOGARTH.
ERRATA.
THE
LETTERS OF CHARLES DICKENS.
MY DEAR HULLAH,
Believe me, most faithfully yours.
MY DEAR HULLAH,
Perhaps I shall see you meanwhile. I have only time to add that I am
Most faithfully yours.
DEAR HULLAH,
Since I called on you this morning I have not had time to look over the words of "The Child and the Old Man." It occurs to me, as I shall see you on Wednesday morning, that the best plan will be for you to bring the music without the words, and we can put them in then. Of course this observation applies only to that particular song.
Braham having sent to me about the farce, I called on him this morning. Harley wrote, when he had read the whole of the opera, saying: "It's a sure card--nothing wrong there. Bet you ten pound it runs fifty nights. Come; don't be afraid. You'll be the gainer by it, and you mustn't mind betting; it's a capital custom." They tell the story with infinite relish. I saw the fair manageress, who is fully of Harley's opinion, so is Braham. The only difference is, that they are far more enthusiastic than Harley--far more enthusiastic than ourselves even. That is a bold word, isn't it? It is a true one, nevertheless.
Harley called in Furnival's Inn, to express his high delight and gratification, but unfortunately we had left town. I shall be at head-quarters by 12 Wednesday noon.
Believe me, dear Hullah, Most faithfully yours.
P.S.--Tell me on Wednesday when you can come down here, for a day or two. Beautiful place--meadow for exercise, horse for your riding, boat for your rowing, room for your studying--anything you like.
MY DEAR SIR,
Begging you to excuse my troubling you, and taking this opportunity of acknowledging the numerous kindnesses I have already received at your hands since I have had the pleasure of acting under you,
I am, my dear Sir, very sincerely yours.
MY DEAR MRS. HOGARTH,
I need not thank you for your present of yesterday, for you know the sorrowful pleasure I shall take in wearing it, and the care with which I shall prize it, until--so far as relates to this life--I am like her.
I have never had her ring off my finger by day or night, except for an instant at a time, to wash my hands, since she died. I have never had her sweetness and excellence absent from my mind so long. I can solemnly say that, waking or sleeping, I have never lost the recollection of our hard trial and sorrow, and I feel that I never shall.
It will be a great relief to my heart when I find you sufficiently calm upon this sad subject to claim the promise I made you when she lay dead in this house, never to shrink from speaking of her, as if her memory must be avoided, but rather to take a melancholy pleasure in recalling the times when we were all so happy--so happy that increase of fame and prosperity has only widened the gap in my affections, by causing me to think how she would have shared and enhanced all our joys, and how proud I should have been to possess the affections of the gentlest and purest creature that ever shed a light on earth. I wish you could know how I weary now for the three rooms in Furnival's Inn, and how I miss that pleasant smile and those sweet words which, bestowed upon our evening's work, in our merry banterings round the fire, were more precious to me than the applause of a whole world would be. I can recall everything she said and did in those happy days, and could show you every passage and line we read together.
Believe me, my dear Mrs. Hogarth, Ever truly and affectionately yours.
FOOTNOTES:
"The Village Coquettes."
Mrs. Braham.
Printed in "Forty Years' Recollections of Life, Literature, and Public Affairs," by Charles Mackay.
A chain made of Mary Hogarth's hair, sent to Charles Dickens on the first anniversary of her birthday, after her death.
DIARY--1838.
A sad New Year's Day in one respect, for at the opening of last year poor Mary was with us. Very many things to be grateful for since then, however. Increased reputation and means--good health and prospects. We never know the full value of blessings till we lose them . But if she were with us now, the same winning, happy, amiable companion, sympathising with all my thoughts and feelings more than anyone I knew ever did or will, I think I should have nothing to wish for, but a continuance of such happiness. But she is gone, and pray God I may one day, through his mercy, rejoin her. I wrote to Mrs. Hogarth yesterday, taking advantage of the opportunity afforded me by her sending, as a New Year's token, a pen-wiper of poor Mary's, imploring her, as strongly as I could, to think of the many remaining claims upon her affection and exertions, and not to give way to unavailing grief. Her answer came to-night, and she seems hurt at my doing so--protesting that in all useful respects she is the same as ever. Meant it for the best, and still hope I did right.
Our boy's birthday--one year old. A few people at night--only Forster, the De Gex's, John Ross, Mitton, and the Beards, besides our families--to twelfth-cake and forfeits.
I began the "Sketches of Young Gentlemen" to-day. One hundred and twenty-five pounds for such a little book, without my name to it, is pretty well. This and the "Sunday" by-the-bye, are the only two things I have not done as Boz.
Went to the Sun office to insure my life, where the Board seemed disposed to think I work too much. Made Forster and Pickthorn, my Doctor, the references--and after an interesting interview with the Board and the Board's Doctor, came away to work again.
In Scott's diary, which I have been looking at this morning, there are thoughts which have been mine by day and by night, in good spirits and bad, since Mary died.
"I have seen her. There is the same symmetry of form, though those limbs are rigid which were once so gracefully elastic; but that yellow masque with pinched features, which seems to mock life rather than emulate it, can it be the face that was once so full of lively expression? I will not look upon it again."
I know but too well how true all this is.
Here ends this brief attempt at a diary. I grow sad over this checking off of days, and can't do it.
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